If you don't call him traitor, what do you call him?

I've been reading Josephine Tey's DAUGHTER OF TIME courtesy of David Stokes, who sent me a copy. I'm 60 pages left to read and thoroughly enjoying it.

It is about a Scotland Yard Detective (or, a Detective from the Yard) who becomes intrigued by a print of a portrait of Richard III. He is a man who reads faces as part of his work, and becomes convinced Richard is not the murderer of Shakespeare's play. He begins research and concludes things don't add up. The man with the face in the portrait could not have murdered his two nephews. He just does not have a criminal face. The two boys ahead of him in the line of succession were killed by a a true villain, and Richard was not a villain. On the contrary, he was a good and just man.

And Henry Tudor, fated to be Henry VII, father of
Henry VIII and grandfather of Elizabeth, left his character open to question with his attack on the legal King of England. Tutor's Claim to the throne was on rather shaky ground. He defeated Richard at Bosworth Field with an army comprised of French mercenaries. Very unEnglish, ol' chap. So, in his lust for the Monarchy he led foreigners fighting for money, most likely loot, against his own countrymen for a Crown he had little claim to. In my mind that makes him a traitor. His son became a national disgrace, remembered a a fat, gluttonous swine obsessed with sex and looting the Church for the money to finance his obscene appetites. He did not create a new church as an act of conscious, but as an act of greed.

It was left to Elizabeth to build England's great navy, remembered as was Themistocles when he built a navy for Athens. The Greek navy destroyed the Persian navy for good. The Battle of Salamis in 480 BC insured Greek democracy until the Greeks destroyed it themselves decades later a result of the Peloponnesian War.

I've been consulting the final volume of a tetralogy about the Plantagenet Dynasty (Henry II was the Dynast and Richard was the last Plantagenet) . I first read them in paperback as a youngster, and several years ago I
found a boxed hardcover set in a used bookstore in Glendale at a reasonable price. The last 75 pages are about Richard.

I suspect Richard had been famed, and Thomas Costain, historian and author of historical novels like THE BLACK ROSE, and author of the Plantagenet histories, agrees. It was in Shakespeare's best interest to make the Tudors look good and Richard look bad. A child murderer. The only thing worse is a Tea Bag Republican.

Later I was thinking about THE THREE MUSKETEERS, which takes place right after the time of Elizabeth, with as King James and the Duke of Buckingham as featured players. In the films anyway, do we ever see the musketeers with muskets? No. Sword fighting only. Swords are expensive and it takes a long time to learn to fight with one. Fight well anyway. Fight so you can survive the experience. Fighting it out with muskets would be a dull affair. I don't think those guys were really musketeers. Mule skinners more likely.

As I recall they were at war; at war with who I don't know I'll ever remember. It may have been during the time of the the 100 Years War. The French are very crabby and were always ready to fight someone. It was a Century long slaughter between the adherents to two different superstitions, the major difference between the two was how money was to be exhorted from the working poor. The French needed money to buy food because they live to eat, not eat to live. The French will eat almost anything if its topped with the proper sauce. Depends what you consider what is proper and what is a sauce I guess.

I remember reading somewhere the Duke of Buckingham was the boyfriend of James I (who had been James VI of Scotland and was very gay, but not in the sense of being happy). I think its funny, both in the sense of strange and haha) that the man who ordered the Bible be translated into a language slightly more people than before could read, the Bible that mandated gay men be killed in some awful Christian manner for being gay, was himself gay.

Well, I suppose there was an upside. The James Court was chock full of hansom young men with a great fashion sense and were wonderful decorators (it would take several hundred years for them to get their own TV show, though).

The Duke may have paid a price for his Christian lifestyle. A Puritan Lieutenant in the army who went by the name of John Felton gave the Duke a blade somewhere in the torso. He went to Tyburn Tree for a necktie party crying like a little girl who's Christian faith was open to question.

James had to find a new Glory Hole.