T.C. Newby first edition - 1849
I have now read two of G.P.R. James' Romances in a row - and I like them! The Woodman's subtitle is The Times of Richard III and it contains pretty accurate portraits of both the Last Plantagenet and his nemesis, Henry Tudor.
Richard himself muses on his past - whose cradle was a corslet, his nursery a bloody fight, his schools Hexham, and Barnet, and Tewkesbury, his pedagogues York, and Salisbury, and Warwick and Edward.
James follows the traditional charges levied at Richard. He has Bishop Morton telling Iola, now the hatred of the reigning king has pursued me, because he knew right well, that I would raise my voice against the wrong he did his brother's children; and, much later in the novel, will you Chartley, even for the hand of Iola, become the labouring, straining serf of him who slew your royal master's children, slaughtered innocent babes, spilt the blood of his own house?
The author adds his own summary of the monarch. ...as great a man perhaps as a bad man can ever be. He was mighty as a soldier, mighty as a politician, almost sublime in the vast wide-stretching reach of his subtlety. Through life he had played a game almost against all odds; and he had won every stake. He had seen those, who stood between him and the light, swept away; he had contrived to remove obstacle after obstacle; he had crushed or aided to crush all the enemies of his house; he had imposed the silence of death, or the chains of exile, upon all personal opponents...because he was ambitious, and all things gave place to ambition, we have no right to conclude that his heart was without feelings even of a gentle and a kindly nature. Ambition was the idol; and to it the heart sacrificed its children. James gets across the heartbreak for Richard and Queen Anne over the loss of their son Edward; but he also dissects Richard's ruthless plan to marry his niece Elizabeth once he realises his wife is mortally ill - we must foresee events, Ratcliffe.
Henry Tudor is also realistically (and accurately?) portrayed. Morton communes with himself in exile: better a cold and greedy prince upon the throne, than a murdering usurper... James realistically describes the treacherous background within which Tudor struggles in both Brittany and France and the calculating character of the exile, but who can also show kindness when it does not harm his self-interest.
Edward IV is also summed up well (through the mouth of the Woodman): a man of many high qualities, and also of many great vices; brave, courteous, graceful, and good-humoured; lewd, idle, insincere, and cruel; a consummate general, a short seeing statesman, a bad king, a heartless kinsman, a man of pleasant converse, and a devoted friend. Not a bad summary.
Lord Stanley is sympathetically drawn, as are several other characters, such as the Lady Abbess of Atherston, the merriest little abbess in the world; only the fictitious Lord Fulmer comes across as a first-class rotter, as does the slimy Sir Charles Weinants. Sam the piper, the injured ex-soldier plying his trade for sustenance; Ibn Ayoub, the Arab servant of Lord Chartley; Sir William Arden, Chartley's closest buddy; and Sir Edward Hungerford, a foppish character, like a kingfisher, you are better known by your feathers than your voice; all stand up to reality's scrutiny.
Much of the action takes place in the area around Atherstone and Tamworth; thus, it is conveniently near the denouement on the field of Bosworth. James starts his chapter on the battle by writing, Shakespeare made a mistake (about the weather!); but he, too, gets one thing wrong, when he writes the whole force of Richmond moved down the hill - Henry's forces fought on flat ground.
James allows several shafts against the late medieval Roman Catholic Church: perhaps there have been few ages in the world's history, more grossly superstitious than those which immediately preceded the reformation. The process of darkening the human mind, in which alone the errors of the church of Rome can be maintained, had been going on for so many centuries, that it had almost reached completeness...in England especially, every false, abominable, and idolatrous dogma was more sternly and clearly defined, in order to prevent the escape of the Wicliffites through any ambiguity of language. One could almost think this was Sir Walter Scott or Thomas Gaspey, or me for that matter!, writing such lines. In fact, both the heroine Iola, her close companion Constance and, potentially, the hero Lord Chartley (whose uncle, a previous Lord Chartley, fought for Lancaster at Barnet and was killed there), subscribe to the late Lollard movement. Iola attends a secret meeting of a group of some thirty Lollards near Tamworth and Sam the piper describes it to the Woodman: where the songs seemed pure and holy; for ever and anon, they praised God's name and gave him honour and glory. They prayed too, but in the English tongue...and, though people, no doubt, would call the meeting Lollardy, I liked it well.
There are a few loose ends, inevitable in a rather rushed final chapter. Do Sir William Arden (saved by the bell at Bosworth from Richard's decreed beheading!) and Constance marry? The gruff old soldier deserved the bride he had wooed from the first, although he was caught upon the road, stealing a nun (Constance) from a convent...! However, to be fair, it concentrates on the person holding the title of the three volumes - the 'Woodman', who proves to be far more important than one of that trade. I guessed who he was as soon as a titled lady came looking...
I am by no means a literary critic, but I feel that Sir Walter Scott would not have been ashamed to have written The Woodman. If James had taken one of his publisher's advice and written just half of his output, perhaps he would have ranked higher in a posthumous pantheon. Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Hardy (who recalled them with pleasure), Walter Savage Landor, Allan Cunningham, even Thackeray towards the end of his life, all praised and enjoyed reading James' novels. Sir Walter Scott and Washington Irving encouraged James' earliest work, as did John Wilson ('Christopher North'). He also has another admirer in me - and I shall read more of him soon!
A final thought - from G.P.R. James - The grave of a woman's first life is her marriage contract. One could say the same about men's!
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