Gertrude Hollis' 'The King who was never crowned' 1905

 

SPCK first edition - n.d. [1905]

Gertrude Hollis does not figure in any of my Companion to Literature volumes and the Victorian Fiction database of Troy Bassett has 'birth and death dates unknown', listing just four books. To be fair, this is because most of her books were published in the early 20th century. Apart from the book featured above, I have five others of her works, none of them dated: Spurs and Bride (1903); A Slave of the Saracen (1907); Hugh the Messenger (1905); Philip Okeover's Pagehood (1907); Jenkyn Cliffe Bedesman (1910). I was able to get the publication dates from one of my 'Bibles' - Ernest A. Baker's A Guide to Historical Fiction (1914). Hollis is in the tradition of Emily Sarah Holt, Evelyn Everett-Green, Charlotte Yonge and other women authors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, writing mainly for older children and, more especially, for girls. Her fiction certainly has more than a touch of didacticism and some of her other works were aimed directly at the Church and Christian teachings - Our Wonderful Bible (1914); Every Child's Book about the Church (1916); and How the Church came to England (1919). 

This is a  straightforward tale for youngsters, of twelve year-old Jasper Brackenbury, (born just after the battle of Tewkesbury) whose father is owner of an ancient manor-house deep in the Northamptonshire woods. It is agreed with the family's kinsman, Sir Robert Brackenbury, that Jasper will be sent to London and the Tower, where Sir Robert is Constable, to learn to be a knight. On Jasper's way south, he stops at the very Inn at Northampton which Richard, duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham take over for their troops. They, too, are on their way to London, as Edward IV has recently died. The author then makes Jasper the witness of Richard's deceit towards Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey and his subsequent control of the young Edward V. Luckily, Jasper has impressed the duke, who makes the boy a companion for Edward and, eventually, his younger brother, Richard. (Why is everyone called either Richard or Edward?) Jasper is to witness Lord Hastings' execution; Cardinal Bourchier persuading Queen Elizabeth to hand over the Duke of York; Friar's Shaw's sermon outside St Paul's; and the night the two princes were moved from the Royal Lodgings to the Bloody Tower. 

The Duke of Gloucester gets a bad press throughout the book. On page 8, he is introduced as Crouchback. A few pages on, The Crouchback maketh himself friends amongst the old nobility, and it bodeth no good to the queen's kindred when Gloucester, Buckingham, and my Lord Hastings are friends. A pen portrait of him is given at Northampton: He was not tall, looking short even on horseback. One shoulder seemed to be higher than the other, though it was evident that his clothing had been padded, to conceal the deformity as much as possible. His cheeks were lean and sunken, and his grey eyes seemed half-hidden by the over-hanging brows beneath a forehead unusually broad and high...[Jasper] noticed that his left arm was partly withered, and moved with stiffness when he raised it to his cap. And further on: ...all ties, natural or moral, went for little with his cunning and resolute nature. Capable of the most profound dissimulation, absolutely rigid in his own purposes, and utterly insensible to any instincts of gentleness or mercy. It is suggested that he had a hand in the murders of both Henry VI and the Duke of Clarence. Sir Robert Brackenbury says to his wife that Richard hateth every man who is not deformed like himself. The young Edward V refers to him as a griple [greedy, grasping] man.

The Princes meet in the Tower

The author closely follows Sir Thomas More's account (she admits this in a footnote; another footnote states that it was the bodies of the princes which were discovered in 1672 and honourably buried in Westminster Abbey) - the Bishop of Ely's strawberries; Miles Forest, Will Slaughter and Dighton being involved with the two princes in the Tower. Bishop Morton is described as a kindly-faced, earnest looking man! The last chapter is entitled 'A Mystery Solved' and it is set sixteen years later, in early September 1499. Jasper Brackenbury, now Sir Jasper and scarcely thirty years of age, is in a fishing boat on the Thames and near the Tower. He recounts to a friend the traditional story of the princes' murder and burial.

Gertrude Hollis knows her history and she writes very realistically about the late fifteenth century. The description of the area around St Paul's and the sermon of Dr. Shaw is excellent. Unless you are a fervent member of the Richard III Society, one could say that her history is pretty sound, if traditional She is prone to Miss Holt's desire to explain any strange word to her young readers. There are many footnotes, such as fardels = packages; Balistarius = keeper of crossbows; porcellies = sucking-pigs; leach = cream, with sugar and almonds. I did not know  that the four card suits - clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades were originally respectively rabbits, pinks, roses and columbines!

