The Lost King:
From Richard III to Donald I

2,353 words

Philippa Jayne Langley (Sally Hawkins) is an office frump  in Edinburgh — and a depressed one. She is passed over for promotion because she isn’t charming enough, which is true. She dresses like she gets her clothes from a bad aunt’s closet, her hair is clipped, and her doleful eyes suggest a mousy wife whose marriage to John (Steve Coogan) is in freefall. Her two sons are obsessed with video games, and her husband openly tells Philippa that he has a mistress. This is not done out of bitterness; for all their marriage’s failings, John and Philippa are honest and rational. They may not be happy, but they are decent in the old English way. Sad and worn out, Philippa takes her oldest son — once she unplugs the computer — out for a night at the theater as part of a group to see Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Philippa has never seen the play before, and as humpbacked Richard (Harry Lloyd) cries out “my kingdom for a horse” as he’s gutted on stage, something clicks in Philippa’s mind: “I just don’t believe a man can be that wicked because of a disability. That doesn’t ring true to me.” One of the group, a frosty intellectual, is disdainful of her naïveté and nascent theatrical sense. There’s a lot of that disdain in this film, yet one is warmed by Philippa’s fighting back, not with sass or pithy feminist snappy comebacks but using diligent research out of a determination to see something done right. That thing is justice for Richard III.

Similar to his 2013 film Philomena, director Stephen Frears shows an ordinary woman thrown into extraordinary circumstances, and like that Irishwoman’s search for her lost child, The Lost King is based on a true story: Philippa Langley’s battle to discover Richard III’s long-lost remains.

Philippa buys an armful of books on Richard. Curiosity leads her to a meeting of the Richard III Society, alias the Ricardians, a well-known group regarded as cranks by establishment historians who claim that Richard has in fact been much maligned, and that he was a victim of relentless Tudor propaganda. Philippa feels rather than thinks, and is drawn to Richard, especially when it’s revealed that Richard has no burial site. After his defeat on Bosworth Field in 1485, his body was said to have been dumped into the Soar river, and there’s a marker on the bridge there indicating this. Surely “they” don’t lie, do they?

She confronts a historian concerning this fact, and once she identifies herself as a Ricardian, you can see the disdain in the man’s eyes. She is a kook! He dismisses her with a pompous chuckle. But Philippa isn’t deterred. She begins skipping work and ignoring her family to continue her crusade, further encouraged by Richard III (Lloyd) himself, who appears to her, crowned and in his royal robes, as a man with a gentle face and probing eyes — hardly the monster he has been made out to be. She fears Richard is a mere apparition, but continues her battle to find his remains in Leicester. She tries to see through the asphalt and concrete of modern England to that older world where Richard ruled, fought, and died. Philippa is an example of a very English type, one who seeks fair play and justice.

Richard is a silent presence as she prattles on about her doubts and determination, her problems with her job and family, and the research she is conducting, using old maps to locate Gray Friar’s priory where she believes that Richard, as a King, must have actually been buried. “Why don’t you ever talk to me?” she asks Richard. He smiles. “Because you’ve never asked me a question.” After that, a laid-back dialogue begins.

Doors gradually open for her in her quest. She researches medieval Leicester’s topography to find the priory. At a social services complex in Leicester, she believes she has found the gravesite: a parking lot with an “R” marked on it. Her hopes rise. But when she asks the attendant about it, he only shrugs — it means “reserved.” She soldiers on.

Philippa continues to do her research with help from a range of scholars. Like most good researchers, she finds many sources and pulls them together to arrive at a conclusion, not unlike the old BBC series Connections, where the genial James Burke demonstrated the long paths of discoveries, accidents, and fusions of ideas that led to today’s technological innovations. Philippa deduces that the parking lot must be the site of Gray Friars.

