h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I like this article a lot, mostly because it takes a sensible view of the political realities of the 15th century.

For what it's worth, I've always thought that Richard's supposed hunchback was a combination of two things-Tudor propaganda and his own fighting technique.

Richard was a fighter, and a very able one. His weapon of choice was the battle axe, which he is known to have wielded one-handed on horse back. His right shoulder muscles must have been immense to cope with this, and he must have presented, at the very least, an unbalanced frame to the world. And an obvious target for those seeking to blacken his name and reputation after his death.

Also, I believe that Richard's rapid fall from grace when he became King was likely because he was an unknown quantity to the those who insisted he take the crown, who were attempting to prevent a minority reign descending into bloodshed by so doing. Richard had spent the majority of the "Wars of the Roses" on the campaign trial. When Edward IV became King, Richard became Edward's trusted enforcer in northern England, creating and maintaining his own power-base in and around the town of Middleham. (A town where he is still something of a local hero.)He came south when Edward died to protect his own interests, which were most certainly not those of the Woodville's, with whom he had a long standing feud.

Thrust suddenl;y into a spotlight that it seems he did little to seek, Richard brought his three favoured advisors from the north to court, Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovell ("the cat, the rat and Lovell the dog" to the Tudors). They were not of the nobility, and certainly not the type of men that the nobility wanted to see ruling England. Not unnaturaly, they bridleed at this development and decided that Richard wasn't the man for the job after all.

Very interesting comments all.

1) Thank you very much for the opening praise. As a bit of a Yorkist, I was a touch worried that my bias might show too much, although I tried to be objective.

2) Superb theory about his image and not something I'd previously considered. I'll look further into that - perhaps for any Tudor backlash entry I may put forward (always enjoy trying to play 'devil's advocate'... It's a superb thought experiment)

3) I avoided mentioning Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovell because otherwise the entry would have reached monstrous proportions - digressing with explanations of who they were before trying to come back to the main thrust of the article. I hoped people would want to find out more after reading this. So it was more of an introduction to a hypothetical book rather than an in-depth study of his life. He took up an entire term at A-Level history, and I couldn't fit that in a couple of thousand words.

Glad you enjoyed it, though.

A very good point about Catesby, Ratcliffe and Lovell, I must say. They were really a by-product of the central point that I was trying to make, which is that Richard was a foreigner in the court after his brother's death. The scheming hiding in shadows Richard of Shakespeare is a view I don't care for, but it is easy to imagine that Richard wasn't at home with politics, and such reticence could well be mis-interpreted as scullduggery.

Oh, and never apologize for being a Yorkist-if Bolingbroke hadn't usurped the throne in the first place it never would have been a problem.

Blasted Lancastrians...