REVIEW: Richard III Museum, York

It's fair to say that the recent rediscovery of the skeleton of Richard III beneath a Leicester car park has helped to reignite interest in the last Plantagenet king of England. It certainly helped to reignite my interest; perhaps unsurprisingly, given that I'm quite a big history buff and it was only a few years ago that I studied Richard's usurpation of the English throne as part of an English and History degree. Hence, it seemed like an apt time for me to travel down to York - with which Richard had a strong association - to visit the Richard III Museum, which attempts to get visitors thinking about the mystery of the Princes in the Tower within a building with a genuine direct historical link to Richard.

Early impressions more favourable than Richard's posthumous reputation

As you can see from the photo I took of the building, it certainly is a visually striking historical building - one of very many still standing in York. Indeed, the building itself might alone provide many people with enough reason to visit the museum - I found even simply walking up the short but slightly cramped flight of steps leading up to the museum proper a fascinating experience. Many people might also, like me, be fascinated to know that the construction of the building's top floor was allegedly funded by Richard himself in 1484 - yes, while he was king - and that the building also includes two very small rooms previously used for centuries as prison cells.

Once I entered the building's lower floor, I was faced with a Richard III themed gift shop - which, like the building as a whole, could alone make a visit to the building very worthwhile. Conveniently, it was also free to browse. Despite the typically stuffy nature of history as a subject, one of the real charms of the museum is that the people responsible for putting it together obviously don't take the whole subject too seriously - and, indeed, why should they, when there are plenty of academic books on Richard that do that already? One good example of this was the gift shop's board indicating the people voted for by the museum's visitors as being the likeliest to have murdered the Princes in the Tower; the people voted for ranged from entirely serious suggestions like Richard and the Duke of Buckingham to the blatantly silly like Justin Bieber and Jonathan Ross.

A delightfully lighthearted spin on the mystery of the Princes in the Tower

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the museum, however, was the exhibition which took up the floor above that of the shop. This exhibition - the title of which, clearly displayed on a notice, was 'The Trial of Richard III' - intended, as its title suggests, to investigate the mystery for which Richard III is best known, that of what actually happened to the Princes in the Tower. The pleasantly lighthearted feel of the museum extended to this exhibition, featuring as it did a statue of a clearly disgruntled Richard standing in the dock and a recurring recording - which couldn't have lasted much longer than about five minutes at a time - of voice actors taking the roles of Richard and those questioning him in court. At a nearby table, people could cast their votes for who they believed really killed the princes; a notice indicated that Richard was the most popular choice, followed by Henry VII and then the duke of Buckingham, who I reckon should have attracted more of the votes.

Less humourous than the mock trial, but almost as interesting, were the two former prison cells which also occupied this floor. Certainly, being able to enter each of these small rooms and look outside the nearby window in each one, imagining what it must have been like for someone kept in one of these rooms, was fascinating stuff. This was only encouraged by the information on a notice in one of the rooms that a Roman Catholic, Alice Bowman, was transferred to the room, then a prison cell, in 1594 after imprisonment elsewhere and that the incision of a cross (pictured below left) near the room's door might have been carved by her. I have heard from at least one source that one of the museum's former prison cells is said to be the world's smallest, though I haven't been able to confidently verify that any of these former prison cells really deserve that title.

This leaves me to talk more about the museum's top floor. As previously mentioned, the construction of this floor was allegedly funded by Richard himself, though the man probably wouldn't have liked to think that, one day, it would be used as part of debates over whether he really was a child murderer worthy of centuries of demonisation. Indeed, perhaps this floor's most noteworthy feature was the video screened on a large television screen presented by who I assume was probably a local student and debating the controversy surrounding Richard III. However, Richard likely would have taken a degree of satisfaction from the information included on a poster hanging above the floor that citizens of York, a few years following Richard's death, rebelled against attempts by Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland to, on behalf of Henry VII, collect taxes from the city.

A fun and fascinating museum

So, what has been my overall perception of the Richard III Museum in York? Well, I can certainly see how many people who are unfamiliar with the whole controversy surrounding Richard III could benefit from visiting the museum. The building is adorned with a wealth of placards that are packed with information about so many aspects of the controversy, many of which educate in a less stuffy manner than the average academic history book. However, even people who, like me, are already very familiar with the controversy surrounding Richard are likely to benefit from visiting the museum; its somewhat lighthearted spin on the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, not to mention its fascinating building - especially the building's two former prison cells - and well-stacked gift shop provide for fun and fascinating visits.