In William Shakespeare’s Richard III, the eponymous character is described as physically deformed and a psychopathic villain. Was this the truth or Tudor era propaganda?
Shakespeare has these lines in the play depicting Richard as deformed in body:
“To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed toad.”
“O, thou didst prophesy the time would come that I should wish for thee to help me curse that bottled spider, that foul bunch-backed toad!”
“Look how I am bewitched! Behold mine arm is like a blasted sapling withered up”
Old Bill is clearly saying that Richard is a hunchback, much like Quasimodo from the Victor Hugo novel, or the Disney movie, take your pick. And that one of Richard’s arms was withered and wasted. In 2012, archaeologists found and exhumed King Richard III from a car park (parking lot in America) in Leicester, England. The site was formerly part of Greyfriars Priory where the fallen King was buried after his death at Bosworth. An analysis of the skeleton showed that Richard had a severe case of Scoliosis, which at most would have caused one of his shoulders to lower than the other. There was no evidence of the “withered arm” mentioned in the play.
As far as Richard being a psychopathic villain that murdered his brother George, Duke of Clarence, his nephews (the infamous princes in the tower), among others. Richard had served his brother, Edward, well as the Duke of Gloucester, helping him win his crown and become King Edward IV. George was executed for treason and likely “deserved” it, for turning on both Edward and Richard several times. As for the princes, there is much debate about what became of them and who ordered what. The designer of Blood & Roses, Richard Berg, clearly believed that his namesake was a not responsible for their disappearance. There is some evidence that the bones found in the Tower of London were not those of the princes. Politics in England during this time period was a little rougher, to say the least, than it is today. More on par with Soviet Russia, where people suddenly disappeared and were erased from history.
Bosworth, one of the more important battles in English history, wherein, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, defeated King Richard III and gained the English crown for the House of Tudor (political descendants of the House of Lancaster) as Henry VII.
Battle of Bosworth, as depicted by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812)
But more than that, Bosworth is interesting for two reasons:
• It is the only battle on English soil in which an English king was killed (if one starts counting from the reign of William I)
• It is a rather interesting situation, with each side waiting to see which way the political and tactical wind will blow, and two “Battles” of Stanley’s sitting athwart the field, like soccer fans, waiting to weigh in for whoever looks good.
Richard Berg was a Ricardian, meaning he was pro-Richard amidst all of the Tudorian propaganda out there, much of it thanks to Shakespeare (doing a spin job for the Tudors). Richard, for one, was a most stalwart and capable battlefield commander and fighter, and was unfairly smeared as a hunchback because of his scoliosis of the spine… and a pretty good king while he ruled.
Some of the historical text above was lifted from the Men of Iron Battle Book’s Historical Background for the Battle of Bosworth.
You can learn more or pre-order the Men of Iron Tri-Pack 2nd Printing here.
This is the second in a series of InsideGMT articles from Paul Hellyer about his board game Tsar, currently on GMT’s P500. You can view the first article here.
As part of Nicholas II’s coronation in 1896, the Tsarist regime planned an event to placate the common people of Moscow: a giveaway of food, kvass, and souvenirs at the fairgrounds known as Khodynka Fields. By early morning, hundreds of thousands of people had already gathered in eager anticipation. As often happened, the government’s plans were incompetent. The number of police on hand was woefully inadequate and the terrain dangerously uneven. When rumors of a shortage circulated, the crowd surged forward, people began to stumble and fall into ditches, and mounted police were swept along with them. Within minutes, 1,300 people were crushed to death. That evening, Nicholas attended a ball as scheduled, leaving the impression he was indifferent. The “Khodynka Tragedy” (or “Khodynka Massacre” as some called it) became a symbol of the regime’s callousness. People took it as a sign that Nicholas’s reign was cursed.
In the game, a Coded Card recreates this event at a fixed point in time. In the first round of 1896 (the winter Quarter), players get an instruction to seed this card in the game board’s “Q+2” slot, meaning it will be played two Quarters later, in summer 1896. The card is viewable at any time so players can plan for it. Like all the events in Tsar, Public Banquet on Khodynka Fields presents a mix of historical reality and player agency: the event might unfold as it did in real life or, through careful planning, the players might achieve a happier outcome. To avoid the tragedy, players need a competent government (as measured by the Total Adviser Rating in the red circle) and at least 2 Gold (to buy adequate supplies).