T.D. Rhodes' 'The Crest of the Little Wolf' - 1904

The Robert Clarke Company first edition - 1904

This is a strange little book, beautifully produced (bound and printed) by a Cincinnati publisher. It is dedicated To My Wife In memory of delightful days when I wooed a Lovell maid at Beaumont; hence the obvious interest in that family. Furthermore, the author devotes another page to explaining why he wrote the novel: This little book is but a page from history, with a bit of added romance, written in leisure moments for the pleasure of some youthful descendants of the House of Lovell. It is published in deference to their wishes, and with the hope that those of the author's friends who chance to read it may in so doing pass a pleasant hour. Well, Mr. Rhodes, this reader did pass 'a pleasant hour' or two.

Essentially, it is a simple love story between Francis Lovell and Anne FitzHugh. Francis rebuts Anne's remark that his regard for her is but a childish folly. "Childish folly dost thou call it?...Thou knowest I love thee passionately and devotedly and have so loved thee ever. Lands and titles change not the Knightly heart, and the Lord of Minster Lovell is as much thy bond slave today as was the boy Francis Lovell when thy playfellow. So, a constant 'good egg'. He crosses both Anthony, Lord Scales (Queen Elizabeth's brother), who had fancied his chances with Anne. and the Earl of Warwick, who wished for a Nevil kinsman to marry Anne. Luckily, his good friend, Richard of Gloucester, holds sway. "At my side Francis, at my side, and thy fortunes ever intertwined with mine..."

Warwick and his brother Montague rebel and are defeated and killed at the battle of Barnet (which is well described). Warwick is referred to as the very type of the feudal baron, whilst Edward IV had a pleasure-loving, self-indulgent temperament and self nature which required the constant stimulus of danger or pressing necessity to rouse him to action. Lovell - who had in him the genius of a statesman -is used by Edward as an ambassador to Charles the Bold of Burgundy.

Lovell regularly returns to his ancestral home in Oxfordshire, Minster  Lovell. The author refers to it as a historic pile and as a castle. As with Sir Walter Scott referring to Ashby de la Zouch 'castle' in Ivanhoe, it is wrong. Minster Lovell was never a castle but a Manor House. It is one of my favourite spots in England, with an atmospheric church nearby, where Lovells are buried. Interestingly, when Edward fled abroad in 1470, it was assumed Lovell also left the country. Here, Rhodes has him hiding in a secret chamber at Minster Lovell. Precursor to his tragic end after the battle of Stoke in 1487?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, figures fleetingly in the text. Anne FitzHugh is not a fan!  Richard has that sinister, unfathomable look they all knew so well.  The author, sensibly, does not dwell on Lovell's further rise under Richard as king - those later, sterner days leave we for another chronicle...   Notes at the end of the novel include the letter from Wm. Cowper Clerk of the Parliament, dated 9th August 1737.  Here is related the oft-told tale of the discovery of a large underground vault at Minster Lovell in 1708, in which was the entire skeleton of a man as having been sitting at a table which was before him with a book, paper, pen &c. In another part of the room lay a cap all much mouldered and decayed... So Francis did escape from Stoke to die another day.

Two minor comments on the novel's 'facts'. There is no actual proof that Lovell was at the battle of Bosworth. Admittedly, the York City Council Minutes included Francis Viscount Lowell [sic] in their list of participants at Bosworth; moreover, Henry Tudor's proclamation after the battle had Lovell as one of the slain.  Clearly this was incorrect and Francis may not have made it to Bosworth from Southampton in time for the fight. Secondly, he was actually married to Anne FitzHugh in 1466 (Calendar of Patent Rolls), even though, at 14, he was still technically under age. Thus, Rhodes is wrong to date the marriage to 1471.

Finally, I have reproduced the two illustrations from the book below. Francis Lovell's costume seems to depict a late 16th century garb, whilst Anne's is surely 17th century. Does it really matter? So many 19th century novels on the Middle Ages were illustrated with totally anachronistic plumage!

Francis Lord Lovell and Anne FitzHugh 

FOOTNOTE:

The house of Lovell was founded by Robert, Earl of Yvry and Brehervel who followed William the Conqueror to England in 1066. He had several sons, the elder, Ascelin Gouel de Percival, because of the violence of his temper and actions, was surnamed Lupus or 'The Wolf'. William, son of Ascelin, was called 'The Little Wolf'. He softened Lupel to Luvell, which became Lovell.

