<
>
Download

Aufsatz
Geschichte / Historik

Schools, Shrewsbury

A, 2016

Oskar K. ©
3.50

0.02 Mb
sternsternsternsternstern
ID# 59810







How effective was Richard III's response to the problems he faced during his reign?

Richard III was frequently met with problems throughout his reign, which comes as a given for a usurper, and in this essay I will discuss the effectiveness of Richard’s responses to these problems. Although Richard faced numerous challenges, the biggest ones were: poor relations with nobles; low finances and opposition.

I think that Richard’s responses to these problems were sensible majority of the time, but in order to secure his position on the throne he had to address the problems with nobility and opposition more than he did. According to some accounts Richard spent most of his time dealing with financial troubles and that meant that he did not focus enough on other challenges.

Richard dethroned (and most likely murdered) his nephews who were also sons of a beloved English ruler, Edward IV. This, along with other factors strained Richard’s relationship with the nobles, and if Richard wanted a long and successful reign he had to address this issue.

He began by trying to make his reign feel like a continuity of Edward’s reign. The goal was to show the nobles that Richard would pick up where Edward IV left off while at the same time hoping that the nobles would forget about the princess in the tower. An example of this was that out of 54 people named councilors under Richard, 24 have been councilors under Edward, and the judiciary for the most part remained the same.

Typically a new king would bring in a new group of councilors, legislators and advisers, but Richard kept a significant amount of his brother’s people which he did in order to show continuity. Richard also tried to keep the peers content during his only Parliament in January of 1484. Richard’s decision to end benevolences, which were forced gifts to the crown, was very popular among the nobles.

These decisions could be considered effective responses to the problem he faced, and the evidence for that is the fact that nobles agreed to Titulus Regius which indicated that many of them were happy with Richard being their new king. Nonetheless, Richard made several mistakes during his reign which antagonized or angered the nobles.

Richard established the Council of the North 1484 and this antagonized several northern nobles, including Northumberland, because they expected to be given more power now that Richard left north. Richard also annoyed southern nobles through his policy of ‘plantations’, after Buckingham, where Richard would place his retainers from the north in important positions on the south.

Ultimately Richard’s actions did not earn the loyalty of his nobles as he was betrayed by some of his nobles. However at Bosworth it was possible for any side to win and if Richard won the battle he could’ve overcome the problems with nobles. Richard’s reign was just far too short to see whether his actions would be effective in the long term.

Richard’s time on throne was marked by several financial strains, and the fiscal situation he inherited from the previous regime wasn’t very stable. With the abolishment of benevolences Richard had to find new ways of raising money. The new king began by following Fortescue’s advice of cutting down on the crown’s expenditure through retrenchments while at the same time introducing re-endowment which essentially were reinvestment of the royal funds in order to raise more money.

Most of the revenue was spent on the Scottish campaign and on protecting the Southern coast of England from French/Tudor invasion. However since his reign was so short it is hard to tell whether these changes would be effective in the long term, and although they probably would be, there is evidence that suggests otherwise.

The crown splashed out a great deal of money on ending Buckingham’s rebellion, and with all the uncertainty and tensions with the nobles and subjects it was hard to tell whether more major rebellions would spring up which would require large amount of royal funds to suppress.

In addition to that we simply don’t have enough evidence from the time period to know whether Richard’s policies were indeed effective, but the information that we have tells us that Richard was successful in preventing the crown’s bankruptcy.

Richard was successful in the way he dealt with uprisings since this rebellion was the first and the last major revolt of the reign. The Woodvilles were also a big concern for Richard with Elizabeth and her daughters in Sanctuary, Dorset in exile with Henry Tudor and other Woodvilles opposing Richard’s reign.

The fact that the former queen seeking asylum made Richard look like a tyrant, but after negotiations and several threats Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters left sanctuary. Richard was even able to convince Elizabeth to persuade her brother Dorset to come back to England, but unfortunately for Richard Dorset was caught and imprisoned by Henry Tudor.

King’s approach to this problem was mostly effective, but it took quite a while to resolve this issue. Richard was also very successful in his negotiations with Brittany and they agreed that Henry Tudor would be captured and returned to England. However Henry Tudor was able to escape to France which was very problematic as he was fitted out with a fleet of boats to invade England as well as 1000 troops.

Richard was successful in the way he dealt with opposition up until Bosworth

Richard’s reign was full of problems, many of which he was unable to fix. The challenges his reign presented were certainly very hard to overcome, but definitely not impossible. With better decision making, and possibly a bit more luck, Richard could’ve had a long and prosperous reign, but he didn’t.

This tells us that Richard wasn’t very effective at solving his problems since in the end he was lost the throne to Henry Tudor. Richard’s changes to finance were undoubtedly very effective in solving the crowns money problems, but he wasn’t as effective when it came to other difficulties .


| | | | |
Tausche dein Hausarbeiten