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The Tudor myth is the tradition in English history, historiography and literature that presents the 15th century, including the Wars of the Roses, in England as a dark age of anarchy and bloodshed. The narrative that the Tudor myth perpetrated was curated with the political purpose of promoting the Tudor period of the 16th century as a golden age of peace, law, order, and prosperity. The hope was to elevate King Henry VII's rulership compared to his predecessors.

The Tudor myth may have also been advanced by the Tudors and their confederates due to the poor financial conditions of the populace in the 16th century as opposed to the 15th century. In Thomas Lambert's Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, he argues that the 16th century had "...poorer economic performance and higher taxation during the Tudor reign compared to the previous century..."

The Tudor myth was made to elevate King Henry VII (a Lancastrian by relation), by ruining King Richard II and King Richard III. Throughout the 16th century, Richard II would be vilified and portrayed as a terrible leader and traitor to the English monarchy. Richard III (and by extension, Yorkist loyalties) is portrayed as an irredeemable tyrant to legitimize Tudor rule. The most popular rendition gained notoriety due to Shakespeare's play, Richard III, in which King Richard III's moral character is berated.

In Shakespeare's plays

Richard III

Shakespeare's plays were both a product of and a contributor to the Tudor myth and King Richard III's portrayal. His play was written with hindsight in mind, so he was aware of the events that followed King Richard III's reign. With this information in mind, Shakespeare set out to disparage King Richard III's character. His portrayal of Richard III of England (1452–1485; reigned, 1483–1485) as a deformed hunchback and murderer. Historian Thomas More, was one of the first to spread this depiction of King Richard III. William Shakespeare picked up on the rumor and continued in this tradition through his history plays that covered the 15th century including Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, Henry V, Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, Part 2, Henry VI, Part 3, and Richard III. Though scholars and historians, such as Horace Walpole and Sir George Buck denounced this portrayal of the king during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Shakespeare's description of King Richard III remained the most well-known depiction of him in British/Commonwealth-American historical writing up until the twentieth century.

The description of King Richard III continued to grow with the revisionist historian Paul Murray Kendall, author of Richard III (1956), in which Shakespeare's depiction is brought to life. Kendall's film also garnered more attention to King Richard III's reputation in general, and many historians would begin to explore the validity of Shakespeare's and the Tudor myth portrayal of the king.

Though this portrayal of King Richard III is the most accepted, many, such as Merry England chose to provide a different perspective on his rulership. More specifically, Ricardian historians, the Richard III Society and The Society of Friends of King Richard III have striven to provide historical perspectives more favourable to Richard III and his achievements during his brief reign.

Richard II

The following passage from Act 4, Scene 1 in Shakespeare's play, Richard II, is often pointed to as an expression of the Tudor myth. It is a speech by the character Carlisle, spoken just as Bolingbroke suggests that he will ascend the throne of England. Carlisle raises his voice to object, and ends with a vision of the future that seems to prophesy the civil wars that are the basis of Shakespeare's English history plays:

My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;
And if you crown him, let me prophesy,
The blood of English shall manure the ground
And future ages groan for this foul act;
Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,
Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.
O! if you raise this house against this house,
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe!

In this scene, Shakespeare's foreshadowing is seen. Many biblical comparisons are made through his characters when discussing the possibility of King Richard II's rule. The mention of the "field of Golgotha" is in reference to Jesus's crucifixion at Golgotha. Throughout this play, England is described as a lively and green city and the character Carlisle is claiming that King Richard II rulership would bring death to England.

In other notable works

• The Anglica Historia of Polydore Vergil, Books 23–25 on Richard III.; Entire 1555 edition (Henry VII's official historian). First in print in 1534.
• Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III (1513). More's book is hostile to Richard in a partisan spirit. A few years after Richard died a Warwickshire historian named John Rous claimed that Richard spent two years in the womb, and was finally born with a full set of teeth, and a full head of hair. Thomas More described Richard as "malicious, wrathful, envious … little of stature, ill featured of limbs, crook back." More's source was John Morton, who was Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VII, and had served as Bishop of Ely under Edward IV and Richard III. Other sources include various Tudor accounts, including those by John Rous and Polydore Vergil. More also provides direct testimony.
• Edward Hall's Union of the Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548), portrayed King Henry IV in a favorable light.
• Raphael Holinshed and his collaborators who wrote the Chronicles of England, Scotland and Wales (2nd edition, 1587), which was Shakespeare's primary source for his history plays.
• William Shakespeare's play, Richard III
• In The Black Adder, Richard III is presented as a kind man and good king who wins the Battle of Bosworth Field, but is succeeded by his nephew as Richard IV after he is accidentally killed. After Richard IV's death at the end of the series, Henry VII becomes king and rewrites history, presenting Richard III as an evil king, and eliminating Richard IV's reign from the history books.

See also

• Exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England
• Ricardian (Richard III)

References

1. Tillyard, E. M. W. Shakespeare’s History Plays. Chatto & Windus (1944) ISBN 978-0701111571
2. Breverton, Terry (15 May 2016). Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-1-4456-4606-0.
3. Lambert, Thomas (October 2024). "Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism". Monthly Review Press. 76 (5).
4. Egan, Gabriel (2007). Shakespeare. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2371-6. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
5. Cooper, John. "The Tudor Monarchy" (PDF). Cengage Learning EMEA. State Papers Online. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
6. Wilson, Jeffrey (29 November 2020). Shakespeare and Game of Thrones. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-000-22868-7. Retrieved 5 April 2023.
7. Barker, Simon. "The Mary Rose revisited: Tudor myth, popular history and "the tears that England owes". ProQuest. Journal of Popular Culture. ProQuest 1297357115. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
8. Reese, M. M. The Cease of Majesty: A Study of Shakespeare's History Plays, New York: St Martin's Press, 1961
9. Kendall, Paul Murray. Richard III, New York: W. W. Norton, 1956
10. Kendall, Paul Murray. Richard III: The Great Debate: Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III and Horace Walpole's Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard III, 1965
11. Gillingham, John. The Wars of The Roses: Peace and Conflict in Fifteenth-Century England. Louisiana State University Press, 1981
12. Grene, Nicholas. Shakespeare's Tragic Imagination. Springer (2016) ISBN 9781349249701
13. Brustein, Robert Sanford. The Tainted Muse: Prejudice and Presumption in Shakespeare and His Time. Yale University Press, 2009 ISBN 9780300115765 p. 135
14. Shakespeare, William. Richard II. Act 4, sc. i
15. Warner, John (9 October 2020). "Richard II: Act Four, Scene One". Youtube. English: The John Warner School. Retrieved 3 April 2023.
16. Carleton, Charles. Royal Warriors: A Military History of the British Monarchy. Routledge, 2014. p. 66. ISBN 9781317873778
17. Gross, Charles. The Sources and Literature of English History from the Earliest Times to about 1485. Longmans, Green & Company, 1900. p. 297.

• Historiography of the United Kingdom
• Propaganda in the United Kingdom
• 15th century in England
• 16th century in England
• Henry VII of England
• Richard II of England
• Richard III of England
• Historical myths