Alfred Armitage's 'Red Rose and White' 1901

John F. Shaw first edition - 1901

An interesting tale which, with a background of the Duke of Buckingham's intended rebellion against Richard III in the Autumn of 1483, charts an uneasy relationship between two young men:  16 year-old Ralph Mortimer, of Mortimer Castle in Yorkshire, and 17 year-old Wat Jocelyn, son of Hugh, moathouse keeper to  Sir John Mortimer, Ralph's father. As often occurs during a period of Civil War, the two lads find themselves, despite their close friendship, on opposite sides. Ralph is a fervent Lancastrian, whilst Wat favours the Yorkist faction. They are both in London for the crowning of Richard of Gloucester on 6th July 1483, and they listen to a Friar holding forth at St. Paul's Cross. Paul has no time for Richard's machinations - he has stolen the throne...it is clear that he was determined from the first to be king. Did he not seize and throw into the Tower his own nephews, the two young princes...has he not beheaded some of the best men in the kingdom - like Earl Rivers and Sir Thomas Vaughn...but he will not enjoy his villainies for long, even though the heir of the House of Lancaster is a lonely exile in Brittany...

Whilst in London, the boys bump into the nasty Simon Catesby - his eyes were deeply sunk and black, his hair was thick and of the same colour, and his skin was wrinkled and seared like parchment. He was not a pleasing sight, for his general features were sinister, suggesting craft, cruelty, and other evil traits. He is also devoted to Richard. Catesby recognizes Jocelyn, by an old jagged scar on his arm, and swear to kill both boys - why, we don't find out until the very end of the book. During all the upheavals of the next 300 pages, one constant is Catesby's reappearance and determination to carry out his threat. Paul and Wat head back to Yorkshire with their fathers, fearful that their Lancastrian sympathies will get them into trouble in Yorkist London.

Incident follows incident; both boys' parents are killed, both just about to spill a major secret (and the reason for Catesby's hatred) before death precludes this. We wait for 100 pages, before a young girl is unveiled - Maud Talbot, daughter of that brave (and now murdered) Lancastrian squire David Talbot. She has an uncle living near the Severn in Wales, which is lucky as Ralph is heading that way with a  message for Buckingham at Brecknock Castle. On their way, they fall in with Wat. By now, the latter has declared his Yorkist loyalty and the friendship with Ralph appears irretrievably broken - Can I call one a friend who wears that hateful, thrice accursed badge - the brand of shame and murder? So much for the silken-white rose fastened to Wat's shoulder. To Ralph, the world is black or white; or, rather, red or white.

This meeting, on an island in the river Wye, is the first of several coincidences which litter the book. As a John Buchan fan, I am quite relaxed about incidents which border on the possible, if not the probable. However, Armitage pulls too many totally unlikely rabbits out of the hat. Not only does Wat conveniently happen to be on the very small island that Ralph and Maud end up on, but Catesby reappears in an inn they subsequently make for. I should get irritated by this, but I did. 

The Duke of Buckingham is given a relatively good 'press', although his temper is short and his thirst for attacking the King is marked. Quick to anger maybe, but also speedy to give credit. One of his servants is a Humphrey Bannister, who is ever ready to lead from the front for his master. Interestingly, a Ralph Bannister, in reality, was to betray the duke for a sizeable reward. The description of the flooded river Severn  is well done, as is the failed attempt by Buckingham and his small force to cross into England. The chapters At the Mercy of the Flood and A New Peril, highlight the extreme danger for Ralph of trying to escape down the river: flotsam and jetsam of all kinds, logs and fences, timbers and household furniture, haycocks, carts, overturned houses, the drowned bodies of horse, oxen, sheep, of beasts of prey, and sometimes the corpse of a man or woman, all float past.

Then four totally unlikely coincidences happen one after the other: Robin of Redesdale (a real figure in History), who had previously been with Ralph since Yorkshire, now passes in a boat to save the boy;  a house about to be swept away shows a white skirt fastened to a pole - it is Maud, just waiting to be rescued; a shepherd's hut where they seek rest and food just happens to be where Wat is hiding. He has now forsworn the Yorkist cause and joins Robin, Ralph and Maud in their fervent Lancastrian                   beliefs. Finally, guess who?... Simon Catesby reappears, to try yet again to capture and kill everyone. The ruffian, has the three men strung up, ready to be hanged. Then, just in time, the cavalry arrive - it is Maud's uncle Gervase with his band of merry Welsh Lancastrians. Catesby is mortally wounded, but is able to deliver the secret of his hatred before expiring. There will be no spoiler alert!

