Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

Lambert, Thomas (2024): Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism.

Abstract

Over the last 10 years or so there has been a resurgence of interest in the English king Richard III, especially after his remains are found in 2012 after being lost or missing for centuries. Prior to this, there are many publications, reports, and documentaries alluding to a “smear” campaign being conducted against the king by either the Tudor monarchs who succeeded him and/or by their confederates and surrogates. It is alleged that this is done in order to promote and make the Tudor dynasty of the 16th Century (Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I) appear to be much better leaders by comparison and to make the social and economic times of Tudor England look better than the bloody and bad times of the 15th Century. The latter is characterized by the continuation and final ending of the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses as well as by Richard’s alleged usurpation of the crown and tyranny during his brief reign (1483-1485). William Shakespeare is even accused of being complicit in promoting the Tudor myth, although perhaps unwittingly due to his reliance on the history being disseminated in his time, long after the demise of Richard III. Since fairly advanced and well-reasoned conjectures of economic activity now exist for the 15th and 16th Centuries, this paper examines the economic times of Richard III and his predecessors of the 15th Century and compares these to those of his Tudor successors. The conjectures show poorer economic performance and higher taxation during the Tudor reign compared to the previous century, and this makes one wonder if another reason for the creation of the Tudor myth is to downplay bad economic performance during their reign. It also raises the question as to whether the vilification of Richard III also helps to obscure the bad economy of 16th Century England. When examined from a long run perspective, this poor economic performance can be considered part of the economics discussion of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Richard III’s demise and vilification possibly and partially can be understood in the context of this transition.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Richard III, Tudors, Tudor myth, transition debate, long wave cycles, real net national income per capita, real GDP per capita, Shakespeare
• Subjects: B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B5 - Current Heterodox Approaches > B51 - Socialist ; Marxian ; Sraffian; N - Economic History > N1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics ; Industrial Structure ; Growth ; Fluctuations > N13 - Europe: Pre-1913; N - Economic History > N4 - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation > N43 - Europe: Pre-1913; N - Economic History > N9 - Regional and Urban History > N93 - Europe: Pre-1913

References

Ashdown-Hill, John. 2010. The Last Days of Richard III. London, UK: The History Press.

Baran, Paul A. 1957. The Political Economy of Growth. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Baran, Paul A. and Paul M. Sweezy. 1966. Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.

Blanchard, I. (1970). “Population Change, Enclosure, and the Early Tudor Economy.” The Economic History Review, 23(3), 427–445. https://doi.org/10.2307/2594614 .

Bonney, Richard. 1995. “Revenues.” In Economic Systems and State Finance, Richard T. Bonney, Editor. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press.

Brayson, Alex (2019) "The Fiscal Policy of Richard III of England," Quidditas: Vol. 40, Article 9. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/rmmra/vol40/iss1/9 .

Brenner, Robert. 1985. “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe.” In T.H. Aston and C.H.E. Philpin, Editors, The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge, UK: Oxford University Press.

Broadberry, S., Campbell, B., Klein, A., Overton, M., & Van Leeuwen, B. 2015. British Economic Growth, 1270–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107707603 . Data set located at https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/economic-history/british-economic-growth-12701870?format=PB . Accessed on June 18, 2020.

Brustein, R. S. 2009. The Tainted Muse: Prejudice and Presumption in Shakespeare and His Time. United Kingdom: Yale University Press. Carson, Annette. 2009. Richard III : The maligned king. History Press. Retrieved January 21 2024 from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1572155 .

Carson, Annette, John Ashdown-Hill, Philippa Langley, David R. Johnson, Wendy Johnson. 2014. Finding Richard III: The Official Account of Research by the Retrieval and Reburial Project. July 1, 2014. Published by Imprimis Imprimatur.

Cipolla, Carlo M. 1993. Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy 1000-1700, Third Edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company.

Clark, Gregory. 2007. “The Long March of History: Farm Wages, Population, and Economic Growth, England 1209-1869.” The Economic History Review, 60(1), new series, 97-135. Retrieved December 16, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4121997 .

Clark, Gregory. 2009. “The Macroeconomic Aggregates for England, 1209-2008”, UC Davis, Economics WP 09-19. http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/data.html . Accessed on February 23, 2020.

