Richard III And The Internet - November 9

Article from pages 3 - 11 of Dickon Independent issue 49

This is the final one of three talks given by members at last November’s meeting in Inkberrow. The other two talks are in “Dickon Independent” issue 47, pages 13 - 17, Pat Parminter’s explanation of parhelia, and “Dickon Independent” issue 48, pages 6 - 10, Mary Friend’s musings on what really happened in 1483.

Richard III is a very popular man. A search for “Richard III” on the Internet, using my favourite search engine, Google, came up with over 126,000 links connected with him! That’s a lot of web sites with some mention of him on them.

Many of these would be duplicates, and a lot wouldn’t work any more, but that still leaves an awful lot of work. I’ve done my best, but haven’t managed to check them all out yet!

So to stop you getting lost in the wealth of information available on the Internet, I’m going to tell you about the links I have checked already, which are on the Worcestershire Branch’s web site.

These will take you to the most important sites about Richard III, then you can explore further by yourselves. That’s the great thing about the Internet - one link leads to another, and another, and before you know it, you’ve been surfing for hours on your favourite subject - Richard III.

Don’t worry about trying to write anything down. You can pick up a handout at the end with the Internet addresses on, and the address of the branch’s website is on the back of “Dickon Independent”.

When you get to the Worcestershire Branch’s home page (the home page is the general term for the first page you get to see of any web site), you’ll see a row of links across the bottom, on the boar buttons. If you click on the button labelled Ricardian Web Sites, this takes you to another page of links to all the web sites run by the society and its branches, and also to the sites run by other Ricardian organisations, the Society of Friends of King Richard III, and the Richard III Foundation.

First, the Richard III Society’s site. Follow the links down the left hand side of the screen to find:
Information about the Society
Information about Richard, including a biography and his reputation, the Wars of the Roses, the Princes in the Tower - with links to the American Branch’s site for the full text of our favourite play and book, by - can you guess? - William Shakespeare and Thomas More.
Education: how to find out more about Richard and his times.
Richard Today: Richard in the media, Society news.
Ricardian sites - worth looking at for information about: Fotheringhay, Middleham, Sheriff Hutton, Bosworth, Crosby Hall
Affiliation and links: information about other organizations connected with the society such as the Ricardian Churches Restoration Fund, and links to other sites of interest to Ricardians, including a link to our web site.
Then there’s a list of contacts, which you usually get on a web site.

Across the top of the screen are more links:
A search facility.
A site map - very useful as it tells you what you’ll find under the various links.
What’s new - usually the first place to look at when you go to a site.
Forum - an area hosted by Yahoo where you can literally talk to fellow enthusiasts on line or exchange typed messages. You don’t have to belong to the society to join the forum.
Society area - you must be a member of the society to use this area.
Feedback - a form to fill in with your comments.

Second, a couple of branches in the UK have their own sites.
The Worcestershire Branch - lots of photos and information about places we’ve visited; details of our programme, what’s in our library, what’s in “Dickon Independent”, a brief branch history, and all these links to other interesting sites.
The Yorkshire Branch - hasn’t been kept up to date. Some nice photos of places associated with Richard in Yorkshire, but the links giving a larger photo and information about the place haven’t been completed yet.

Third, the web site of the American Branch is the biggest and best of all the society sites and very useful.
Some of the things you can find here are features on:
Richard III.
The Wars of the Roses.
Richard’s reputation.
Help for students.
The Princes in the Tower.
Details of Linda Treybig’s tour for this year.

And a chance to redesign Henry VII’s face which is good for letting off steam!

One of its most useful features is the Online Library, which includes:
Chunks of the Croyland Chronicle.
The complete Ballad of Bosworth Field.
Extracts from Fabyan’s and Holinshed’s Chronicles.
Richard’s statutes for the College of Middleham.
Extracts from Jeremy Potter’s book Good King Richard.
The full text of Titulus Regius.
Chunks of Vergil.
And the full text of Horace Walpole’s Historic Doubts.

There’s a drama section covering Richard III on stage and screen.
A study and teaching section that includes bibliographies.
A virtual tour of Barley Hall - a whole series of photos with descriptions.
A feature on the battle of Bosworth.
A lot of information on Ricardian sites in Britain, with numerous links to other web sites.
Groups affiliated to the American Branch are called Chapters but only the Michigan Area Chapter and the Ohio Chapter have their own web sites, but neither are up to date.

