Literature / I, Richard Plantagenet Series

The I, Richard Plantagenet Series consists of five Historical Fiction novels by J.P. Reedman chronicling the life of Richard III from a first-person perspective. Richard is portrayed as a brave soldier and honorable man, but one with a streaks of impulsiveness and stubbornness that are largely driven by his desire to prove himself unaffected by his disability. The major, final events of the Wars of the Roses unfold through Richard’s eyes.

The first two books written are:

Tante Le Desiree (2015): Begins at the Battle of Barnet and covers Richard’s first taste of battle, his intense rivalry with his brother George, Duke of Clarence, his decision to marry Anne Neville and his complicated relationship with his brother Edward IV.

Loyaulte Me Lie (2016): Begins with the death of Edward IV and covers Richard’s decision to take the crown, his initial success as king and his disastrous decision to trust his cousin, The Duke of Buckingham. Culminates in Richard’s death at Bosworth Field.

Reedman then wrote a prequel series, chronicling Richard’s childhood and adolescence.

The Road from Fotheringay (2020): Begins with young Richard mourning the death of his baby sister Ursula and trying to make sense of the political machinations of his large, powerful family. A thin, nervous boy, Richard watches war rage around him and copes with the death of his father and brother Edmund as his oldest brother becomes king.

Vous Me Lie (2021): An adolescent Richard comes into his own as a Duke and a knight, making both friends and enemies along the way. He fathers two children with his mistresses, hones his military skills and navigates the rift between his mentor Warwick and his brother the king over the king’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.

Crown in Exile (2022): Richard chooses his brother Edward and flees into exile. Penniless and separated from his brother’s party, Richard has to survive and is determined to help Edward retake the throne. He’s also haunted by the idea his childhood friend, Anne Neville, is now married to his enemy.

There are several other stories and novels in the series, from other points of view.

This work contains examples of the following tropes:

