The most detailed account of Richard III’s murder of the Princes in the Tower was penned by lawyer and philosopher Thomas More c. 1515. But can his ‘History of Richard III’ be trusted and respected as a credible piece of historical research and writing?
It is no surprise that Thomas More’s ‘the History of Richard III’ sits at the heart of this debate. It is the most detailed account of the Prince’s murder at the instruction of their royal Uncle. If it can be proved to be trustworthy, then it’s game over for the Ricardians.
Revisionists however, are quick to find fault with it, labelling it Tudor propaganda, inaccurate, or not even an attempt at history as we would understand it. All of these questions are worthy of exploration, with some proving thorny for those tempted to treat More’s account as gospel. But in the sober light of day, when all things are weighed and considered, it is difficult to argue that any of the criticisms of More’s work take away from its fundamental reliability. Let’s examine.
More’s account was Tudor propaganda, designed to please the ruling house
The problem with this argument is that if More’s account is Tudor propaganda then it’s…ermm… well…not very good Tudor propaganda.
To start with, it doesn’t really say anything positive about the Tudors! Henry VII is barely mentioned, and it can be established from other sources that More was more likely to have loathed him than worship him.
In the Channel 4 documentary trying to solve the problem of the Princes, one historian even said that More drafting this work was the beginning of his career ‘taking off’ in the Tudor court, suggesting that he had written it to find favour with Henry VIII. But More’s work was unpublished in his lifetime – he hadn’t even finished it! Besides, More was already well established as both a politician and philosopher before he ever put pen to paper. There is no evidence that it was written to carry favour with the Tudor dynasty.
We may not know the motive, but for whatever reason More lied in his account
Fair enough. While ‘the History of Richard III’ cannot possibly have been commissioned as ‘Tudor propaganda’ perhaps More had another motive (now lost to us) for thinking it would help him ‘get ahead’ in life and created a concoction of lies! We can never disprove that this wasn’t the case, but does such a motivation really fit More’s character?
Firstly, he was a man who was not afraid to criticise government policy and he even committed those thoughts to writing. Second, and most importantly, this was a man who went to his death because he later refused to recognise the King as head of the church. We really shouldn’t underplay this; most of Catholic England (including great protestant persecutors of the future including bloody Mary and her Archbishop Gardiner) made their peace with it when threatened with death. The fact that More wouldn’t succumb speaks volumes of his integrity.
Would this man, who was prepared to put truth before his life, really have gone out of his way to invent lies, even for some great (albeit hard to fathom) reward?
Regardless of whether More’s book is right or wrong, he himself believed it to be true.
Okay, so More may not have been lying but what if he’s just plain wrong? After all, his book is littered with errors.
This, in my opinion is the strongest argument that the revisionists have in their armoury. More’s account contains some shocking school-boy factual errors (such as the age of Edward IV on death) as well as some strange moments of narrative. Paul Murry Kendall is very doubtful of More’s claim that Richard III communicated his brutal orders by letter!
But we need to stand back and consider two things. Historians, in my opinion, do not give enough credence to the reality that More’s work was unfinished. Perhaps he was framing his narrative and intending to fact-check a few things later. This is certainly how I write. Or, more importantly, this could just tell us a bit about More. Perhaps he wasn’t great with dates and figures (which was not nearly as important in the study of history in his time). Besides, he wasn’t writing to inform anyone how old Edward IV was when he died. He was writing because he felt that he had gathered information that was not widely known and was in a position to craft a full narrative around the tyranny of Richard III and the tragic death of the heirs to the throne.
The real question then is, can the broad thrust of the work be trusted? Did More really have access to reliable information? There is huge reason to think that he did.
Not only did he have access to the legal community and Bishop Morton (who he had served as a child) but Alison Weir has convincingly argued that through his association with the Minoresses’ convent in Aldgate, More would have come into extensive contact with relatives of those who were involved in the events. It is likely that More – one of the biggest intellects of his time – was aware that he was, perhaps uniquely – in a position to draw all the facts together and perhaps felt a responsibility to do so.
More might not be a liar, but you’ve misunderstood what he was trying to do. This is a renaissance account that is telling a moral tale in the humanistic style. He doesn’t expect anyone to believe it is factual.
It is certainly true that at the time More wrote, history and literature were closer disciplines. Much of the speech in More’s work is thought to be invented, but this was standard practice of the time and it’s clear that More is crafting a moral tale that he wants people to learn life lessons from.
I am no expert in Humanism or renaissance writing but there seems to have been a trend for trying to imitate Greek epics – and More certainly seems to have had a bash at this. However, as George M Logan argues, it was also a principal of humanist writing that it was faithful to the truth. Besides, the internal evidence strongly suggests that More did believe he was writing fact. During the account he is quite clear as to when he is ‘divining upon conjecture’ (i.e. hearsay) and when his work is stating facts that he has gathered from those he believes are reliable. Why would anyone do this if they did not expect people to form the conclusion that what he is writing about, actually happened?
Truth was more important to More than his very life. He had access to a vast range of sources and a level of intellect that should give us every reason to believe that he analysed them effectively. Can we, 500 years later, be convinced that it is 100% accurate in all its detail? We know that it isn’t. But it is fundamentally a work of honesty, integrity and reliability. We are therefore left with no real choice but to accept it as a broadly accurate and vastly informative account of how Richard III orchestrated the death of his brother’s sons in order to secure his tenuous position on the throne of England.
Okay geeks…over to you. Have I missed something? Am I giving More way to much credit? Have I misunderstood the politics of the Tudor court? Have I got it spot on? Let me know what YOU think!