These requirements are not particularly difficult to achieve, but like the real-life regime, players will be distracted by their own factional ambitions, which exist in tension with the need for responsible government. Will you appoint the most competent advisors, or prioritize your own Faction’s Characters to maximize power for yourself? Will you leave enough Gold for this event, or spend it on your Faction’s scoring goals? One player has an immediate incentive to avoid disaster: the player who controls the Tsar’s current “Favorite” Character. The Favorite occupies an asymmetric role in the game, with enhanced authority over government appointments and scheduling, but with the burden of personal responsibility for setbacks. If the Khodynka tragedy occurs, the Tsar will direct his anger at the Favorite, as represented by the yellow “Favor -2” icon shown on the card. The other players in the game might also want to avoid destabilizing the regime or, if they’re in a more aggressive mood, might deliberately maneuver toward disaster to unseat the Favorite. These factional problems drive the game’s strategy as well as its simulation of the weak government that plagued Russia in the Tsarist period.
The Port Arthur Coded Card is another example of a card based on a specific historical event. After winning the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), Japan forced China to cede Port Arthur, a strategic port city in northwest China known today as Dalian. This move alarmed the Tsar, who coveted Port Arthur for its year-round, ice-free access to the Pacific Ocean. With support from France and Germany, Russia pressured Japan to give up its claims to Port Arthur, supposedly out of concern for Chinese territorial integrity. Next, Russia shamelessly grabbed Port Arthur for itself by pressuring China to sign a long-term “lease.” Japan was infuriated, and this incident became a key cause of the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War.
The Port Arthur Card has several functional differences as compared to Khodynka Fields. The latter card applies one of two possible outcomes based on current conditions without giving players any choice—although it does depend on choices players made before resolving the card. Port Arthur, however, is a Council Decision with two numbered options: as long as players meet the requirements for Option 2, they may choose between the two options. The choice is made collectively through a simple bidding process using Influence Cubes (we’ll discuss decision mechanics in more detail in a later article). Tsar uses a mix of condition-type cards like Khodynka Fields and decision-type cards like Port Arthur, but either way events always have alternate outcomes, ranging from two to six different possibilities.
Although Port Arthur is initially seeded at a fixed point in time (Winter 1896), it can be reintroduced through the randomly-drawn Era Card The Kaiser, so that if players fail to secure Option 2 on their first attempt, they might get a second chance later in the game. This is why Port Arthur’sOUTLOOK instruction for Option 1 tells players to return the card to its deck (so that it can be drawn again), while the OUTLOOK instruction for Option 2 tells players to remove the card from the game (so that players can’t seize Port Arthur twice). Likewise, The Kaiser’s Option 1 removes the card but Option 2 leaves intact the default discard rule for Era Cards. Many cards have distinctions like this in their OUTLOOK fields, so that the game can distinguish between outcomes that might recur and outcomes that can happen only once.
Another difference compared to Khodynka Fields is that Port Arthur is a scoring goal for the Autocracy and Pragmatism Factions, so this card is more likely to provoke a struggle in multiplayer games. But like all scoring goals in the game, seizing Port Arthuralso contributes some non-scoring benefits: it boosts Russia’s Trade Capacity, raises Navy Morale, and increases Popular Support in the Bourgeoisie Sector. It also avoids the Favor penalty that comes with Option 1. These other features give non-scoring players something to consider: in a solitaire game, Dynasty or Reform players might still want Option 2, and in a multiplayer game, they might dial back their opposition.
Aside from its immediate effects, Port Arthur also impacts the game’s narrative direction and legacy-style play. The “Japan -2” effect means that Russia’s relations with Japan are dropping by two points, putting Russia and Japan closer to war. You still have a chance to avoid war through diplomatic maneuvers or by shoring up your defenses, but otherwise, seizing Port Arthur means you will fight the Russo-Japanese War in Era II. (Each Era is played as a separate game in a legacy style, with Era II bifurcated into peacetime and wartime tracks.) This is one of the clearest examples of the way your choices in Tsar can change history.
