I don't know who killed the Princes in the Tower. But Richard III was innocent, OK. And I have now officially joined the society fighting to clear his good name.
More than five centuries after England's most reviled king died at the Battle of Bosworth (causing innkeepers up and down the land to spend the night hastily painting over their White Boar signs - his emblem that had been patriotically displayed everywhere until 1485 - with whatever blue paint they had in the house, leaving Britain with its surfeit of Blue Boar pubs to this day), a quiet army is still mobilised in Richard's defence.
Their argument is that pretty much everything we know about Richard III comes from Shakespeare's play. And pretty much everything Shakespeare knew about him came from a history written by Sir Thomas More. And More was only five years old when Richard died, so what did he know? He was writing as an adult, well into the Tudor era - making his work a mixture of gossip and victor's history. And if you disregard More, everything is up for grabs. So who knows? Richard might easily be the good guy after all.
As the Richard III Society's patron, the present Richard, Duke of Gloucester, puts it: "… the purpose and indeed the strength of the Richard III Society derive from the belief that the truth is more powerful than lies - a faith that even after all these centuries the truth is important. It is proof of our sense of civilised values that something as esoteric and as fragile as reputation is worth campaigning for."
Anyone willing to pay £18 for the privilege can join the struggle for a year. Then you just go to www.richardiii.net and read the Mission. And you're away. On trips to see Bosworth, or conferences to discuss what might really have happened, or reading a magazine in which the 3,500 members, amateur and professional historians both, describe modern outings - an afternoon's jousting or a Royal garden party - or pull apart each other's versions of the historical truth.
Was Bosworth Field quite where we have always thought (or two miles away)? Were the two children's bodies found buried in the Tower of London in the 17th century really those of the two missing boy princes supposed to have been murdered by their wicked hump-backed uncle? Were they illegitimate? Was their father illegitimate? Was it perhaps Henry VII who did away with them? Or did they live long happy lives behind assumed names under the Tudors?
There are a host of other theories about complicated identity swaps, worthy of the funnier kind of Shakespeare play, most of which could only be proved if someone royal and mediaeval were exhumed to see if their DNA matches that of their alleged relatives. So let's get swabbing, member after member urges. Dig 'em up.
Behind the theories, there's plenty of real horror to be found in this history. The chronicler Philippe de Commynes gives a vivid account of the bloody confusion of one hand-to-hand mediaeval battle: the force of the Count of Charolais separated from the main army; the Count himself so covered with blood as to be unrecognisable after a near-deadly throat wound; the banners that served as rallying points for troops torn to shreds. "Amist flattened fields of wheat, a huge dust storm had been kicked up, obscuring friend and foe. The small group of 30 or 40 men anxiously waited in the swirling semi-darkness as clutches of horsemen appeared and disappeared in the gloom. They knew that if the enemy arrived in force they would be wiped out or captured. Yet there was nothing to do but stand their ground, hoping that some of their own men would return." As Michael K Jones observes in Bosworth 1485: Psychology of a Battle: "Commynes' lesson is that while some people fought bravely in the thick of the struggle, many others on both sides simply ran off. Battle was terrifying."
No wonder we can't be sure today quite what happened at Bosworth, or in the deadly political power struggles of late 15th-century England. And no wonder - with half a millennium of safety between us and that almost surreally scary time - that so many of us so enjoy this jolly Agatha Christie detective version of a horrible time in history.
There are lots of other groups like this. The De Vere Society is one that comes to mind, promoting the idea that the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, wrote Shakespeare (or was the true Shakespeare Francis Bacon?). And what about the way we've lapped up Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code? It's as good as a dog having a wet nose to live in a community where these societies and beliefs flourish. Their cosy causes and cheerful conspiracy theories prove, if nothing else, that their members have nothing very urgent to worry about in their own lives. Their existence is the mark of a basically contented society.
We are now living through what will probably be the next historical episode to give rise to half a millennium's worth of conspiracy theories. Or, at least, we aren't, but millions of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and possibly soon Iran are.
I like to think that 500 years hence, healthy, wealthy Iraqis and Afghans, often wearing anoraks and retired from nice quiet jobs to nice safe houses with nice loving families and a bit of time on their hands, will be emailing each other then with wacky theories about whether Michael Moore was George Bush's love child and Condy was secretly married to Bin Laden (or vice versa. Whatever).
Might there be coach trips to Tora Bora, guided tours round Abu Ghraib (refreshments extra) and day-long visits to the historic war damage of Fallujah? Everything is possible, though this happy outcome is clearly still some way off.
All I know is that, if I lived to see it, I'd write the historical society of the day a membership cheque for £18 too. It would be cheap at many times the price.
Those who specialize in English rather than history seem to have an inordinate fascination with this controversy, as evidenced by the many historical novels on the subject. Real historians, however, do not base their analysis on Shakespeare, who is far from an authoritative source of information for this or any other period. If one truly takes these figures seriously, rehabilitating Richard III by raising all kind of unproven accusations about the legitimacy of Edward IV, his wife Elizabeth Woodville, and his many children is a strange way to exhibit one's concern. Rehabilitating Richard III requires that all of these individuals be participants in, or the product of, nefarious activities. We all love the underdog, but coming to this conclusion seems like a lot of work to me. Most people who champion Richard III seem to be more interested in conspiracy theories than anything else. Rory Gray
Slices of London: e-mail Urban Fox here
