Richard's anxiety

It could be scary stuff to be told that your beloved Father and
teenage brother were captured, decapitated and their
head pushed onto
spikes which were on Micklebar, a gate tower
overlooking York. Deep
anxiety reactions could follow, lashing out quickly in
self defence,
as Richard did in 1483.

Bear in mind Richard was ONLY eight years old when he heard this news.
A sensitive age. Thomas More said that Richard was anxiety prone over
sleeplessness regarding the fate of his nephews and before Bosworth.
Richard may well have been set up for this in his childhood through
the extremely provocative actions of the Lancasrians headed by the
unlikely Saint Henry VI!

--- In , "willison2001"
<willison2001@y...> wrote:
> It could be scary stuff to be told that your beloved Father and
> teenage brother were captured, decapitated and
their
> head pushed onto
> spikes which were on Micklebar, a gate tower
> overlooking York. Deep
> anxiety reactions could follow, lashing out quickly
in
> self defence,
> as Richard did in 1483.
>
> Bear in mind Richard was ONLY eight years old when he heard this
news.
> A sensitive age. Thomas More said that Richard was anxiety prone
over
> sleeplessness regarding the fate of his nephews and before
Bosworth.
> Richard may well have been set up for this in his childhood through
> the extremely provocative actions of the Lancasrians headed by the
> unlikely Saint Henry VI!

That much I'd agree. I think it's inconceivable that it wouldn't have
left him a bit nervous. Also, just to draw from the evidence, the
nerves are clear in the summer of 1483 - eg the letters to York and
Lord Neville; also there is the prayer copied into the back of his
prayer book. The question has to be, were his fears justified in
1483? I think we're coming closer together, as that kind of
insecurity can make a person lash out in particular circumstances,
but it's a different thing from being 'brutalised' - ie just plain
cruel and callous. There is also plenty of evidence that Richard's
childhood experiences left him wat the very least with a deep sense
of gratitude to people who had risked their lives to help his father,
and a reverence for his father's memory, a sort of hero-worship of
his father's virtues which would have encouraged him to emulate them.
So the effects were not entirely negative.