The Role Of Propaganda In King Richard III

The image of Richard was to be corrupted by the Tudors for several hundred years, ironically it was this propaganda that immortalized his name. Cheetham (1972) writes that two persons laid the basis for what other writers such as Shakespeare wrote later. The first one was John Rous. The first book he wrote about Richard had a version in Latin and one in English, both finished before Richard’s death. In the English version Rous describes Richard III as a great and notably good ruler and a dispenser of justice with special emphasis on those oppressing the commoners. However, Cheetham (1972) means that, contrary to the English version, the Latin version was still in Rous’s possession after Richard had been deposed in 1485 and in this version the sentence that commends Richard on his virtuous was edited out. Rous then wrote another book, which was dedicated to Henry Tudor, before Rous’ death in 1491 wherein Richard is described as: “The venomous flavor of this tract can be judged from the statement that Richard was born, after two years in his mother’s womb, with a complete set of teeth, and hair down to

his shoulders” (Cheetham, 1972, p.198). Neither of these representations are probably true, although the former description of Richard is reasonably closer to the truth from what have been discussed in previous sections and the last description is obviously very far from the truth which only shows of the Tudors determination to blacken Richard’s name.
The second person was Polydore Vergil, he was asked by Henry VII to write an anthology of the history of England. In this book Vergil writes that Richard was the culmination of the divine punishment that was the Wars of the Roses and that it was ‘God’s will’ that was being done when Henry Tudor united York and Lancaster (Cheetham, 1972). Religion was a powerful tool in the medieval world and Henry VII being described as a saint whilst Richard is portrayed as ‘divine punishment’ would have helped Henry’s cause considerably and legitimized his usurpation, especially since Henry didn’t have the strongest claim.
Lastly, we have the person that most people think about when we talk about Richard III, Shakespeare and his play. In the play Richard is described as a hunchback tyrant with countless murders on his hands that doesn’t care about anyone but himself (Shakespeare, 1597). When Richard’s body was discovered recently he did indeed have a curvature of his spine. However, this curve was from the condition known as scoliosis and would not have made him a hunchback as Shakespeare claims (Jones, 2015). It is therefore reasonable to question everything that Shakespeare wrote, especially since he wrote it to please the granddaughter of Henry VII, Elisabeth I.

6. Conclusion
The view of Richard has been heavily influenced by the propaganda spread by the Tudors.

Shakespeare and other less famous writers wrote books to please their new king, whom needed the good publicity after the usurpation. This means that pretty much everything about Richard has been corrupted by this propaganda, most notably his character and how he ruled England. This essay has shown that these accounts of Richard are untruthful and unjust. Richard may not have been a saint, but he was the archetypical ruthless medieval king that is to be expected of him and he was not really that different from other medieval kings. We will probably never know what is really true about Richard III and how he really was, even though we can get a pretty good idea, but he will remain the most famous and controversial king in English history because of the propaganda spread by the

Tudors.