Within two brief paragraphs, the author wraps up his tale. Buckingham has failed and his whereabouts unknown; Ralph and Wat sail for France; as later do Gervase and Maud, where, for the present, we may leave them to enjoy the rest and protection they so richly deserved. Did Armitage plan a sequel? If so, it never arrived.

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The Victorian Research Web says that Alfred Armitage was unknown. However, it appears that it was a pseudonym for William Murray Graydon (1864-1946), an extremely prolific American writer, who also wrote under the pen-names of William Murray and Tom Oliver. He wrote adventure, historical fiction and Sexton Blake detective stories for boys' story papers. 

Harold Frederic's 'The Deserter' 1898

 

G.A. Henty's 'A Knight of the White Cross' 1896

 

Blackie & Son first edition - 1896

It's a long time since I read a Henty novel; in fact, it was as a young lad (all Henty's heroes are 'lads') that I feasted myself on his tales of derring-do in the far reaches of the British Empire. The hero was nearly always attached to a real life leader of pluck, such as Wolfe or Lee; Drake or Clive; or Bonnie Prince Charlie. Over the past two decades, I have looked out for not-too-expensive first editions, but only for those stories based mainly in Britain. They include In Freedom's Cause (1885); St. George for England (1885); The Dragon and the Raven (1886); Beric the Briton (1893); Wulf the Saxon (1895); At Agincourt (1897); A March on London (1898); and Both Sides the Border (1899). A Knight of the White Cross (1896) crept in because the first two chapters were set in the England of the Wars of the Roses.

This time, I have only read these first two chapters, as I am concentrating on the way these nineteenth century novelists have portrayed Richard of Gloucester, later King Richard III. Henty like his laddish hero Gervaise, is keen to get on to the main thrust of his story - the defence of Christian Europe against Islam (what's changed?). As with the authors of my most recent Blogs, Henty is of the Lancastrian persuasion. The first chapter commences at the royal chateau of Amboise in June 1470. Queen Margaret is wrestling with her conscience about linking up with her erstwhile enemy, the Earl of Warwick. Sir Thomas Tresham, Gervaise's father, is counselling her to do just that. Henty's usual approach to writing a novel, was to summon factual History books to his table, from whence he would copy huge chunks - this he now does in explaining the course of the Wars of the Roses to date. The Battle of Barnet is summarily dealt with and Warwick and Montague are no more. An atmospheric black and white illustration has an armoured Sir Thomas Tresham informing his wife (with a splendid upturned cornetto headgear) of the lost battle. 

The second chapter is entitled The Battle of Tewkesbury. Prior to this, Gervaise is told that, if his father falls, he is to be sent, via the grand prior in  London, to Rhodes to join the Knights of St. John. The Battle itself is adequately described; the duke of Gloucester is mentioned as commanding the Yorkist vanguard. After the battle, the Lancastrian prince Edward is taken before King Edward IV. Edward struck him in the mouth with his gauntlet, and his attendants, or some say his brothers, at once despatched the youth with their swords. Gervaise, with his mother, go to London; his mother dies in the knowledge that her son will be on his way to Rhodes and glory. Good lad!` Only in the final pages do we read that the adult Gervaise made, with his wife, occasional journeys to England, staying on his estates in Kent. However, he preferred to concentrate on his great estates in Italy and merely gifts his second son the English property.

E. Everett-Green's 'In the Wars of the Roses' 1892

 

T. Nelson and Sons first edition - 1892

The subtitle A Story for the Young is accurate. The author, Evelyn Ward Everett-Green (1856-1932) was an English novelist who started with improving, pious stories for children, moved on to historical fiction for older girls, and then turned to adult romantic fiction (Wikipedia). In the Wars of the Roses is certainly historical fiction, but appears written for younger girls. Green wrote about 350 books, more than 200 under her own name, with others using the pseudonyms Cecil Adair, H.F.E., E. Ward and Evelyn Dare.

The story is almost hagiographical towards Edward, Prince of Wales, who lost his life under dire circumstances after the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. The fictitious hero of the book Paul Stukely, two years older than the prince, meets the royal party in 1458 when they visit Lichfield. A firm, almost passionate friendship develops between the five and seven year old boys. Paul and his family are fervent Lancastrians and are involved in the vicissitudes of the next decade.  After a brief History lesson by the author, we meet Paul again, now aged twenty, chafing under Yorkist rule and still attached to the prince and the Lancastrian cause. The author almost seems in love with her creation: ...there was that in his bright glance and erect and noble bearing which won for him universal admiration and affection. He was, in truth, a right goodly youth. His features were very fine, and the dark-gray eyes with their delicately-pencilled brows were full of fire and brilliance. He had golden curls clustered round the noble head in classic fashion... Wow! and he was almost a slightly older doppelganger of Prince Edward.

