Fact and Fictions

King Richard III remains one of the most infamous and recognizable monarchs in English or British history, despite only sitting on the throne for two years and fifty-eight days. His hold on the popular imagination is largely due to the fictional portrayal of him by William Shakespeare which, combined with the workings of five centuries of rumor and gossip, has created two opposing versions of Richard. In fiction he is the evil, scheming murderer who revels in his plots, but many of the facts point towards a very different man. Dissecting a real Richard III from the fictional versions that have taken hold is made difficult by the inability to discern motives in many instances, leaving a wide gap for interpretation that can be favorable or damning in varying degrees. It is the facts that will act as the scalpel to begin the operation of finding a truth obscured by fiction. Richard III may have been a monster, a saint, or just a man trying to survive, but any view of him should be based in the realities of his life, not the myths built on rumor and theater. How much of what we think we know about England's most controversial monarch will remain when the facts are sifted from the fictions?

'Brandy for the parson, baccy for the clerk...'We have an image, mostly from movies and novels, of a tall ship riding gently at anchor in a moonlit, secluded bay with the 'Gentleman' cheerfully hauling kegs of brandy and tobacco ashore, then disappearing silently into the night shadows to hide their contraband from the excise men in a dark cave or a secret cellar. But how much of the popular idea is fact and how much is fiction? Smuggling was big business — it still is — but who were these derring-do rebels of the past who went against paying taxes on the importation of luxury goods? Who purchased the illicit contraband? How did smugglers operate? Where were the most notorious locations? Was it profitable, or just an inevitable path to arrest and the hangman's noose?