Tropes #-H

• Altar Diplomacy: After Anne's death, Richard intends to arrange a match between himself and Joanna of Portgual and his niece Elizabeth to Manuel of Portugal.
• Artistic License – History:
  • The idea that Edward IV was poisoned by the Woodville family has been floated by a few historians, but it is still a fringe theory.
  • Nobody knows what happened to either of the Princes in the Tower. It's still mainstream to think Richard did it, though many also suspect Buckingham and some think Richard might have sent the boys into hiding. The book has Buckingham kill Edward V and an imposter boy while Richard sends the younger prince into exile to become Perkin Warbeck. This is all speculation which combines a few theories, including that Warbeck was the genuine article.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Anne is quiet and good natured, but she's Warwick's daughter. Richard is taken aback, but not terribly surprised, when she reveals her passionate hatred for her dead husband, her sister and George. Anne also takes to being queen quite happily.
• Big Brother Bully:
  • George bullies young Richard, though Richard develops a spine and stands up for himself.
  • Edward V bullies Richard of Shrewsbury, which winds up saving the latter's life as Edward V has made a servant boy a "replacement brother" and it is that boy murdered along with Edward V.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Rob Percy hires a dwarf to entertain on Richard's wedding night and the dwarf makes a bawdy remark about Richard that indicates that despite Richard's small stature, he has a reputation for being big in other areas.
• Big Sister Instinct: Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, is a tough young woman and a loving sister to Edward, George and Richard, though Richard notices she favors George. When Edward is deposed, she lobbies her husband for aid for Edward and negotiates George's return to the family.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Tall, handsome and fun-loving, Edward is a ferocious warrior and is not above personally breaking up a fight between his younger brothers.
• Baby Of The Bunch: Richard is the youngest surviving York sibling and very few people expect him to amount to much given his small stature.
• The Bad Guy Wins: A Foregone Conclusion. Weak and shifty Henry Tudor wins, thanks to the Stanleys.
• Best Friend:
  • Will Hastings and Edward IV are extremely close, to the point that Will is shocked when Edward briefly turns on him.
  • Richard and Francis Lovell are the best of friends, and Lovell stays ever loyal.
• Cain and Abel: Richard and George have a deadly rivalry, but not as deadly as the rivalry between Edward and George.
• The Casanova: Edward IV is a womanizer from a very young age.
• The Charmer: Richard doesn't have a taste for harlots, but if he sets about to seduce a woman, he usually succeeds. George remarks on this, incredulously, given Richard's twisted spine.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Isabel and George, with the encouragement of Warwick, fall in in love as children and George never wavers in his love. Richard eventually comes to love Anne, whom he’d had affection for as a child.
• The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Edward decides to have Henry VI killed and sends Richard to supervise, though he doesn't make Richard do it by his own hand. They tell everyone it was natural causes.
• Court Jester: Rob Percy hires a dwarf to tell jokes and sing bawdy songs at Richard's wedding feast. He even dresses in drag.
• Creepy Catholicism: Catholicism infuses every aspect of all the characters lives. Sometimes, it's quite a positive force, such as monasteries serving as Medieval Air B&Bs, but often it's quite eerie. Monks spy on Richard and Anne while she is in sanctuary, shrines and chapels are described in otherworldly detail and characters are perpetually praying and confessing. Moreover, this is a world where the church has power and if you break the rules, such as committing bigamy, that matters.
• Creepy Uncle: Inverted. Richard does not plan to marry his niece Elizabeth, though he encourages the rumor to troll Henry Tudor. However, he realizes to his horror that Elizabeth is in love with him. He tries to let her down gently, but she doesn't take it well.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Edward IV's death and the Woodville's attempted coup is this for Richard. As he orders execution after execution, he recognizes he once would have spared some of the men. However, he also realizes that he's in a very precarious situation and doesn't feel in a position to be merciful.
• Dark Lady And Black Knight: George and Isobel deeply love each other and support each others dark ambitions. She wants him to have the crown; he wants her to have all of her mother's fortune, cutting out her younger sister. They scheme and plot, but they are ultimately thwarted and, ironically, their Bright Lady And White Knight younger siblings get everything they desired without seeking any of it.
• Dead Person Conversation: The night before Bosworth, Anne's ghost visits Richard in a dream and tells him they will be together soon. He protests that he still has work to do, and he will marry Joanna of Portugal. She sadly tells him that will never happen.
• Decadent Court: Edward IV's court is filled with pleasure seeking, including food, drink and especially women. Richard notices Edward's gradual weight gain, and once he becomes a Family Man, Richard frowns on the debauchery. When he becomes king, Richard even tries to publicly Slut Shame Edward's favorite mistress, Jane Shore, but it backfires.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Cecily Neville shows little compassion for the five-year-old Richard's lack of understanding of Ursula's death. She scolds him for his confusion at the funeral.
  • Anne is shown doing her best to be a subservient wife, often agreeing to obey Richard without question even when she disagrees. Although, there are plenty of hints that this isn't easy for her.
  • Married women must cover their hair, and aristocratic women often do so with elaborate headdresses that are described in great, bizarre detail.
• Double In-Law Marriage: George marries Isabel Neville and Richard eventually marries Isabel's little sister Anne.
• Downer Ending: Richard’s son dies. Anne dies. Richard is betrayed and goes down fighting at Bosworth Field.
• Easily-Overheard Conversation and Exact Eavesdropping:
  • Teenage Richard and his squires become lost and happen on a religious site where Edward and Will Hastings not only happen to be, they are discussing Edward's secret first marriage. Young Richard barely understands the conversation, but it comes up years later.
  • Richard walks by the solar and hears his mother-in-law angrily criticizing him, while Anne defends him passionately.
• Evil Chancellor: Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, when Richard makes him Constable of England. He’s the one who murders the Princes in the Tower, though one of them is an imposter.
• The Fate of the Princes in the Tower: Buckingham tries to convince Richard to kill the boys, but Richard refuses. So Buckingham arranges the murders himself, having his men lock Edward V and another boy in one of his castles to starve to death. But he doesn't realize that the second boy is a servant friend of Edward V and the real Lord Richard remains alive. Before Bosworth, Richard sends Francis to take the younger prince, who takes the name Perkin, abroad.
• The Fettered: Richard takes honor and loyalty seriously, to the point of being uptight. Both George and Edward accuse him of being sanctimonious.
• Feuding Families: The Yorks and the Lancasters, two branches of the Big, Screwed-Up Family that is The House of Plantagenet.
• First Love: Richard falls in love with the beautiful young widow Katherine and convinces her to become his mistress. They know it can never last, but she becomes the mother of his daughter.
• The Food Poisoning Incident: As a boy, Richard eats too much porpoise at a feast, and he wretches. He's comforted by little Anne Neville.
• Foregone Conclusion: History shows that The Hero Dies.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Richard hasn't seen the widowed Anne since they were children, but she's socially appropriate, has a fortune and is pretty and good-natured. Unfortunately, George tried to stop the match and hides Anne away, which just makes Richard want her even more. He rescues her and proposes immediately afterward, to which she says yes.
• Garden of Love: While she is in sanctuary, Richard and Anne meet in the monastery's garden and get to know each other, sharing their First Kiss there.
• Giftedly Bad: Anthony Woodville is not a good poet, but thanks to being the queen's brother, he gets to recite his poetry all the time.
• Handicapped Badass: Richard dismisses the suggestion he become a priest because of his crooked spine. He works hard and becomes an excellent solider.
• Hidden Backup Prince:
  • When Richard is fleeing with Edward into exile, Edward insists they travel separately. George is a traitor and Edward doesn't yet have a son, so if something happens to Edward, Richard will be the Yorkist king. Richard is shocked to realize how close to the throne he has become.
  • When Richard sends his nephew Richard, who has survived Buckingham's murder attempt, to the continent, he effectively becomes this.
• Hiding the Handicap: When Richard shows Warwick his back, Warwick summons tailors that can be trusted to sew Richard's clothing to hide his crooked spine.
• Happily Arranged Marriage: Richard's parents had this, and Cecily grieves deeply for her husband.
• Happily Married:
  • Richard and Anne. At first, he worries she is only with him for protection, but he's wrong. She always cared for him and hated her first husband. They cause a minor scandal by sharing a bed, which most aristocratic couples do not do.
  • George and Isabel. They may not be the kindest people, but they love each other.
• Historical Domain Character: The whole novel is full of them.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: The entire Woodville family get this, as they are stone cold villains, one and all. It goes so far as to have them poison Edward IV
• Honor Before Reason: Richard has a strong case of this, lashing out at Edward for making peace with France. He also trusts Buckingham long after he should have seen the signs.
• Hospital Hottie: Richard is injured falling off his horse, and he is surprised that Pontefract Castle's resident nurse/healer, Alice, is a beautiful young woman. At first she's all business, but Richard charms her and she becomes the mother to his son John.
• Hot Consort: Elizabeth Woodville, obviously. She's got Edward wrapped around her little finger.

