A Novel Way to Rehabilitate a King : Author Dumke Champions That ‘Foul Toad,’ Richard III

He is, by almost any yardstick, a thoroughly poisonous human being.

He sees to the killing of his brother, two nephews, at least three opponents, his elderly former boss, his wife’s ex-husband and one of his own staunchest supporters. He blatantly propositions the daughter-in-law of his former boss during the man’s funeral, marries her, and after her death, tries to marry his own niece. He is known by such endearments as “foul toad,” “minister of hell,” “infection of a man” and “lump of foul deformity”--and all these by just his wife.

Killed With Battle Ax

But, nearly 500 years after his head was split open with a battle ax to the supposed delight of everybody, Richard III, Shakespeare’s nastiest villain, has found a literary ally in Glenn Dumke.

Dumke, chancellor emeritus of the California State University system, a former professor of history and the author of four historical novels, thinks Richard has gotten a bad rap. The English king who Shakespeare portrays as a scheming, bloodthirsty, murderous, hunchbacked traitor was, Dumke says, actually a democratic, fair-minded, intelligent, loyal and beloved leader led astray by ambition.

Dumke was fascinated enough with the centuries-old controversy surrounding the reign and character of Richard that he decided to construct his fifth and newest historical novel, “King’s Ransom,” around him. In the book--written under the pseudonym Glenn Pierce--Richard emerges as an honorable man often victimized by the treachery of his contemporaries and who, partly as a result of their frequent treason, is beguiled by power and overwhelmed by a lust for it.

“As a person, he was a mixture of good and bad, with the good probably outweighing the bad,” said Dumke, who maintains homes in the hills of Encino and on Lido Isle in Newport Beach, where most of the book was written. “His good nature slipped when he usurped the throne, but he was one of the few serious-minded noblemen of his time. He was an excellent military strategist and a good administrator. Also, while all sorts of intrigues were going on at his brother’s (King Edward IV) court in London (before Richard became king), he stayed in Yorkshire, away from it all, and was very popular there.”

To read “King’s Ransom” against Shakespeare’s tragedy, “Richard III,” is to witness a series of points and counterpoints concerning Richard’s supposed evil deeds, or the lack of them.

Conspired With Thugs

Shakespeare, for instance, writes that Richard conspired with a pair of thugs, ordering them to kill his brother, the Duke of Clarence, held prisoner in the Tower of London. They go to the Tower, stab him, then drown him in a butt of Malmsey--a large vat filled with wine.

Pleaded for Life

Dumke’s book, however, finds Richard pleading with the king for the life of the treasonous Clarence and, failing that, is granted the favor of allowing Clarence to choose his own method of execution. Clarence, a drunkard, decides to underline that vice and chooses to be drowned in the Malmsey butt. And he is drowned, but by executioners--and with Richard’s great regrets.

Shakespeare also writes of Richard killing--or seeing to the killing of--the elderly and good-natured Lancaster King Henry VI and Henry’s son Edward, the first husband of Richard’s wife, Anne. Dumke writes that Richard merely witnessed Henry’s killing (a summary execution, actually, on King Edward’s orders), opposed it and was deeply troubled by it. Edward, Dumke asserts, was killed in battle--not by Richard but by the vicious Duke of Clarence, Richard’s brother.

Dumke’s story is told through the eyes of Godfrey of Westminster, a fictional squire to Richard, who later becomes a lay Cistercian monk and writes a biographical history of Richard, which is sealed with Godfrey in his tomb. Dumke, writing fictionally in the person of Glenn Pierce, discovers the tomb and Godfrey’s writings in 1986.

Richard’s bloodthirsty nature and lust for power, so prominent throughout accounts written by Shakespeare, Sir Thomas More (chancellor of England under Henry VIII) and others, doesn’t show itself until almost the final third of Dumke’s novel. In chapters before that point, the devoted Godfrey quotes Richard as saying:

-- Why is it that men deal in falsehood and lies and calumny and betrayal? Why is there so much viciousness?

--I have no . . . desire to rule other men. When I find myself in a situation where I must, then I shall do so. But I would not slay or betray to give myself a throne. . . .

--I will not be called a usurper. I will not seize what is not given freely by the people.

