Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes [Paperback]

Bertram Fields (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 20, 2000

Notoriously immortalied by Shakespeare and historians, he is history's most infamous royal villian: Richard III, king of England from 1483 to 1485. Crazed with power and paranoia, he is generally supposed to have killed the youthful Prince of Wales and the aged Henry VI, drowned his brother in a vat of wine, poisoned his wife, and, worst of all, murdered his two young nephews, the older of whom was the rightful king--a reign of terror ending only with his own cowardly death on the blood-soaked field of battle.

But is all this true? Modern revisionists, citing the unreliability of Shakespeare's sources and the political agenda of historians in Richard's own day, have offered a far different portrait. A brave and valiant soldier, a loyal brother, and an intelligent, able king popular with his subjects and defeated only through treachery, their Richard is the victim of a deliberate campaign of slander devised by his Tudor successors to the throne.

In this comprehensive, meticulously researched book, renowned litigator Bertram Fields outlines and evaluates the arguments of both sides, sifting through five hundred years of legend to apply his highly successful courtroom techniques to the available evidence. Clearing away the dust of time, Fields reconstructs one of the most dramatic and turbulent episodes in history, analyzing the motives and machinations of the many players and emerging with the most definitive account yet of this most fascinating figure--and a powerful argument against acquiescing to common belief.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Prominent entertainment attorney Bertram Fields uses his legal expertise to analyze the life and times of Richard III in Royal Blood, shining a light on that most ambiguous and important period of English history, the years of the 15th century between the War of the Roses and Richard's bloody death at Bosworth Field. Rebuking traditional historians who have immortalized Richard as the treacherous usurper--the vile mastermind behind the deaths of his brother, nephews, and friends--as well as revisionists who treat him as the courageous victim of treasonous allies and Tudor power, Fields cross-examined all the earliest accounts, including Thomas More's history (which would serve as the basis for Shakespeare's play), exposing the geographical, political, and cultural influences that have shaped previous interpretations of Richard's career.

Among the many surprises is Fields's suggestion that Richard did not commit what is widely understood to be his most atrocious crime: the murder of his nephews, the Woodville Princes. With a lawyer's zeal for establishing doubt, Fields boldly entertains several possibilities for the princes' fates, arguing that other powerful contestants for the English throne, like Richard's Tudor successor Henry VII, could have been responsible for the deaths of the boys--or that the infamous killing might not have even taken place. Fields also speculates on what might have happened had Richard not become king. Would England have remained Catholic? Could the First World War have been prevented? Such conjectures may raise an eyebrow--they are as delightfully provocative as the rest of Royal Blood. --James Highfill --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Shakespeare (a Tudor playwright, after all) said Richard III did it. Contemporary mystery writers such as Josephine Tey and Elizabeth Peters would argue the reverse. And historians have weighed in on both sides. In another salvo in the bookish battle over whether or not Richard III killed his royal nephews in order to consolidate his power, Los Angeles entertainment attorney Fields offers a remarkably thorough and intricate history. After reading Fields's examination, readers will find themselves regarding British iconsAHastings, the Tudors, Dorset, etc.Awith new appreciation. Fields sprinkles this erudite look at 15th-century England with enough informative asides to make the complexities of the Wars of the Roses a little less overwhelming (e.g., the swashbuckling Sir Edward Brampton was the first Jew ever to be knighted). Fields also presents an interesting portrait of Sir Thomas More, one that makes him out to be as misleading as Shakespeare when it comes to Richard's villainy. The book ends with a "what if" chapter that posits an entirely different world had Richard III stayed on the throne. It's easy to see why Fields is such a successful lawyerAhis account is masterfully argued and expertly researched. It may be a little much for the casual reader, but then Ricardian revisionists rarely are casual readers. (Nov.) FYI: Fields, who writes Hollywood thrillers under the name D. Kincaid, started this book after his father asked when he was going to do something serious with his life.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (June 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060987383
• ISBN-13: 978-0060987381
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #986,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just the facts., January 27, 2000

By 

Sergio Flores (Orange, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes (Hardcover)

I remember reading Alison Weir's "The Princes in the Tower" in 1998, in five or six consecutive sittings at a Border's store, and how, in spite of the inherently interesting nature of the work, the author had, in my opinion, shot herself on the foot between pages 1 and 13, citing the sources and their credibility. Each source she considered credible, I saw as totally suspicious, and couldn't believe that a historian would mention their obvious bias and unreliability and, still, insist that they were honest, perfectly good sources of information (Rous, More, and others). Then I found Fields' work on the subject, and this author cast suspicion on the reliability of those same sources for the same reasons that they looked crooked to me, so I enjoyed his book a lot more than Weir's because it is more logical and, in view of the other biographies of Richard III that I've bought and read since then (Anthony Cheetham's, Paul Murray Kendall's, Charles Ross's), is far more worried with the real, reliable information, than with deciding on guilt with less than stellar witnesses, chroniclers, or Shakespeare fans. True, the last chapter is perhaps unnecessary, but it serves as a refreshing display of speculation next to a book that has been nothing but factual evidence, leaving the speculative domain to authors such as Weir, who has made a carrer out of glorifying the Tudors.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Poor Alison Weir, March 23, 2000

By 

P A Brown (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes (Hardcover)

Mr. Fields seems not so much a revisionist Richardian, as a foe of noted biographer Alison Weir. He really picks on her recent book in which she "proves" that Richard III was the evil uncle. Fields's legal background does bring an interesting approach to the fate of Richard's nephews, but he is a bit sloppy, contradicting himself and really not sticking to his analytical guns. To be honest, I will read just about anything about Richard III: he is a fascinating character, for good or bad, crooked or even shouldered. Still and all, nothing beats out Josephine Tey's "Daughter of Time" for sheer pleasure. I don't care if she wrote bad history. It was that novel that awakened me to the great joys of historical research and the need to look at all sides of an issue. I am not convinced by Fields or Weir, but I am willing to consider anything a dedicated, even obsessive, historian writes about Richard III, just for the fun of comparing and contrasting these heart-felt views. May the debate rage on!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting treatment of the mystery of the princes, August 15, 2002

By 

C. Quinn (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes (Paperback)

Written by an entertainment lawyer, this book provides a new look at an old mystery. Ever since I read The Daughter of Time, I've been interested in the questions surrounding the murder of the princes in the Tower, so when I saw this book in the National Portait Gallery in London, I just had to buy it. While few of the facts mentioned in the book are new, the way Fields treats the case is certainly novel. Although using our current standards of evidence to judge a 500 year old crime may strike some as excessive, Fields' approach does lay out a clear and concise case which could serve as a solid intro to the issues for a newcomer to this debate. The chapter of "what might have beens" was the most entertaining part of the book and reminded me that history is a living thing, subject to the whims of individuals. While we may never know the truth of who killed the princes, the amount of interest that this case generates even today highlights that most human of characteristics- the burning desire to know just for the sake of knowing.