By: The Scribe on Monday, February 11, 2013
Richard III was the eighth child of his parents, Richard Plantagenet (3rd Duke of York, with a strong claim to King Henry IV’s throne) and Cecily Neville. Born at Fotheringhay Castle, the place must have been too drafty because he spent a number of years at Middleham Castle under the tutelage (a fancy word which here means “protection” or “guardianship” of his cousin—and to make things even more confusing, he was also named Richard.
While Richard III was spending time with his cousin, he became friends with a fellow named Francis Lovell (not Richard!), who he would later become connected to through marriage. They were fast friends and strong allies for the rest of Richard’s life. Richard also became acquainted with his cousin’s daughter, Anne Neville, who he later married.
After Richard’s older brother and his father died in 1460—sadly, in the Battle of Wakefield—eight-year-old Richard’s mother bundled him up and sent him off to the Low Countries with one of his older brothers. They returned in 1461 for the coronation of Richard’s now-eldest brother as King Edward IV.
Nine-year-old Richard had a bit of responsibility laid on him at this time, being formally named the Duke of Gloucester, a Knight of the Garter, and a Knight of the Bath (yes, the order’s rituals involved just what it says in the name… bathing). He took off for a third time—not necessarily by choice, as he was only nine years old—and spent more time at his cousin’s castle in Middleham to receive knightly training. It’s thought that during these years and his early adolescence, Richard III developed something called idiopathic scoliosis.
By the time Richard turned seventeen, he’d already been involved in the War of the Roses, appointed sole Commissioner of Array for the Western Counties, and forced to head back to the Low Countries to hide out for a second time.
Meanwhile? Edward IV found himself restored to the throne after several critical rebellions & restoration efforts… leaving Richard III, at eighteen years old, a trusted ally of his brother and ready for the next step in a young man’s life: Marriage.
To be continued…
(Stay tuned to read more about Richard III’s life and the discovery of Richard III’s bones in the continuation of this series, “Baring the Bones!”)
By: The Scribe on Friday, February 8, 2013
For someone who only ruled England for two years, Richard III has certainly been causing a bit of fuss lately. But who was he, really? And why should we care?
Richard came to power by a bit of a scuffle. After his brother, Edward IV, died in April 1483, Richard was named as the Lord Protector, because his nephew was still a minor and therefore couldn’t yet legally rule. This was all well and good, until the moment that 12-year-old King Edward V was declared an illegitimate child (his parents’ marriage was declared “invalid”) and thus ineligible to rule. Bit of a blow, that—but good for Richard III.
It meant Richard III was now the true successor to power, which he took the next day (they didn’t waste much time, back then). Soon after his crowning on July 6, 1483, a rumor sparked that persists to this day: That Richard III actually murdered his brother’s sons. It didn’t help that the princes were never seen publicly again after August of that year. While no one knows for certain if he did or didn’t kill them, plenty of historians continue to argue theories about “The Princes in the Tower” and what truly happened to them.
Not everyone loved Richard III (that might have had something to do with the whole “possibly murdering your nephews” business), and two major rebellions were held against him. The first one, in October 1483, was led by none other than allies of his deceased brother, Edward IV, and well as one of Richard’s former allies and a suspect in the “Princes in the Tower” case, also a cousin. Bully for them, it didn’t work out, and the former ally—Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham —was executed.
In August 1485, a second rebellion was led by Jasper and Henry Tudor. Henry landed in Pembrokeshire with a handful of French troops, and began recruiting archers and soldiers as he trekked along through Wales. To make a long story short, Richard III met with a sudden end during the Battle of Bosworth Field, becoming the final English king to die in battle.
Overall, he had a rather unremarkable, short reign, and possibly murdered his own family members. Not the most venerable of kings, which is why his remains only received a battlefield burial and… were subsequently lost.
But not forever! Because in 2012, Richard III was found!
To be continued…
(Stay tuned to read more about Richard III’s life and the discovery of Richard III’s bones in the continuation of this series, “Baring the Bones!”)
By: The Scribe on Monday, January 21, 2013
Although it has taken quite some time to get to this point, the Colosseum in Rome is finally undergoing restoration… and yielding some interesting tidbits about ancient history in Rome along the way. Recently, excavators and restoration experts discovered trades of ancient frescoes in red, black, green, and blue—but that’s not the most interesting part. Even better?
Apparently visitors to the Colosseum engaged in some tagging, Ancient Rome style—everyone’s favorite gladiatorial arena holds graffiti art of phallic symbols. Would you expect anything else?