She then approaches the Leicester City Council, and explains how she feels. The Mayor, a woman, takes her to one side and counsels her to never say “feel” again. Say “think,” she says. She must speak with authority and knowledge to make her case. This could lead to funding, after all, and money doesn’t “feel.” Philippa takes the lesson to heart.

The Lost King is an admirable small film. The story is a must for the history buff or British film fan, and it features a strong cast where everyone fits their part. Sally Hawkins conveys determination and forces her character to get over her depression and inadequacy to get the job done. Philippa is a woman who, despite her mousiness, has a streak of determination, a common northern European trait. Philippa doesn’t shout or rage; Hawkins aptly shows the resolve in her eyes.

Steve Coogan as John is temperate and, while initially a disbeliever, slowly begins to support Philippa. Their marriage slowly returns to normality. “But Dad,” one of the boys says, “Mum talks to herself!”, referring to Philippa’s heart-to-hearts with Richard. John merely sighs: “Everyone talks to themselves.”

Aside from having a whimsical and likeable story, The Lost King depicts a very relevant theme for today: the questioning of official historians’ veracity. These act as a pin-striped moat for Philippa’s research, and there are parallels between their desire to retain Richard III’s negative reputation and the establishment’s never-ending assault on Donald Trump.

There are many books on Richard III, and perhaps the first to send me into the Ricardian world was Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, where he analyzes all the plays while providing hundreds of notes of historical, poetic, and literary importance.

Regarding Richard III, Asimov makes it clear that most of what you see in the play is indeed Tudor propaganda, historical facts mangled to suit the Tudors’ need to whitewash King Henry VII’s rise to power. Richard may well have been a cruel and ruthless monarch, but all monarchs were at that time. As Paul Johnson observed in his book A History of the English People, all the Tudors up to Elizabeth I were killers. The men Richard knocks off, one after another — Clarence, Buckingham, and so on — were schemers in their own right. In fact, many of their own atrocities were grafted by Shakespeare onto Richard. Depicted as a morose hunchback and murderous, plotting loner, historical sources suggest that Richard’s courtship with Anne Neville was in fact pleasant and cordial,  unlike the poisonous machinations depicted in the play. Richard was also considered a capable dancer, was much admired at balls, and was a fair, if not benevolent, ruler. Having kept northern England safe from Scottish incursions, he was well-liked there; it was London, much as America’s East Coast regarding Trump, that was far more hostile to Richard.

You can buy Trevor Lynch’s Part Four of the Trilogy here.

If Richard had a serious fault, it was that he was surrounded by unreliable, treasonous nobles who were ready to feather their own nests at the first opportunity. This likewise rings true of our Donald I, who made terrible choices for his cabinet and advisors. He wanted to cleanse the swamp while packing his castle with alligators of all hues.

Bosworth Field should certainly have been an easy victory for Richard were it not for the fact that the Stanleys, who had fielded a considerable number of troops, initially stayed out and refused to commit to either side, and finally joined Henry Tudor’s forces, which sealed Richard’s defeat. The Stanleys certainly seem like the ancestors of Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney, and Lindsey Graham.

Yet, all of this treachery was wiped clean when the Tudors rewarded their allies, not only with titles and privileges but via the prerogative that the victor always writes the history.

But what of the Princes in the Tower, the worst crime that has been attributed to Richard? It has been alleged, including by Shakespeare, that Richard had the two young sons of the deceased King Edward IV, who were 9 and 12 years old respectively, murdered while they were being held in the Tower of London. The oldest was to have been crowned as King Edward V, and it is claimed that Richard had them killed in order to secure his own claim to the throne. This has never been conclusively proven, however; officially they merely disappeared. Philippa asks Richard about this, and he says nothing, then walks off and fades away.

Did Richard have them killed? Probably. Even so, Philippa remains a stubborn English Antigone, and like that Greek heroine, she’s determined for Richard to receive a proper burial. Her search for Richard’s body ends when bulldozers tear away the asphalt to reveal the earth wherein the truth lies. A skeleton is found, and researchers conclusively prove that it is Richard III’s. Reaching past the barriers of official historical dogma sets things right. Her struggles are still not at an end, however; she also must do battle with a university bureaucracy that tries to elbow her aside to claim the glory.

