Not so much winter discontent in court of generous Richard III
RICHARD III was not history’s pantomime villain, newly unearthed documents reveal, as he was a generous king to his servants at Christmas.
The Yorkist monarch was infamously immortalised by William Shakespeare as a deformed ogre who murdered his nephews in the Tower of London.
But l etters to the 15th century exchequer at the National Archives reveal that the demonised king, killed during the Wars of the Roses, gave lavishly at Christmas.
During the first festive period of his reign in 1483 he gave the equivalent of £70,000 in “ready money” to servants for a “reward against the feast of Christmas next coming”.
In the new year he settled a bill for jewellery with a London goldsmith for the equivalent today of £500,000 for “our year’s gifts against Christmas”. The archived expenses show Richard III in a kinder light than Shakespeare’s portrayal, but the Plantagenet king may have had an ulterior and political motive for his spending.
Dr Euan Roger, medieval records specialist at National Archives who studied the king’s bill, said: “Richard was new to the throne in Christmas 1483 and had faced a rebellion in the autumn.
“He would have been concerned with securing the loyalty of his court in particular at this point. In any case it’s a lot of money he is spending.”
He added: “Monarchs from around that time would have undertaken similar prep for Christmas as part of wider, generally expensive, celebrations.
“The giving and receiving of royal gifts was an important political activity.”
Letters found in the archives are addressed from “Richard, by the grace of God, king of England, and of France, and Lord of Ireland” to the “Treasurer and chamberlains of our Exchequer”.
On Dec 3 1483, he stipulated that £100 (£70,000 today) be given to “our well beloved servants the grooms and pages of our chamber”.
After Christmas, he settled his accounts with “our trusty and well beloved Edmund Shawe”, sending £764, 17 shillings and sixpence (around £500,000 today) for gifts and “other jewels by him ordained and delivered to our own hands”. Shawe was a goldsmith, sheriff of London in 1475 and Lord Mayor of London in 1482.
Richard became king in 1483 during the civil wars between the rival houses of York and Lancaster. When he died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch, took the throne. Historians argue it was he who began spreading propaganda to demonise his more legitimate predecessor.