Local affairs are mixed up with the national crisis. This includes a band of robbers, with the necessary cardboard 'baddies' and a loving family, where the clever mother furtively reads from Wycliffe's Bible, which is then shut away in a secret cupboard. It feels as if every 19th century author (particularly female) must drag Lollardy into their tales (vide Emily Sarah Holt). Although writers of fiction are allowed leeway with historical 'facts', this time the idea of the late teen age Prince Edward, coming to England, leaving his mother and newly affianced Anne Neville in ignorance back in France, is really a step too far! No wonder the chapter is headed A Strange Encounter. After meeting up with Paul again, they venture to Yorkist London. Edward escapes to return abroad, but Paul is incarcerated; escapes; is set upon by the robbers again; is rescued; and finally meets up with the Lancastrian army under Queen Margaret, Prince Edward and the duke of Somerset at Cerne Abbey in Dorset.

Notwithstanding the disheartening news from Barnet, where Warwick, Montague and the Neville force have been decisively beaten by King Edward, the Lancastrians march north via Bristol to their doom at Tewkesbury. This is not before Paul meets Anne Neville - in the first blush of maiden bloom and beauty, her face ethereally lovely, yet tinged, as it seemed, with some haunting melancholy, which gave a strange pathos to its rare beauty, and seemed almost to speak of the doom of sorrow and loss already hanging over her, little as she knew it then. Ah, what it is to have the novelist's gift of foresight.

The titles of last two chapters - The Tragedy of Tewkesbury and The Prince Avenged - confirm the author in the Lancastrian camp. Prince Edward at Tewkesbury behaves rather like Richard III at Bosworth, charging bravely but misguidedly into the enemy's superior ranks. Everett Green permits herself to write another totally unhistorical scenario, where Anne Neville, disguised as a page-boy, gets close to the captured Edward as he is struck by King Edward's gauntlet. Paul Stukely lived to see the foul crime that stained the victor's laurels on the field of Tewkesbury amply avenged upon the House of York in the days that quickly followed. Henry VI may have been murdered in the Tower; Queen Margaret may have ended her days abroad; but the Duke of Clarence was killed on his brother's orders; the two princes were done to death between the stone walls of a prison.

The next death in that ill-omened race was that of King Richard's own son, in the tenth year of his age. As Duke of Gloucester, he had stood by to see the death of young Edward, even if his hand had not been raised to strike him. He had then forced into reluctant wedlock with himself the betrothed bride of the murdered prince - the unhappy Lady Anne. He had murdered his brother's children to raise himself to the throne, and had committed many other crimes to maintain himself thereon...and lastly, the lonely monarch, wifeless and childless, was called upon to reap the fruits of the bitter hostility and distrust which his cruel and arbitrary rule had awakened in the breasts of his own nobles and of his subjects in general.

Fortuitously, Paul has not only kept his head down after Tewkesbury, but has married and got children. He joins Henry Tudor and is at Bosworth to witness Richard's death - he who had obtained his crown by treachery, cruelty, and treason of the blackest kind, was destined to fall a victim to the treachery of others. As Paul saw the mangled corpse flung across a horse's back and carried ignominiously from the field, he felt that the God of heaven did indeed look down and visit with His vengeance those who had set at nought his laws, and that in the miserable death of this last son of the House of York the cause of the Red Rose was amply avenged.

R. L. Stevenson's 'The Black Arrow. A Tale of the Two Roses' 1888

 

Cassell & Company first edition - 1888

I purchased this first edition many years ago but have only just got around to reading it. On my study wall there is a colourful poster of Louis Hayward buckling his swash, with a timid but buxom Janet Blair cowering behind him. The poster publicises the 1948 Movie (which is in black & white) and is for French cinemas, hence the title Flèche Noire (it is also publicised as De Zwarte Pÿl). Unfortunately, I have never watched it. It is available on DVD but only for Region 1 (USA) and at a cost of £35.94. I did purchase the 1972 T.V. series some time back, but only watched a couple of episodes, as the acting and slow pace was dire.

