Richard III by Desmond Seward Read Free Book Online

though these traits were carefully concealed. If he had had any sort of plausible claim to the throne, he would certainly have seized it for himself. Moreover, he seems to have been blind to any of his shortcomings – in particular to his ultimatelyruinous incapacity as a soldier. Merciless as he was in victory, he had a streak of timidity and a tendency to panic when in battle which verged on cowardice. In the early years of the new reign, however, his flaws and inadequacies went unrecognized, and he was the natural and greatest friend of his first cousins, the young princes of the House of York. 4
    The sort of education which Richard received would have been like that known to have been given to his brother Edward. He was taught how to write the crabbed ‘bastard secretary’ hand of the age, which he did with a neat elegance, and enough mathematics for simple accounts. He learnt to speak and read French, notably chivalric romances and moralizing chronicles, though if he could understand some Latin, it was not enough to enable him to read the scriptures. No doubt he acquired a smattering of law, and also some knowledge of heraldry in which he later showed a distinct interest.
    One may guess that his mother insisted on strict religious instruction by the chaplains. She was noted for piety, something of a mystic who read the works of Walter Hilton, St Catherine of Siena and St Bridget of Sweden. 5 Directly or indirectly, Richard must have derived much of his own brand of religion from her.
    His tutors would have attached immense importance to physical disciplines. Every great lord had to be a soldier and had to learn combat skills as early as possible. As Machiavelli observes, ‘A prince should have no other object or interest, nor study anything, but war and its science and conduct, because it is the one skill above all which is necessary to a ruler.’ For boys in any noble household there was constant daily practice, wearing specially heavy armour, with all types of weapon from swords and poleaxes to maces and battle-hammers. There was also training for the tournament, both on foot and on horseback. Sinews and endurance were toughened by hunting, which was regarded as a semi-military exercise. There were still forests in Yorkshire harbouring stag and boar – according to Leland one stretched all the way from Middleham to Ripon – while deer parks next to the castle contained fallow buck. Yorkshiremen often made do with martens or otters (in summer) or even the big, sandy moorland hares, all of which gave excellent sport before hounds. Falconry –peregrines and merlins were obtainable locally – took the place of modern shooting.
    Such activities must have been a terrible challenge to a boy with so weak and frail a body as the young Richard. He conquered, but presumably at a cost. Shakespeare may not be so very far from the mark in making Duchess Cecily say that her youngest son’s school-days were ‘frightful, desperate, wild and furious’. If the Duke’s desperate efforts gave him self-control, they were no doubt also responsible for his nervousness and anxious nature, even his secretiveness. Furthermore (though this is only surmise), excessive use of one arm, since the other was inadequate, produced a muscular development which exaggerated the slight unevenness of his shoulders and the curvature of his spine and gave him an imperceptible crookback. As it was, he grew up to be noticeably small and thin.
    It has been suggested that during his time at Middleham the young Duke acquired friends of his own age. Among these may have been some of the younger Metcalfes from Nappa, and it is very likely that a certain Francis Lovell from Oxfordshire was a fellow henchman in the castle – later Lovell would be one of Richard’s right-hand men. 6 Another companion at Middleham seems to have been Robert Percy, a kinsman of the Earl of Northumberland, who would also become one of his most faithful and committed