The officials who unveiled the discoveries between the second and third levels of the Colosseum say that particular passageway won’t be open to the public until sometime during Summer 2013, as there is plenty of work to do to ensure the graffiti doesn’t fade or become damaged now that it’s exposed.
The images were hidden beneath decades and decades of calcified grime and rock, and the colorful traces of the discovered frescoes confirm the historical understanding of the Colosseum as a richly decorated, vibrantly colored stadium during its heyday. Currently, the belief is that less than 1 perfect of the Colosseum’s original painted surfaces remain—and despite the fact that the arena’s exposed seating was white marble, it was the inside that came alive with color.
Colosseum director Rosella Rea says that “the insides, the galleries, all the corridors and transverse hallways were completely colored. We need to imagine a building with extreme contrasts of color.” And many of the colored areas now discovered are covered with more recent graffiti art—including some drawings from dates as wide-ranging as 1620 and 1943.
But older still, officials have found graffiti that they believe dates from the 3rd century—a red palm frond and crown are believed to be the work of a gladiator fan as the individual traveled the hallway, and another area under restoration contains graffiti art of phalluses, which were often drawn as good luck charms.
How is it these things went undetected by historians for almost two thousand years? The simple answer is money, as until now there wasn’t enough funding to restore the hallway.
As restoration continues on the Colosseum, who knows what other secrets—or interesting drawings—this ancient building holds!
By: The Scribe on Monday, January 7, 2013
You think you had a good time celebrating New Year’s? Compared to what happened in Babylon during the 3rd millennium BC, our modern celebrations look like snooze-fests. Short snooze-fests. Short, boring snooze-fests with crappy food and even worse entertainment.
In Ancient Mesopotamia, the new year was rung in at a festival known as Akitu, which means “barley” in Sumerian. The festival was made up of two distinct festivals, each held at the beginning of the two half-years on the Sumerian calendar—one to celebrate sowing barley, and the other to celebrate cutting it.
The festival started on the 21st of Adar, running until the 1st of Nisannu. The two most important places during the festival were the Temple of the supreme god Marduk (the Esagila), and the “House of the New Year” in the north of the city of Babylon. The primary gods of the festival were Marduk (of course) and Marduk’s son, Nabu.
The first three days of the festival weren’t filled with a whole lot of excitement—mostly prayers, pleading for the safety of the city and people, and confessing. On the fourth day, seemingly reassured by three days of sad prayers, folks got a little uppity, and the party began! The high priest would recite the Enuma Elish—the Babylonian creation epic—in preparation for the following day, sort of like many people’s modern traditions of watching White Christmas on Christmas Eve, or watching the ball drop in New York’s Times Square before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
On the fifth day, the King of Babylon was required to “submit” to Marduk—essentially, the King would enter the Esagila, be stripped of all his objects of power, and then got slapped across the face by the high priest. Yes, that’s right—the high priest got to slap the king. And while slapping kings isn’t generally recommended for folks who plan on staying, well, alive, in this case the high priest was acting as a vessel of the god Marduk, forcing the King to remain humble and reflect on his blessings. In fact, the slap had to be hard enough to draw tears, and the more tears? The better!
While we don’t understand all the rituals that went on afterward, historians know that the sixth day and following saw a parade of sorts, perhaps several. The gods arrived in boats and traveled to the temples—that is, gold statuettes of the gods were carried and paraded around as the King made his rounds—and battles were recited and acted out with these statues. At the end of the seventh day, the procession was supposed to end up at the House of the New Year, amidst plenty of rousing songs and dances from the populace (no “Aud Lang Syne” at this party!).
Days eight through ten get a little shady in terms of historical knowledge of what happened, but perhaps that should be expected—when you’ve been celebrating for seven days beforehand, there’s bound to be a little forgetfulness at the bottom of one’s tankard of ale, if you catch my meaning.
We do know that on the eleventh day (or twelfth, depending on the source), the gods—ie. statues—boarded their boats to sail away for another year. And presumably everyone else went home and took a long nap.
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Nine-year-old Richard had a bit of responsibility laid on him at this time, being formally named the Duke of Gloucester, a Knight of the Garter, and a Knight of the Bath (yes, the order’s rituals involved just what it says in the name… bathing). He took off for a third time—not necessarily by choice, as he was only nine years old—and spent more time at his cousin’s castle in Middleham to receive knightly training. It’s thought that during these years and his early adolescence, Richard III developed something called idiopathic scoliosis.
