During his royal progress of 1483, Richard refused to accept great gifts of cash from various cities saying he would rather have their goodwill than their money. Bishop Thomas Langton said: "He contents the people where he goes best that ever did prince, for many a poor man hath suffered wrong many days, hath been relieved and helped by him, and his commands on his progress. And in many great cities and towns were great sums of money given to him, which he hath refused. On my troth, I never liked the conditions of any prince so well as his. God hath sent him to us for the weal of us all."
This proves that in some ways England was stable during Richard III reign because the people were satisfied to have him as king at the start of his reign. They were not only satisfied they were giving him gratitude for stabilising England.
In what ways was England unstable during the reign of Richard III?
There were many reasons why Richard III’s reign was unstable and I think that the main reason was because before he was even crowned on July 6th 1483 England was already unstable. For example, there were five different kings in less than 100 years. Also previous to Richard III reign, Edward VI had problems with faction. There was the ongoing feud between Edward IV’s family and the traditional Yorkist supporters vs. the family of his wife named the Woodville’s. This was to become a major problem to him during his reign as in 1483 many Yorkists rebelled against him, preferring to support the unknown Henry Tudor rather than the previous kings brother.
I think that because of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ theory Richard was never going to have an trouble-free reign especially as the mother of the two Princes, the murdered (Edward V and Richard of York) Elizabeth Woodville was on Henry Tudor’s side and to prove this she wanted her daughter Elizabeth of York to marry him.
Four months into his reign he repressed a rebellion led by his former supporter Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who wanted the installation of Henry Tudor, a weak Lancaster, to the throne. The rebellion was unsuccessful, however Richard realized that he would be under threat from further rebellion throughout his reign making it extremely unstable.
It is a fact that England would never be stable if the North and South were not united. Richard failed to do this meaning that the instability in England was greatly increased. Richard caused resentment in that there was patronage of the northerners in the South. A good example of this is that Richard gave many of the lands in the South to the Northern supporters. This subjected England to instability and created years of uncertainty, rebellion and danger according to the fact that he had destroyed the peace further.
England’s government was corrupt and had a continuance of the same personnel, for example, of Richards 54 councillors, 24 had served Edward IV, and 9 were to serve Henry VII (Henry Tudor.) To add to this Richard was never able to broaden his political base because of the factions he created between the North and the South, so he was a no win situation.
Throughout his reign there was too much opposition against him meaning that he could never be successful and was assured to have a short reign. Some of his opposition included the Woodville family, as they believed Richard might have killed Elizabeth Woodville’s sons. Henry Tudor wanted to become king and was also against Richard as he was a Lancastrian and Richard was a Yorkist. France and Brittany were in support of Henry Tudor and Henry also had the Lancastrian support from Earl of Oxford and Bishop John Morton. In other words this meant that he lacked important people on his side that may have helped him to remain king.
I think that that main reason why Richard III reign was unstable was because he made too many mistakes, for example, he failed to unite the North and the South of England and instead created more tension between them. He only had some of the North on his side and no important people were aiding him in his reign. He executes too many important people to insure he gets to the throne, including Earl Rivers, Richard of Gloucester, his nephews (Princes in the Tower) and later when he has been crowned Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. I also think that he is over ambitious in his actions and in the end they come back on him and he pays the penalty for them.
Do you find the arguments and evidence for stability or instability more convincing? Give reasons for your judgement.
I find the arguments and evidence for instability more convincing because there are definitely more arguments for instability than there are stability in this period. I think this may be partly due to the Wars of the Roses taking place between 1455 and 1487. The war was between the House Of Lancaster and the House of York.
Richard III was never going to have a simple reign due to all the propaganda against him so you cant really say that if the king is unsuccessful then the country will be stable. I also believe that it is very difficult to reform a country and make it stable after so many years of instability before Richard III came to the throne.
I think the only thing that was stable in the reign of Richard III was the Council of the North. However if there had been created a Council in the South as well he would not have been so unfair.
I think it would be fair to say that because of the image problems that Richard III had he was vulnerable to negative propaganda about the death of his wife Queen Anne and about his appearance (having a deformity.) It also goes to say that because he never produced his nephews to contradict rumours of their murders, he may have been guilty. All of theses things add together to make the people wonder about whether Richard was a good king or not and if he had no one on his side it would be very difficult to be in power over the country.
Bibliography
Internet sites:
www.richardiii.net,
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,
,
www.bbc.co.uk/history
www.encarta.msn.co.uk/people,
www.luminarium.org/renlit/richard.htm
www.richardiii.com/
Textbooks
“The Tudor Years”: John Lotherington
Peace print and Protestantism 1450-1588: CSL Davies
Richard III:
The Kings and Queens of England: Judith Summers
Articles in the pack
3.1 Richard III page 40
Spun against spinning article page 65