Dora Greenwell McChesney's 'The Confession of Richard Plantagenet' 1913

 

Bell's Indian and Colonial Library first edition - 1913

The last two years of Dora Greenwell McChesney's life were a long struggle with illness and pain. Her home for the last year was the Chantry House at North Nibley, in Gloucestershire. Mr. W.T. Stead, not long before his fatal voyage in the Titanic, made a nine hours' journey in order to spend two hours with her 'Not if I lived for a century longer, could I expect to meet such another woman', said her doctor.      She died on 3 July 1912 and was buried next to her mother in the churchyard of East Mersea, Essex. Her parents were American, but they left the States when Dora was a child and from that time onward their home was in England, apart from two years each spent in Rome and Germany. The love of literature and the gift of writing were inborn in the author. Her imaginative existence was, as her other novels showed, in the seventeenth century. Her heroes were defenders of lost causes - Rupert a prince among them. She belonged to the White Rose party and her Jacobitism was a real passion 

The Confession of Richard Plantagenet is merely a fragment of the original design. During the last nine months of the author's life, her illness prevented any actual writing being done, though to the end she discussed and planned the chapters that were never written. The book is the outcome of considerable research, often at the British Museum. County histories, Family records, Patent Rolls, Acts of Parliament, Commynes were all studied. The result is, perhaps, the most deeply felt of all the books relating to Richard of Gloucester/Richard III that I have read recently. It may be one author's version of the man but it is intensely human and compelling, and poetic in many places. It is the Via Dolorosa of the Last Plantagenet and the reader, thanks to the sincere writing, almost feels the suffering that goes through this tortured soul.

In the Prologue, Richard visits Constance the Anchoress after the Battle of Barnet and asks for her prayers: Sinner am I, as be all men; yet, me thinketh, on Barnet Field was many a forsworn traitor and rebel whose soul stood in more parlous plight than mine, which have served and fought as loyalty did bind me. And that is the key to his behaviour throughout his brother's reign. At Tewkesbury, he is confronted with the dilemma over the vanquished Edward of Lancaster - To save, to slay. He meets the prince in near-single combat and prevails. He saves Edward IV from perjury over the latter's promise to pardon the Lancastrians trapped in the Abbey, by presiding over the trials - Sire, better that death come from my hand than yours. I have not sworn. He goes on Edward's behalf to the Tower to have discourse with Henry VI. Richard tells the former king of his son's death: Edward of Lancaster died worthily, with spear couched, as beseemed a knight. Henry himself dies of a seeming heart attack.

With no thanks to the perfidious Duke of Clarence or his wife Isabel, Gloucester hunts down and eventually discovers Anne Neville in the great kitchen of a London pepperer and pledged: So trusting me, ye shall be safe and honoured in my care as though ye were the saint whose name ye bare, mother of the Mother of God. During the Expedition to France in 1475, Richard counsels the King: Victory is the surest peacemaker. Louis of France is no man to yield one rood of land, save in extremity. He will net us with fair words - he that kept never  promise nor oath... Gloucester meets the Sieur d'Argenton, Philippe de Commynes, who sought to 'buy' his support for Louis. When he finally meets Louis himself, the result is near apoplexy on Richard's side due to the King's attempt to bribe him!

Richard intercedes, perhaps half-heartedly, on Clarence's behalf after the latter had spread rumours about King's Edward's illegitimacy. When the King is adamant that his brother is to be put on public trial which would equally lead to a public execution, Richard persuades him to deal with Clarence 'on the quiet' "Fear not!. I am well fashioned for scape-goat." And so, Clarence dies by poisoned Malmsey through Richard's pressure.

King Edward dies and Richard, at Barnard Castle, stands motionless in a window-niche, his figure darkly outlined against the sunlight; while his carven boar passant, still crisply cut as the chisel had left it, watched him from above. Poetic?  Girdled round by his faithful servants Owen O'Neill, Ratcliffe and Lovell, with the addition of the rather sinister Catesby, Richard makes his way south. All the well-known participants gather - Lord Rivers, eager and debonair, the callow Richard Grey, old Sir Thomas Vaughan, Buckingham - the arrogant leader of the old nobility. It is Bishop Stillington who makes him aware of Edward IV's pre-marriage contract with Dame Eleanor Butler. Gloucester had idolised Edward's strength and beauty and loyalty had bound him to not only his brother but his brother's sons. Now, however he discovers from his wife that Edward tried to seduce her. "Edward, my brother, loyalty hath bound me - I break the bond!" This, then is the key that unlocks the door to the throne. Hastings is removed for perceived treachery; Jane Shore, Hastings' witch-wanton is dealt with (in four lines!); and the Princes in the Tower die. Or, so Catesby tells Richard - "the Duke of Buckingham counselled it. Sire, it was in your service, for your wealth". The enormity of this stuns Richard - "Saints of God judge me!...Christ crucified! Is this my work?...Ye say well! You are what I have made you, and you have but accomplished my work".

And so to Buckingham's damp squib of a Rebellion. Richard marshalled his array, and pressed his march southward with amazing celerity...every man who followed him caught something of his ardour; for he had the leader's gift of kindling the fire of his own spirit in others. Successful, but still caught up in a maelstrom of emotions. When Sir Own suggests that he does things for the very love of England and her wealth, Richard replies: "No. It is not sooth - oh, let me have done for one hour with lies! Not love of England alone, nor even that lust of power that peopled Hell. But I stood alone on slippery ground; the lad Edward hating me; the Woodvilles banded against me; Hastings - Hastings failing me. I doubted could I hold my own, and, if I fell, with me fell all things" It is not surprising then that the author portrays Richard as actually scourging himself. Worse is to follow - his son dies, and Richard sees it as God's hand, God's judgement. "Edward, my brother, be at peace! I have paid blood for blood and thy death-day is death-day of my race..."

This Richard has a love of books and the Arts; he reads from the History of the Holy Grail loaned him by Lord Hastings; he is fond of Piers Plowman. However, he is rarely at peace. He is a tortured soul; ambition takes second place to loyalty for most of his life before the death of Edward IV. Only after that, does he appear almost rudderless. It is to the author's credit that she made all this seem believable.