Tropes I-Q

• I Coulda Been a Contender!: This is how most characters, especially Richard and his mother Cecily, view the deceased Richard, Duke of York. Both look at Edward's excesses and his closeness with the Woodvilles as disastrous, and both believe the late Duke was robbed of his birthright and would have made a far better king and Cecily would have been a far better consort.
• Impoverished Patrician:
  • In general, being the youngest son of an aristocratic family means Richard initially has no lands and money and is expected to marry to get them. Even as his brother rewards him with lands and properties, those are expensive to maintain. He still struggles to maintain the lifestyle expected of a royal duke, not to mention support the two illegitimate children he has.
  • When Richard flees into exile after Edward is deposed, he literally doesn't have a dime to his name and has to beg for money from potential allies just to survive.
  • Anne suffers from this as she starts as a great heiress, becomes Princess of Wales and then is stripped of it all. George intends to take all of her money, and only Richard's intervention restores any of her wealth.
• King Incognito: Richard gets lost in the woods as a teenager, comes upon a young girl who takes him to a tavern. He claims to be Jockey's squire, which is impressive enough to the tavern owners, who ply him with drink. They are really impressed when Jockey arrives and calls Richard "Lord Richard" but they never do find out just how high ranking he is.
• Kissing Cousins: George and Isabel are in love and marry. Eventually, Richard decides to marry Isabel’s sister Anne. Both couples are first cousins once removed.
• Love Makes You Dumb: Ned loves Elizabeth Woodville so much he is absolutely blind to her faults and her scheming. He fully admits this to Richard, though he likely doesn't see her actually murdering him coming.
• Like Father, Like Son: Richard is short in stature, but a good soldier like his father, Richard of York. And when he recognizes he's going to to die at Bosworth, Richard realizes he's going to go out the way his father did.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Richard is given to bouts of clairvoyance, including a particularly intense sense of his own doom when confronted with the remains of his father and brother. Is this just good sense from a young man who has been raised with war and violence all around him, or is it something more?
• Nobility Marries Money: Richard needs to marry a wealthy heiress, and his childhood friend Anne Neville fits the bill. Her fortune is at least part of the reason he is so motivated to marry her after she is widowed, but the fact that he likes her and George is trying to steal her fortune and keep her from Richard factors in as well. When they finally do marry, Richard falls in love with her and is very grateful that he found love with someone he married for practical reasons.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Richard reaches his limit over George's efforts to keep him and Anne apart. He reminds George that while George is bigger, Richard was always the better fighter. He beats up George until George pulls a dagger. Then, Edward emerges and violently separates them before delivering his own beatdown on George.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Jane Shore tries her best to charm Richard and is shocked that he doesn’t find her attractive.
• One-Steve Limit: Seriously averted since everyone is named after everyone else. There is an abundance of Edwards, Richards, Johns and Annes. Richard of Gloucester and his wife Anne even remark on this, and the book makes it clear that Richard's brother the king Edward had expected them to name their son after him, to which the couple agrees.
• Parental Substitute: John Howard, or Jockey, acts as a father to Richard in early adolescence. He also is the one that clues Richard into Elizabeth of York's inappropriate feelings.
• Platonic Prostitution: Jockey takes Richard to a brothel to loose his virginity. The prostitute who takes him to her room recognizes that Richard, who is very young, does not want to be there. So, they talk and play chess all night, with Jockey none the wiser. Richard later has several liaisons before he marries Anne, but he's never interested in harlots.
• Princess in Rags:
  • George locks up Anne as a servant but Richard finds her.
  • Gender swapped when Richard arrives in Bruges after Warwick deposes Edward. Richard, who is at the time heir to the throne thanks to George's treason, has no money and only the clothes on his back, which are in tatters.
• Properly Paranoid: Richard doesn't trust Will Hastings, and wouldn't you know it? He's right. If only he had realized in time about Buckingham...