Philippa’s quest reminds me of a lecture I went to many years ago given by David Irving. In his pleasant and light-hearted way, he said that his major complaint about historical research is that historians always go back to the same sources and documents. They never seek anything new or contradictory, but only what has already been said in order to support their own claims. Irving prides himself on seeking out as many undiscovered documents as possible, as well as conducting interviews with those witnesses who were ignored by the establishment’s historians. Irving’s style and conclusions may be controversial, but one can’t deny that his books have presented unique views of their subjects — and the system has been ruthless with him as a result.

It’s difficult to imagine another Philippa uncovering the truth about Adolf Hitler, who has been demonized as much as Richard III was. Writing about the Third Reich is as much a matter of demonology as history. Irving said that Hitler thought it would take 70 years for his views to be accepted and rehabilitated, but the continuing censorship of any challenge to the official view makes it difficult for anything to change in this regard. Although there have been efforts: the 2003 TV movie Hitler: The Rise of Evil was intended to try to put things in perspective, but when the Jewish establishment got wind of the script, they demanded changes. As a result, it still has a lot of the old canards, and when it was first broadcast, the commercial breaks featured advertisements produced by the Anti-Defamation League portraying happy, smiling rabbis playing with children. Likewise, in the 2004 German film Downfall, the actor who played Hitler, Bruno Ganz, was criticized by the usual suspects for depicting Hitler as kind and approachable rather than as a continually raging monster. Ganz nevertheless defended his performance, which was surprising.

We must also think of our own Richard III: Beginning in 1974 Richard Nixon was completely vilified, viewed as a tyrannical beast who had been poised to destroy democracy. A 1975 book by Jimmy Breslin, How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes of an Impeachment Summer, captures the sentiment among the journalists of the time. More recently, revelations about the CIA, the influence of the deep state, and reporting by Paul Craig Roberts have shown that the US military helped to defame and depose Nixon because of his overtures toward China. Nixon had been trying to slow the arms race — and thus the Pentagon’s budget. We should therefore be less certain about the old shibboleths of Nixon as a villainous usurper.

The Lost King is apt for an age when historical revisionism is rampant. In America we have the 1619 Project aiming to reinterpret American history through the lens of “racism” and “white privilege. David Hackett Fischer, author of Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America, has rued the traditional dating of the origins of American history to 1775, completely ignoring the colonial period that preceded it and the ways in which various British ethnicities influenced the American character. That 1619 project is desperately needed. 1775 was replaced first by Ellis Island, and then by today’s idea of a “nation of immigrants.”

Some have criticized The Lost King’s triviality, claiming that it is simply another British story of obsession with the royals. I nevertheless found Philippa’s struggle moving and enchanting as she grew her own character in her search for justice for Richard III.  It’s a solid film, and also a very white one. I was relieved to see a British film that takes place outside of today’s multicultural, repressive London. There is one PC moment in which Lloyd as Richard appears at a ceremony to honor the King. He greets a triumphant Philippa while holding his infant daughter, having come, he says, “to see all the fuss.” We see the girl’s face, and she’s Asian. I laughed out loud at that. They never give up trying to force racial assimilation — just as with denigrating Richard himself.

How will things work out for Donald I? Will history depict him as a tyrant bravely checked by liberals on January 6? A vulgar crook who unfairly stole the election from the good, sainted Hilary? As Russia’s catspaw? Or will the truth win out in the end?

Take heart in The Lost King, where Richard is found, properly buried in Leicester cathedral, and, after some dithering by today’s royals, even had his royal coat of arms enshrined at the foot of his tomb. He is no longer the cackling usurper . Sometimes, the good guys do win thanks to determined, common folk such as Philippa.

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