For much of the book itself, there was little to get excited about. In a letter to his friend, W.E. Henley in May 1883 (the story first came out as a serial in Young Folks between that June and October, under the pseudonym Captain George North) Stevenson wrote:  The influenza has busted me a good deal; I have no spring, and am headachy. So, as my good Red Lion Counter begged me for another Butcher's Boy - I turned me to - what thinkest 'on? - to Tushery, by the mass. Ay, friend, a whole tale of tushery. And every tusher tushes me so free, that I may be tushed if the whole thing is worth a tush. THE BLACK ARROW: A TALE OF TUNSTALL FOREST is his name: tush! a poor thing. For most of the book, the author is not far wrong. Like its predecessors Treasure Island and Kidnapped, it was written for a youthful audience, primarily for boys, but it does not match up to them.

The Black Arrow tells the story of Dick Shelton during an episode of the Wars of the Roses. He begins to suspect that his guardian Sir Daniel Brackley and his retainers, including the cleric Sir Oliver Oates, are responsible for his father's death. Outlaws in nearby Tunstall Forest, organised by Ellis Duckworth, whose weapon is a black arrow, are determined to kill Brackley and certain of his followers. Dick joins the outlaws, rescues his love Joanna Sedley, the unwilling ward of Brackley, after fighting on both land and sea.  The plot includes Joanna being disguised as a boy page; Dick being disguised as a friar; both escaping from a locked room; Dick meeting up with Richard, duke of Gloucester and fighting on behalf of the Yorkists against Brackley and other Lancastrians. All ends well as he is able to marry Joanna, whilst a black arrow has finally dispatched Sir Daniel.

From the information given in the novel (the indicator is the Battle of Wakefield, 30 December 1460, described in the first chapter of Book 3) ), the two main action pieces can be pinpointed to May 1460 and January 1461. Richard of Gloucester would have been only  eight years old rather than the late teenager or early twenty year-old as portrayed in Crookback Book V. At least Stevenson admits this in a footnote: Richard Crookback would have been really far younger at this date. Moreover, he also uses another footnote to clarify that at the date of this story, Richard Crookback could not have been created Duke of Gloucester (he was not created duke until June 1461); but for clearness, with the reader's leave, he shall be so called. In a letter, to another friend, Sidney Colvin, Stevenson written as the final instalment came out in Young Folks, he said: I am pleased you liked Crookback; he is a fellow whose hellish energy has always fired my attention...some day, I will re-tickle the Sable Missile...I can lighten it of much, and devote some more attention to Dick o' Gloucester. It's great sport to write tushery. Alas, he never did.

The story only really came alive for me with Book V and the appearance of Gloucester. Dick was surprised to find in one who had displayed such strength, skill and energy, a lad no older than himself - slightly deformed, with one shoulder higher than the other, and of a pale, painful and distorted countenance. He uses sneering and cruel tones. He is the deformed leader, who says to Dick, ye have seen my vengeance, which is, like my blade, both sharp and ready. In a fight he is the formidable hunchback, who says to his sidekick Catesby, here we must vanquish. And as for the exposure - if ye were an ugly hunchback, and the children geeked at you upon the street, ye would count your body cheaper, and an hour of glory worth a life...Dick quailed before his eyes. The insane excitement, the courage, and the cruelty that he read therein, filled him with dismay about the future. This young duke's was indeed a gallant spirit, to ride foremost in the ranks of war; but after the battle, in the days of peace and in the circle of his trusted friends, that mind, it was to be dreaded, would continue to bring forth the fruits of death. Later in the medley, Dick beheld Crookback. He was already giving a foretaste of that furious valour and skill to cut his way across the ranks of war, which, years afterwards upon the field of Bosworth, and when he was stained with crimes, almost sufficed to change the fortunes of the day and the destiny of the English throne.

J. Frederick Hodgetts' 'Richard IV, Plantagenet' 1888

 

Whiting & Co. first edition - 1888

In his Preface, Hodgetts refers to the memory of a old book which I was wont to pore over in my father's library some fifty odd years ago. It had no author's name, and professed to be the autobiography of a legitimate son of Richard III, born long before his parent's rise. The book had a strange fascination for me, and the events it related were so impressed upon my mind that they have formed, as it were, the skeleton of my story. The book he recalls was William Heseltine's The Last of the Plantagenets 1829 (see my previous Blog on 10th December 2023). Hodgetts makes two further points. Heseltine's story was told in the first person, which is now abandoned as there was the difficulty of describing scenery and other things in the archaic language of the unknown author. Secondly, he has modelled the language upon that of Sir Thomas More, to whose life of Richard the Third I owe many useful hints...

