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Lot 4377
Great Britain. Groat, ND. S2157. N1679. Richard III, 1483-1485. Type III in Richard's name. Mint mark halved sun and rose. Obverse stylized though distinctive portrait of king facing. Reverse, long cross, quartering coin. Practically uncirculated with stunning facial detail on the portrait. Deep blue/gray toning with shades of aquamarine on the reverse. Flan a little uneven, but more round than most extant specimens. A superb example of the largest silver coin of Britain's most controversial monarch. Very rare, and especially so in this high grade. NGC graded EF-45.
* Richard III was king for only 2 years (1483-1485) and his body was discovered in 2012 under a car park in Leicester, not far from where he fought his last battle at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.
Richard III had the misfortune to attract the attention of 2 men of literary genius, Sir Thomas More and William Shakespeare. The former held up Richard for examination in the light of the new Renaissance learning, as a model of what a king should not be, while Shakespeare drew on More and other Tudor chroniclers, to produce a piece of propaganda which also happened to be a very entertaining work of art.
As the brother of King Edward IV who reigned 1461-1470 to 1483 (with a brief interruption 1470-71) Richard fought loyally by his side. Around him raged factional quarrels and duplicity. In 1477 the machinations of another brother, the oft-forgiven Duke of Clarence, became too much even for the tolerant King Edward. Clarence was sentenced to death for high treason and while Edward hesitated to implement the sentence, Parliament (the Commons) urged that he be killed. It seems likely that Clarence really was drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine as celebrated in Shakespeare's play 'Richard III.' It was his favourite tipple, and it seems that Clarence was allowed to choose his own style of death. According to contemporary chroniclers (as opposed to Tudor ones) Richard's voice was the only one to speak up for Clarence, and after his brother's death he was so overcome by grief that 'Thenceforth Richard came rarely to court and he kept himself within his own lands. The good reputation of his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers.' This good contemporary account of Richard's private life is in sharp contrast to Shakespeare's vilification. The picture of Richard which can be gleaned from the comments and records before he became king, and before the Tudor writers went to work on him, is by no means detailed but we get a picture of a man who was reserved, serious, loyal, and almost puritanical in his devotion to business matters.
On the death of Edward IV, Richard was established as Protector of Edward's 12 year old son (also named Edward) who would have been crowned King Edward V. The powerful nobleman Lord Hastings initially supported this course of events, but then switched allegiance to Edward IV's widow Elizabeth Woodville, who fled with her younger son Richard and her daughters, and sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Richard's reaction was as fast as the attempt to seize power by Elizabeth and Hastings had been. Richard had Hasting's executed and removed the two young princes to the Tower of London. At this stage it should be noted that the Tower was still regarded as a royal residence and had not yet acquired its sinister reputation as a prison. But the princes did eventually disappear.
Richard was declared King and was crowned at Westminster Abbey in June 1483. He set out to tour his kingdom, but he soon received news of a switch of allegiance by the Duke of Buckingham to the alliance which focused on Elizabeth Woodville and Henry Tudor.
As an exile in France, Henry Tudor had his eyes on the English crown and basked in new rumours that not only had King Richard ordered the murders of the two Princes in the Tower, but those of King Henry VI and the Duke of Clarence! Henry landed on August 7th in Milford Haven, Wales and gradually gathered an army which confronted Richard at Bosworth, two weeks later. It seems that Richard, accompanied by 80 devoted followers, charged straight at Henry, but this rash battle tactic backfired and he was overwhelmed and hacked to death.
The discovery of Richard's body after 527 years will do nothing to tell us who killed the princes in the Tower, or to what extent the Tudors' vilification of Richard was justified, but it does confirm Richard's manner of death. Interestingly, it also tells us that he was not as deformed as Shakespeare would have us believe. Richard had a sideways twisted spine which resulted from scoliosis and this caused one shoulder to be a little higher than the other, but he did not have a withered arm and he was slightly taller than the average height for the period. The supporters of Richard now hope that the image of the able administrator and loyal brother can supplant that of the evil deformed usurper so popular in Tudor England!
Estimated Value $5,500 - 6,500.
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