These contrast sharply with excerpts of Richard’s speeches from the first scene of Shakespeare’s play:

--I am determined to prove a

villain, And hate the idle pleasures of

these days. -- . . . I am subtle, false and

treacherous . . . --I’ll in, to urge his hatred more to

Clarence, With lies well steel’d with weighty

arguments; And, if I fail not in my deep intent,

Clarence hath not another day to

live.

Dumke does not paint a picture of a man who would have his two young nephews--heirs to the throne--murdered in the Tower in order to secure his own position as king. But, said Dumke, according to Shakespeare that is what happened.

“That’s a big issue,” Dumke said. “Whether he murdered the princes in the Tower. But I think Buckingham did it. He was angling for the throne himself.”

And, in “King’s Ransom,” that is what happens. The Duke of Buckingham is portrayed as a scheming usurper who pays two henchmen to smother the two child princes with their own pillows.

Also, where some historians assert that Richard saw to the poisoning of his wife, Dumke said that Anne “died of TB, not poison. He (Richard) was deeply in love with her.”

Richard’s “bad aspect,” Dumke said, had to do with his willingness to execute noblemen he believed were a threat to his throne.

‘Normal Procedure’

“He wanted power,” Dumke said, “and he executed quite a few people, which actually was normal procedure for that day. But he never did it whimsically. When he was dealing with the common people, he could be merciful and fair. But with the nobles, he could be ruthless.”

There are few moderate opinions about Richard, Dumke said. One person, however, who has heard both sides is James Given, an associate professor of history at UC Irvine who specializes in the study of early English and French history.

“There has been a certain amount of effort to try to rehabilitate Richard III,” Given said. “I think his behavior as king is seen as pretty much normal. He wasn’t a tyrant. But the fashion in which he came to the throne was not in accordance with what was normal for his day. If he didn’t have his nephews murdered (to secure the throne), he certainly condoned it.

“I think his moral reputation, though, was definitely blackened by the Tudor propagandists. He wasn’t a monster, but he wasn’t a pleasant individual, either. Still, there weren’t many kings who were pleasant individuals.”

Some of Richard’s champions have organized, Dumke said. Historical organizations, such as the Fellowship of the White Boar in England and the Friends of Richard III in America, have been formed to defend Richard’s name against the more historically conservative, who view him as possibly England’s most evil monarch.

“There’s still a tremendous argument going on,” he said.

Writes as a Hobby

Dumke said he writes not out of passion, but as a hobby. Of his four previous historical novels, three are Westerns, written under the pseudonym Jordan Allen, and one centers around Haroun-el-Rashid, the one-time Caliph of Baghdad. His sources for “King’s Ransom” were mostly histories favoring Richard, such as those written by the English author Horace Walpole and historian Paul Murray Kendall.

As for the maligning historians, particularly Shakespeare and More, Dumke suspects ulterior motives.

“Shakespeare was out to portray Richard as a monster,” he said, “because he knew that the more villainous he made him, the better the audience reaction would be. I think Shakespeare took his ideas from Thomas More, and I think More was just trying to butter up Henry VII (the first Tudor king, who assumed the throne after Richard was killed on Bosworth field).” More’s defamation of Richard, Dumke said, made Henry seem like a great monarch by comparison and helped legitimize Henry’s claim to the throne.

Dumke, a former history professor and dean of faculty at Occidental College and former president of San Francisco State University, said his studies and teaching experiences have convinced him that history can be taught and written about with flair.

History as ‘Art’

“I have always felt in teaching history that the best kind of supplemental reading was the biographical novel of the kind Irving Stone writes. You can arouse people’s interest in history without warping it or wrenching it out of shape. I think people turn against history because it’s often so poorly written and poorly taught. I don’t think history is a social science, it’s a humanity. It’s an art.”

Dumke, currently the president of a San Diego-based think tank called the Foundation for the Twenty-First Century, said he expects the book to cause controversy among Richard-watchers. The distribution scheme of the book is unconventional, too. The publisher, Medallion Books, will not offer “King’s Ransom” in retail bookstores, but will sell it through direct sales, mail order and network marketing, much the way companies such as Mary Kay cosmetics, Amway and Herbalife operate.

Meanwhile, Dumke is back at the typewriter working on another historical novel. And, he said with a trace of relish in his voice, it could be another controversy-stoker.

The subject: Benedict Arnold.