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Lord Morley's Statements about Richard III

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Retha M. Warnicke
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Extract

Since the publication of Paul Murray Kendall's sympathetic biography of Richard III in 1955, scholars have been debating with renewed intensity the fate of that monarch's two young nephews, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. In addition to numerous books and articles on his reign, including a study by Charles Ross in 1981, Alison Hanham published a volume in 1975 on the contemporary or near-contemporary historians of Richard III. Since the appearance of these publications, two original sources, which were almost certainly unknown to them and to other Ricardian scholars, have been identified. In a 1981 article in the English Historical Review, Richard Firth Green described one of these documents as a merchant's commonplace book, written between 1483 and 1488. The second relevant source, “Account of Miracles performed by the Holy Eucharist,” is a collection of religious anecdotes written by Henry Parker, Lord Morley. It has remained in manuscript although several excerpts, including one about Richard III, were printed in the introduction of Hubert G. Wright's 1943 edition of Morley's version of De Claris mulieribus by Boccaccio.

The “Account” is now Add. MS. 12,060 at the British Library. A small quarto with a leaf missing at the end, it was a New Year's gift to Queen Mary, probably in 1554. In its next to last anecdote, Morley made a revealing remark about Richard III. Early on the day this king died at Bosworth Field, he wrote, God would not permit him to “se the blyssed sacrament of the Allter, nor heare the holy Masse, for his horrible offence comytted Against his brothers children,” a statement that surely reflected Morley's belief that this monarch was punished at Bosworth Field for the deaths of his two nephews. Any consideration of the author's negative comments must necessarily take into account two facts. First, they occur in only one of several anecdotes in the manuscript, the purpose of which was to venerate the Holy Eucharist. The inclusion of the Ricardian story was not essential to the author's primary goal of detailing the miraculous efficacy of this sacrament, for the Holy Eucharist, not Richard III, was the primary focus. Secondly, the anecdote was written in a low-key and matter-of-fact style. Morley made no reference to the many Tudor embellishments of the king's personality and appearance, including the infamous stories of his withered arm and hunched back.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , Fall 1983 , pp. 173 - 178
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1983

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References

1 Kendall, Paul Murray, Richard the Third (New York, 1955)Google Scholar; Ross, Charles, Richard III (Berkeley, 1981)Google Scholar; Hanham, Alison, Richard III and his Early Historians, 1483-1535 (Oxford, 1975).Google Scholar

2 Green, Richard Firth, “Historical Notes of a London Citizen,” English Historical Review 91(1981): 585–590CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henry Parker, Lord Morley, “Account of Miracles Performed by the Holy Eucharist,” Add MS. 12,060, British Library; excerpts of the “Account” can be found in Parker, Henry, Morley, Lord, Forty-Six Lives, translated from Boccaccio's De Claris mulieribus, ed. Wright, Hubert G. (London, 1943), pp. xi-xiii and xlii–xlvGoogle Scholar; for other references to the “Account,” see Warnicke, Retha M., “The Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond (d.1509), as seen by Bishop Fisher and by Lord Morley,” Moreana 19(1982): 47–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McConica, James Kelsey, English Humanists and Reformation Politics Under Henry VIII and Edward VI (Oxford, 1965), pp. 154–155Google Scholar; all of the Yorkist historians cited in note one failed to make reference to the “Account.” Because it was probably not written until 1554, it is possible that Alison Hanham knew of it but ignored it because her book was limited to the years 1483-1535. Since she intended to make reference to all contemporary historians of Richard III, and since the year 1535 seems to have been chosen because it was the date of Sir Thomas More's death, it seems more likely that she was unaware of Morley's manuscript.

3 B.L., Add. MS. 12,060, f. 20a.

4 Dictionary of National Biography; Hubert G. Wright, pp. ix-x; Barclay, D.B., “Henry Parker, Lord Morley, 1476-1556,” Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society N.S. 23(1945): 273–279.Google Scholar

5 Ibid.; Add. MS. 12,060, f. 21b.

6 Carnicelli, D.D., ed., Lord Morley's “Tryumphes of Fraunces Petrarcke” (Cambridge, Mass., 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a discussion of the manuscripts, see Wright, Hubert G., Forty-Six Lives, pp. xxi–lxixGoogle Scholar. He also identified Harleian MS. 6561, British Library, as that of Morley (see p. xxi). D.D. Carnicelli does not believe that Morley authored it (see p. 15).

7 Add. MS. 12,060, ff. 19a-23b; Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, Hereafter foloweth a mornynge remembrance had at the moneth mynde of the noble prynces Margarete countess of Rychemonde & Darbye moder unto Kynge Henry the vii & grandame to oure soverayne lorde that nowe is uppon whose soule almyghty god have mercy (London, 1509).Google Scholar

8 Ross, Charles, Richard III, p. 227Google Scholar; Add. MS. 12,060, f. 19b.

9 Add. MS. 12,060, f. 19b; for references to Sir Ralph Bygot, see Horrox, Rosemary Elizabeth, “The Extent and Use of Crown Patronage under Richard III,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Cambridge University, 1977), Appendix, p. 28Google Scholar; this Bygoff was also probably the Bygot rewarded by Queen Elizabeth of York in 1503 for bringing her a New Year's gift from Lady Richmond. See SirNicolas, Harris, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York (London, 1830), p. 91Google Scholar. A.G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509-1558 (London, 1959), pp. 53-113.

10 In referring to this episode, Paul Murray Kendall said that Richard responded to the lack of divine service with the comment: “If their quarrel were God's, they needed no last supplications; if it were not, such prayers were idle blasphemy” (Richard the Third, p. 433). In his footnote identifying the Croyland Chronicle as the source for the lack of divine service, Kendall suggested that this royal response was also taken from the Chronicle (note three, p. 471). It was not. See Ingulph's Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, trans. Riley, Henry T. (London, 1854; repr. 1968), p. 503Google Scholar. It was Edward Hall who, although he did not mention the lack of divine service, had Richard make a comment similar to the one credited him by Kendall. See The union of the two noble and illustre famelies of Lancaster & Yorke (London, 1550), f. xxxii.Google Scholar

11 Add. MS. 12,060, ff. 19b-20b.

12 Ibid., preface and ff. 19b and 23b; Warnicke, Retha M., “The Lady Margaret,” pp. 49 and 53–54.Google Scholar