King Richard III
Yes, think Shakespeare.
From the Fortress of Solitude
Pleasant Grove
Hello Williamsons,
"Did you know that some of the family really believe everything you write about me in your stories?" Luella asked me last week while we were driving to Salt Lake City.
.
I was a bit surprised. "You mean some of them believe you really take your washing to the canal below the house and do it with a wash board?"
"Yes!" she replied.
I was even more surprised. "You mean to tell me that some of them really believe you use a WalMart shopping cart to cart your laundry up and down the hill between house and canal?"
"Yes!" she replied. "I don't think they understand your sense of humor."
"Its called satire and irony mother," I explained. "Its a simple bending of the truth to make things a bit more interesting. Buried within every embellished story is the 'real story'. You just have to do some digging to ferret it out."
"Well, some of them don't get it." Luella redirected the air conditioning toward her face for its full effect. Our Utah heat was causing persperation to form on her upper lip. I knew what was coming next. If she stayed true to form, she would try to distract me while redirecting the air vents on my side of the car's dash to blow on her.
"Don't even think about it," I warned as soon as she told me to look at the unusual cloud formation over the Wasatch Mountains. There was a long pause during which she dealt with the strangling effect of the seat belt.
"What about our Swedish relatives who read your blog? Are they going to understand the stuff you write is made up or are they going to believe it all and think I'm some loony ready for the home?"
"Do the Swedes have a sense of humor?" I asked.
"My Swedish grandmother was a serious woman," she replied.
"Who wouldn't be serious living on the open planes of Montana on a homestead without electricity and running water. I think having to use an outhouse in the dead of a winter's night would sure suck the laughter right out of you."
"She also had terrible asthma and the weeds were everywhere," Luella remembered.
There was another pause. I glanced down at the outside air temperature. The screen showed 97 degrees. "I think the Swedes have a sense of humor," I continued after awhile. "What difference does it make anyway? They live in Sweden, we live in Utah, we've never met. Let them think what they want. Besides, I think the stories shed some light on the real Luella."
"I'm not senile yet."
"What about the burners on the stove?"
"Once, just once," she became defensive. "Your father's the one who exaggerates. Don't believe the things he says I do either." There was another pause. I turned on the radio. Something about Mitt Romney came up that set her off in another direction. The city's tall buildings were coming into view.
I nodded while she expounded on all things political. I hoped it wasn't going to be a long afternoon.
Richard III our 14th Great Grand Uncle
Today we take a moment to read about one of our 14th Great Grand Uncles, Richard III of England along the Williamson line.
Let's begin with the Relationship Chart so you can see how it traces back.....
Relationship Chart
III Richard (1410 - 1438)
is your 14th great grand uncle
Father of III
Daughter of RICHARD
Daughter of Anne
Daughter of Anne
Son of Margaret
Son of Giles
Daughter of Sir John
Son of Grace
Son of Edmund
Daughter of Thomas
Son of Rebecca
Son of Cuthbert
Son of Cuthbert
Son of Mathew
William Jonathan Williamson, son of George Matthew Williamson (1858-1934) married Effie Helen Victor (1867-1944)
to their children
Ima Della, Vinnie, Inez, Lillie Ethel, Josie Elvery, Emmett, Walter, Charles, Maurice
to
Us
Richard III
1483-5 AD
Richard III, the eleventh child of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, was born in 1452. He was created third Duke of Gloucester at the coronation of his brother, Edward IV. Richard had three children: one each of an illegitimate son and daughter, and one son by his first wife, Anne Neville, widow of Henry IV's son Edward.
Richard's reign gained an importance out of proportion to its length. He was the last of the Plantagenetdynasty, which had ruled England since 1154; he was the last English king to die on the battlefield; his death in 1485 is generally accepted between the medieval and modern ages in England; and he is credited with the responsibility for several murders: Henry VI, Henry's son Edward, his brother Clarence, and his nephews Edward and Richard.
Richard's power was immense, and upon the death of Edward IV, he positioned himself to seize the throne from the young Edward V. He feared a continuance of internal feuding should Edward V, under the influence of his mother's Woodville relatives, remain on the throne (most of this feared conflict would have undoubtedly come from Richard). The old nobility, also fearful of a strengthened Woodville clan, assembled and declared the succession of Edward V as illegal, due to weak evidence suggesting that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous, thereby rendering his sons illegitimate and ineligible as heirs to the crown. Edward V and his younger brother, Richard of York, were imprisoned in the Tower of London, never to again emerge alive. Richard of Gloucester was crowned Richard III on July 6, 1483.
Four months into his reign he crushed a rebellion led by his former assistant Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who sought the installation of Henry Tudor, a diluted Lancaster, to the throne. The rebellion was crushed, but Tudor gathered troops and attacked Richard's forces on August 22, 1485, at the battle of Bosworth Field. The last major battle of the Wars of the Roses, Bosworth Field became the death place of Richard III. Historians have been noticeably unkind to Richard, based on purely circumstantial evidence; Shakespeare portrays him as a complete monster in his play, Richard III. One thing is for certain, however: Richard's defeat and the cessation of the Wars of the Roses allowed the stability England required to heal, consolidate, and push into the modern era. |