Tropes R-Z

• Rationalizing the Overkill: Richard has Will Hastings executed so quickly that they don't have time to build a scaffold. He later worries if this was necessary but tells himself he did what he had to do.
• Requisite Royal Regalia: Once Richard seizes the throne, he and Anne dress the part, and even give each other lavish clothing as gifts. Truth in Television as the descriptions in the book are based on historical records.
• Rescue Romance: Richard's romance with Anne is this. She was too young for him to have any romantic interest for him when they parted, but he's not happy to hear the pretty, sensible girl has been married off to the Royal Brat Prince Edward. When Anne is widowed, Richard wants to marry her and his desire to do so only grows as George tries to thwart the match and take Anne's money for himself. George hides Anne in a kitchen and Richard rescues her. He proposes before taking her into sanctuary and she says yes.
• Royal Brat:
  • Edward V is shown to be this, obnoxiously so. It makes it easier for Richard to seize the throne.
  • George, when they are boys, is the bratty and entitled York boy.
  • Edward of Lancaster is a preening and selfish and is mean to his young wife.
  • Averted with Richard of York aka Richard of Shrewsbury. Richard III is told his nephew is adjusting well to his new life and knows not to speak of his past, clearly recognizing the peril he is in.
• Sent Into Hiding: The fate of the younger of the two princes in the tower. It's also mentioned as a possibility for Richard, if Edward were to be killed during the restoration of Henry VI.
• Sibling Rivalry: Epically so.
  • George and Richard get into a spectacular row over the Neville fortune and Richard’s desire to marry Anne. It comes to blows.
  • George wants the crown, and thinks he’d make a better king than Edward. He rebels.
  • Isabel doesn’t seem to have a problem disinheriting her little sister.
• Smug Snake: Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham oozes smugness, even as a child.
• Spare to the Throne:
  • George is this, up until Edward has a son, and it goes to his head.
  • Richard becomes this, after George rebels with Warwick. As they flee into exile, Edward tells them they have to travel separately, because Edward doesn't yet have a son so if anything happens to Edward, it will be Richard who must press the York cause. Richard is shocked, as he had been born with George and Edmund between himself and Edward, and never thought to be so close to the crown.
• Teen Pregnancy: Richard fathers two illegitimate children with two different mistresses as a teenager, and then he marries Anne and she soon becomes pregnant, so all three of his children are conceived before he is even twenty-one. This leads to him learning he is about to become a grandfather by his recently married daughter Katherine, shortly before his death at thirty-two.
• Together in Death: Comes up a couple of times.
  • Richard is the chief mourner at his father and brother's funeral, where Richard oversees them being buried together.
  • When Richard hears that an imposter boy was killed along with Edward V, he orders them buried together near Edward's father. He says the imposter died in service to Edward and deserves to be honored accordingly.
  • Anne's ghost visits Richard before Bosworth, telling him they will be reunited soon.
• Victory Sex: Anne and Richard have this the night of their coronation.
• Warrior King and Warrior Prince: Both Edward and Richard qualify as these.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Richard knows his nephews are a threat, but he knows killing children is immoral, and on top of that, if anything happened to them under his watch he'd be blamed. He resists Buckingham's pressure to have them eliminated.
• Would Hurt a Child: Henry Stafford definitely would and does.
• Unholy Matrimony: George and Isabel may be treacherous, ambitious and grasping, but they deeply love each other.

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