Hodgetts also makes it very clear in the Preface what his opinion of Richard III is. We have always received our pictures of Richard the Third from partisans of the opposite faction. Shakespeare wrote to please a Tudor, as did More, and both of them have done their best to leave us an almost impossible picture of one of the bravest of England's monarchs, one of the wisest of her generals, and one of the most far-sighted of her statesmen...of the charges brought against him, many have been proved to be gratuitous inventions, and many others have shown to be impossible. Thus, the evidence of the murder of his nephews has been proved to be unworthy of credit. Richard himself suggests the Duke of York has gone to Burgundy, while poor half-witted little Edward wanders about at large. Later in the novel, it is stated that Perkin Warbeck is, in fact, the younger prince Richard of York. The author also has Buckingham swear Richard was at Brecknock when King Henry VI was killed in the Tower. Hodgetts does admit Richard has a deformity - Richard was a dandy in his way, and had invented this queer padded doublet to hide or counterbalance his deformity... as for Tudor, avarice, hard-dealing, carking cares had made him an old man  by 1487. The knowledge that he had no right whatever to the crown made him suspicious. He felt that he was hated, and punished men all round for hating him...the crowned miser...there was a greedy, restless look about the eye that told of miser thrift, of hoarded gold, of meanness, subterfuge, and wrong

This Richard Plantagenet goes by the name of Richard Trevor.  We first meet him at a monastic school in Faversham Abbey, Kent, a uncommon youth, good-hearted but impetuous. He is collected by Sir Guy de Mowbray to meet his unknown father in Leicestershire. The scene where the younger Richard meets his father, none other than King Richard III, prior to the Battle of Bosworth is possibly the best done in the novel. Not far behind is the meeting with Lord Lovel, hiding in a riverside cave after the Battle of East Stoke two years later.  The vegetation seemed to be arrested as in fear, or as if crushed and broken down by giant feet in times before the Flood. The shore was slimy. and the footing insecure. Richard helps him journey to Minster Lovel in Oxford, where they enter a far larger and superior underground chamber than has been described by any other author. There is another interesting scene in the old Yorkist Inn at Leicester, where the young Earl of Warwick, disguised as a girl, helps to hoodwink the Lancastrian side to allow Richard to escape, with the gold from the late King Richard's bed. 

There are several serious factual errors in Hodgetts' story. He seemingly has the Duke of Buckingham still alive in 1485 and postdating Richard III's son Edward's death - the former recounts seeing the youthful Edward, poor, pale child, lie dead upon his bier. He has Richard aged not quite forty in 1485, when he was just thirty-two. Twice Hodgetts states that Richard fought at the Battle of Towton in 1461 - when he was but eight years old. Richard was at Nottingham when Tudor landed at Milford Haven, not at Crosbie House in London as this author maintains. Francis Lovel is described as  a tall, gaunt man of sixty years and more, when he was but thirty-one in 1487. Minster Lovel was not a ruined abbey.

The most irritating aspect of Hodgetts' tale was the insertion of a fictitious Fleming, Dousterfeldt (is he modelled on another exceedingly irritating rogue, Walter Scott's Dousterswivel in The Antiquary?), who keeps popping up throughout the book until young Richard, in a prison at Sheen Palace by the orders of Tudor, escapes due to an outbreak of fire and pushes the Fleming to an awful death amongst the flames below. Dousterfeldt's only master and mistress is money. We read of him working with Buckingham, King Richard, Henry Tudor and others - almost like a triple or quadruple agent. He turns up at the most unlikely places, just at the right time - stretching one's disbelief at the repetitive coincidences.

This time Richard Plantagenet ends up working for William Caxton and Wynkin de Worde at Westminster, thanks to his earlier work in Faversham cloister. He visits Minster Lovel again some years later to find the dead Lovel, still sitting at a table, to recover the deceased's hidden gold and to close up the entrance to the underground chamber. The years rolled on and, in 1495, Caxton gives Richard books to take to the Abbess of the Austin Nuns at Dartford in Kent. Only then (unlike in Heseltine's account) does he meet the Lady Bride (or Bridget) Plantagenet - a lady of surpassing beauty and of great tenderness of character... She recognizes him as a fellow Plantagenet and they reminiscence. Lady Bridget told him many things about his father, and how she knew for certain that Perkin Warbeck was the Duke of York...she further told him how she had seen Edward called the Fifth alive and well after King Richard's death. Moreover, she gives Richard a Bible translated into English and speaks approvingly of Wycliffe. Five more years go by, and news of Lady Bridget's death reached Richard. Again time rolled on. Finally we read that it was none other than Richard who set up the print at Wittenburg for Tyndale's New Testament.