Continuing in alphabetical order with the links on our branch web page:
Australia has a couple of branches with web sites:
The Queensland Branch
The Western Australia Branch
The Queensland site has brief sections on Richard, the Princes in the Tower, the main society and the Queensland Branch. There’s a useful biography of Richard on the Western Australia site.

The Canadian Branch
Contains quite a lot of useful information - features on Richard himself, the princes, the battle of Bosworth, biographies of the key people involved with Richard, proof against most of the myths associated with our king, a chronology of events in his lifetime, and, on the links page, links to a virtual tour of Middleham Castle and Towton battlefield.

The New Zealand Branch

Finally, there are the web sites of the other societies dedicated to Richard III:

The Society of Friends of King Richard III and

The Richard III Foundation

The Society of Friends site includes the full text of the entry in the York City House Book recording the death of King Richard III, and also the full text of the latest issue of their magazine, “Silver Boar.”

The Richard III Foundation site contains lots of information about Richard, the House of York, the Wars of the Roses, Middleham and the Princes in the Tower. Well worth a visit.

Now you’ve found out about Richard and the places associated with him, you’ll want to visit some of them. You can go on a virtual tour of Britain, visiting castles, churches and towns, without leaving your home! But if you actually want to touch the ground he walked on, then you can plan your holiday and book where to stay on the Internet too.

Still on our branch’s web site, click on the blue boar button saying Other Web Sites.
This takes you to another page of links to all sorts of things associated with Richard -
Abbeys, Archives and original sources, Art, Authors, Battles and re-enactments, Biographical information, Castles, Churches, History, Medieval buildings, Miniature figures, Minsters, Model siege engines, Money, Museums, Needlework samplers, Princes in the Tower, Things to buy, and Tourist information.

From this page of links you can:
Look at Clarence’s bones in Tewkesbury Abbey.
Order your favourite painting by Graham Turner - he exhibits in the main marquee at Tewkesbury every year.
Book somewhere to stay in Yorkshire.
Visit the National Portrait Gallery.
Read Jack Leslau’s theories about the disappearance of the princes.
Visit Paul Remfry’s web site.
View the glorious colour illustrations in the early 16th century Founders and Benefactors book of Tewkesbury Abbey.
Read Richard’s letter about Buckingham.
Take a virtual tour of Middleham.
Find out what the Richard III Foundation has to say about the Princes in the Tower.
Read about the various battles of the Wars of the Roses.
Shop at the Richard III Museum in York.

Also on our branch’s web site, click on the red boar button saying Places. You can work through various links to counties of England, to find information and links to photographs of Ricardian places. Or click on the link at the top of the Places page, Pictures, which is an alphabetical list of the photos available on the web site.

Finally, you can read many original sources on the Internet too, and also get to see many illuminated manuscripts. A good collection of these are housed in Philadelphia. Many of them date from our time and some are of particular interest, such as the:-
Book of Hours By the Master of Edward IV.
The Historiated Initial E with King Edward IV and His Court.
The Pembroke Hours by the Master of Anthony of Burgundy.

They have recently been in an exhibition, called Leaves of Gold. The centrepiece was a magnificent genealogical roll, and I quote:

A Chronicle of the History of the World from Creation to Woden, with a Genealogy of Edward IV, known as The Edward IV Roll for short. This eighteen-foot-long roll consists of eleven vellum membranes glued together. It was made in England, after June 1461 (Edward IV's coronation) and before May 1464 (his marriage).
It was probably created to commemorate Edward IV’s coronation in June 1461, as it is a powerful statement of his authority and claim to the throne.
It was displayed right in the middle of the exhibition, in a case twenty-foot long. Laura Blanchard of the American Branch wrote the captions for it and the society have contributed towards the conservation of this manuscript.
The CD ROM of the exhibition, called Leaves of Gold, is available from the society’s mail order catalogue.

Click on the blue boar button on the right of the home page which says Ricardian web sites. Follow the links on this page to all the society, branch and other organisations who have web sites. Then click on the blue boar button which says Other web sites and follow the links to do all the other things I mentioned.

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