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The Religious Life of Richard III
The historical figure of Richard III continues to be controversial,
but in recent years historians have attempted to approach
Richard from new directions. A good example is The Religious
Life of Richard III: Piety and Prayer in the North of England
by Jonathan Hughes (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing
Limited, 1997). The following review will give readers a sense
of the ongoing debates surrounding the last Yorkist king.
J.S. Hamilton
History Department
Baylor University
Richard III is easily
the most controversial figure in medieval English history.
Viewed by some as the very embodiment of evil, Shakespeare's
"wretched, bloody, and usurping boar," he is seen
by others as an amoral but brilliant Machiavellian, while
still other historians and laypeople labor to rehabilitate
his image, tarnished, they would say, by false Tudor propaganda.
Jonathan Hughes does not set out so much to rehabilitate Richard
as to contextualize him. There is no attempt to deny his complicity
in the deaths of the princes, for instance, but rather an
attempt to understand the nature of Richard's motivation and
justification for such an act. The subtitle of his study,
Piety and Prayer in the North of England reveals the
main thrust of the work, and as such this book builds upon
Hughes' earlier Pastors and Visionaries: Religion and Secular
Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire.
Hughes begins by pointing
a contrast between an old-fashioned chivalry rooted in honor
and family, with a newer ideal of service to the state based
on the writings of antiquity. Embraced by the court of Edward
IV, this new outlook was embodied in works such as Anthony
Woodville's edition of The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers
(1477), the first printed book produced by Caxton's press
at Westminster Abbey. Similarly, Hughes argues, there was
a new religious outlook growing among the governing class
in England in the late fifteenth century, an outlook that
again drew much of its inspiration from the moral writings
of ancient writers such as Cicero and Seneca. But Richard
III did not apparently share either of these new ideals. Hughes
paints a convincing portrait of Richard firmly rooted in the
religious traditions of the northeast of England, of Richard
Rolle and Nicholas Love, fostered by his mother Cecily Neville,
her Yorkshire family, and their affinity.
Perhaps the most controversial
aspect of this book will be Hughes' examination of the private
religious life of Richard III, a subject for which there is
only limited evidence. One of the avowed purposes of the book
is "to demonstrate that books of hours can be read with
fresh enthusiasm and seen in less institutional, self-referential
terms and used for their relevance to the lives of the nobility."
(p. 26) In undertaking such a reading, Hughes is willing to
go farther even than the editors of Richard III's book of
hours, Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs. Hughes stresses
that this book was personal--it was purchased second-hand
and contained only three illustrations. Moreover, it contained
several unusual prayers and a litany composed for the king
as well as a personal prayer invoking Christ's protection
and deliverance from his enemies. Hughes presents a very personal
reading of Old Testament history, and particularly King David,
with whom Richard would presumably have identified. "The
key to Richard's self-image is prayer, the way he communicated
with himself and God" (pp. 107-8). This communication,
Hughes argues, was introspectively pious, and reflected Richard's
"fanatical conviction that he was God's chosen instrument..."
(p. 108), a belief he maintained until the very end.
If not entirely convincing--as
so much of his argument is based on circumstantial evidence,
comparative analyses, and outright speculation--Hughes at
the very least provides a plausible reading of the religiosity
of an enigmatic king. The Richard III who emerges from these
pages is complex and often contradictory, but more compelling
than ever as a result.
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For permission to reproduce for teachers, contact McLennan
Theatre Department at (254)299-8101 |