Emily Sarah Holt's 'Red and White' 1882

 

John F. Shaw first edition - n.d. (1882)

This is the second of Miss Holt's books published in 1882 and it is the second to concentrate on the Wars of the Roses. However, this is a much more substantial novel, compared with At Ye Grene Griffin - hence the 5/- price (the latter book was 2/6d.) Their similarity lies in the earnest didacticism, piety and school-marmish writing of the author. In her Preface, the author writes: ...it would seem as though that eventful and terrible period of English history, known as the Wars of the Roses, had cleared the political air for the coming of the Reformation... Holt also falls into her usual vein of having to explain every aspect of 15th century life and customs to her young readers -  one page details the various types of bread, another, the contents of breakfasts; a third, the gradations of rank in cooking.

The first chapter briefly relates the origins of the conflict from the time of Edward III; it also introduces us to the fictitious family around whom the novel is based. Lord Marnell of Lovell Tower, Lymington, in the right of his wife Margery. There were three daughters, Frideswide and Agnes, and their half-sister Dorathie. Frideswide is sent to wait on the Countess of Warwick at Middleham Castle, where she becomes friends with Warwick's daughter Anne - a lily among thorns, Agnes (and later, Frideswide) becomes maid to the Duchess of Exeter's daughter, Lady Anne. There is a rather tragic sub-plot involving the Exeters. The daughter being forced into a loveless marriage and early death; the father Henry spending all his time in hiding and meeting an untimely end at sea; the mother, a nasty piece of work (she is, after all Edward IV's sister), remarrying for wealth. 

Holt has very decided views about the participants in the wars and is firmly on the side of the Lancastrians. The Battle of Barnet is soundly described in the chapter - The Mist on Easter Day - but, typically, Holt has to end her chapter castigating Edward IV: Did he imagine the House of York should escape the judgement of God - that the Jehu who had been raised up to destroy the innocent sons of Ahab, should be permitted to walk with impunity in the sins of Jeroboam? Late 19th century Sunday School goers would understand the Biblical reference. Prince Edward is killed at Tewkesbury; Gloucester is not directly accused of his murder but is condemned for Henry VI's - it was not until the last century (Walpole?) that it was ever questioned, and then by writers who were desirous to whitewash the decidedly black character of Richard III.

Cicely Neville, the Rose of Raby, would have "died tomorrow to be a queen to-day"... known as Proud Cis. And every act of her life tends to show the truth of the title. Of her three sons, Edward (28), George (19) and Richard (17) little good can be said.

Edward IV was an incorrigible libertine...irremediably lazy, and far weaker in character than either of his brothers. Elizabeth Woodville was a most designing woman - the truth was not in her: and she was pitiless to the sorrows of others.

George, duke of Clarence, really the worst of the three, for he was not merely an ingrained self-seeker, but also false to the heart's core. No atom of trust could ever be placed in him..."Every man for mineself", was the motto of George's life.

Richard, duke of Gloucester fares no better. From his early boyhood, Richard of York had loved Anne Neville; or rather, to put it more accurately, he loved himself, and he found in Anne Neville a plaything the possession of which was necessary to his happiness...like most human beings, looked upon love and persecution as exchangeable terms...and Anne did not want him. On the contrary, she intensely disliked him. It was not possible for her to compare to his advantage such a man as this, whose soul was ten times more crooked than his body, with her tender, brave, gallant young Plantagenet... (tells the story of her disguised as a cook for two years). And again - 'Tis Crookback Dickon. His soul is not as straight as his body. He eventually sat on a blood-stained throne.

Whereas Edward of Lancaster is positively portrayed: he was tall for his age, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and superlatively handsome. He falls passionately in love with Anne Neville and is betrothed to her at Amboise in July/August 1470. However, the percipient author has to weigh in: O blind eyes, which saw not the Angel of Death stand with folded wings behind the bridegroom! - which read not the scroll, written within and without, with desolation, and mourning, and woe, to be crushed into those few and evil years which were the portion of the bride!            

Lollardy rears its positive, if clandestine, head - as usual in Holt's novels linked to the 14th-16th centuries.  The Marnell girls and the Duke of Exeter are subscribers.  The At the Parchment-Maker's chapter describes a secret Lollard meeting in London, with prayers and a long monition based on the 55th Psalm. The last chapter - The Last of the Silver Ring - hurries matters to a close, taking in the period 1475 to 1539 and the Suppression of Godstow Abbey, Oxford - where Agnes  Marnell, a nun, lies dying.

 Holt's sources include the Paston Letters, Philippe de Commines, Issue Rolls, Close and Patent Rolls. There is a 25 page Historical Appendix at the end of the novel, which details the Issues from all the major Historical characters.