Clark, Gregory. 2010. ‘The Macroeconomic Aggregates for England, 1209-2008.” Research in Economic History, 27: 51-140.

Dobb, Maurice. 1947. Studies in the Development of Capitalism. New York: International Publishers Company.

Elton G. R. (1953). The Tudor Revolution in Government: Administrative Changes in the Reign of Henry VIII. University Press. January 29 2024.

Gelabert, Juan. 1995. “The Fiscal Burden.” In Economic Systems and State Finance, Richard T. Bonney, Editor. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press.

Goddard, Richard. 2016. Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England, 1353-1532. Published by Palgrave-MacMillan.

Hatton, Vanessa. 2013. “The Vilification of Richard III.” Crescat Scientia Journal of History, Vol. 10, pages 61-83. Utah Valley University. https://www.uvu.edu/hps/journal.html .

Hexter, J. H. (1961). The Myth of the Middle Class in Tudor England. Northwestern University Press.

Lambert, Thomas E. 2020. “Game of Thrones, Game of Class Struggle, or Other Games? Revisiting the Dobb–Sweezy Debate.” World Review of Political Economy, 11(4), 455–475. https://doi.org/10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.11.4.0455 .

Langley, Philippa and Michel Jones. 2014. The King’s Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds. New York, NY: St Martin’s Press.

Langley, Phillipa. 2023. The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case. November 23, 2023. Published by Pegasus Books.

Mason, Paul. 2014. “What Shakespeare Taught Me about Marxism,” The Guardian, November 2, 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/02/sharkespeare-marxism-feudalism-capitalism . Accessed on February 15, 2024.

More, Thomas and J.R. Lumby. (1883). More's history of King Richard III. University Press.

O’Brien, Patrick K. and Philip A. Hunt. 1999. “England, 1485-1815.” In The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200-1815, Richard T. Bonney, Editor. Oxford University Press. Data: https://www.esfdb.org/Table.aspx?resourceid=11458 .

Ormrod, W.M. 1995. “The West European Monarchies in the Later Middle Ages.” In Economic Systems and State Finance, Richard T. Bonney, Editor. Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press.

Ormrod, W.M. 1999. “England in the Middle Ages.” In The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe, c. 1200-1815, Richard T. Bonney, Editor. Oxford University Press.

Porter, Linda. 2007. The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary" July 8, 2008. Published by St. Martin's Press.

Royal Shakespeare Theater. 2024a. Dates and sources: When Shakespeare wrote Richard III and where the story came from. https://www.rsc.org.uk/richard-iii/about-the-play/dates-and-sources . Accessed on January 20, 2024.

Royal Shakespeare Theater. 2024b. Stage history: The stage history of Richard III from the time Shakespeare wrote it to the present day. https://www.rsc.org.uk/richard-iii/about-the-play/stage-history . Accessed on January 20, 2024.

Shakespeare, William. (2001). The Tragedy of King Richard III. Oxford Paperbacks.

Starr Brown, Rebecca. 2017. The Tudor Myth. https://rebeccastarrbrown.com/2017/07/04/the-tudor-myth/ . Accessed on January 28, 2024.

Suzelis, Natalie. 2021. “Shakespeare and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism Ecology, Reproduction, and Commodities.” Carnegie Mellon University. Thesis. https://doi.org/10.1184/R1/14466141.v1

Tawney, R. H. 1912. The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century. New York, NY: Longmans, Green and Co.

Thornton, Tim. 2021. “More on a Murder: The Deaths of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, and Historiographical Implications for the Regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII.” History, 106: 4-25. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.13100 .

"Trial of Richard III, The" 1984. Documentary, ITV production, aired November 4, 1984. http://bufvc.ac.uk/shakespeare/index.php/title/22084 (Accessed 21 Jan 2024).

Trial of Richard III. 1996. Indiana University Bloomington Law Library. https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/c534g4366/section/mp48sv379.

Wood, Charles T. 1992. “Richard III And The Beginnings Of Historical Fiction,” The Historian, 54:2, 305-314, DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6563.1992.tb00855.x