Tsar’s Coded Card and Q-Slot system can also support longer-term, multi-stage events such as Trans-Siberian Railway. During Era I setup, you’ll place this Coded Card in the active Hand that players share; if players choose Option 1 (“Begin work . . .”), they’ll have a chance to apply Option 2 and complete a stage of the railway two Quarters later. At that point, the card will be reseeded in the Q+4 slot, so that work on the next stage can begin one year later. This card will remain in play until the railway’s three stages are complete. Aside from advancing the players’ scoring goals for Industrialization and Grain Production, Trans-Siberian Railway also alters the historical story, albeit in a more subtle way than Port Arthur. This card is one of many that shape the game’s economic history, which in turn affects the regime’s ability to project its power and survive. When war arrives, you will find the outcome depends on Russia’s infrastructure, economy, and political stability.
Many other events in Tsar are generated randomly through the shuffled Era Decks. These decks include “All Era” cards that mostly feature generic, repeatable events like Drought and The Tsar Greets a Crowd, mixed together with Era-specific cards like Bosnian Crisis (Era III), Greco-Turkish War (Era I), and Maxim Gorky (Era III). Because they are shuffled randomly, the timing of these cards is unknown and they may not be drawn at all. This enhances the variability of the game and gives players a mix of long-term planning goals and short-term opportunities. The more problematic events in the “Unrest” and “Famine” decks are also shuffled randomly, but these are drawn only under certain conditions. (Drought is one example of how a Famine Card might be triggered.)
The game also includes many events that never happened in history, but might have happened. During the Russo-Japanese War, the British Empire came very close to entering the war on the side of its ally Japan—and in this game, that can happen if you don’t manage your relations with Britain carefully enough. Other alternate histories include political reforms that Nicholas II rejected in real life, Russian control of the Turkish Straits (see the Coded Card above), a military alliance with Germany, and construction of the Moskva-Volga Canal. That last one is something that actually occurred later (during the Stalinist period), and there are a few other features in the game that draw their inspiration from post-1917 events.
In the next InsideGMT article in this series, we’ll examine how Tsar’s game engine simulates the regime’s stability and the possibility of revolution.
As seen on TV, or at least in the movie Kingdom of Heaven, the Leper King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was a striking figure in a silver mask to hide his leprosy. There is no evidence that Baldwin IV wore a mask, though he suffered from disfigurement of his face and limbs as his disease advanced. When he was young, he was considered quite handsome, though sometime after ascending the throne at around the age of thirteen his leprosy accelerated. How disfigured he was at the time of Montgisard is unclear with some sources saying he was unable to lead the army and others saying he was at the head of it. What is known is that six years later he could not walk unaided and was blind.
King Baldwin in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Baldwin was thirteen when he ascended the throne and a regent was appointed. When he reached the age of fifteen and was King without a regent, he planned an invasion of the Ayyubbid Kingdom of Egypt. He had some success against Saladin in 1176, but needed ships to besiege the port cities along the coast. He formed a short-lived alliance with Byzantium that fell apart before they could make headway in the invasion.
While the army of Jerusalem was engaged in the north helping Raymond of Tripoli attack Hama, Saladin planned his own invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt. Learning of Saladin’s plans, Baldwin IV, a teenager with leprosy but a most able commander, left Jerusalem with, according to William of Tyre, only 375 knights to attempt a defense at Ascalon, but Baldwin was stalled there by a detachment of troops sent by Saladin, who, again according to William of Tyre, had 26,000 men. Accompanying Baldwin was Raynald of Chatillon, Lord of Oultrejordain, who had just been released from captivity in Aleppo in 1176. Raynald was a fierce enemy of Saladin, and was the effective commander of the army, with King Baldwin too ill to command it personally.
The Christians, led by the King, pursued the Muslims along the coast, finally catching their enemies at Montgisard near Ramla. Saladin was taken totally by surprise. His army was in disarray, out of formation and tired from a long march. The Islamic army, in a state of panic, scrambled to make battle lines against the enemy. As Saladin’s army rushed to prepare, Baldwin began the charge across the sand.
The Jerusalem army smashed into the hurriedly arranged Muslims, inflicting huge casualties. The King, fighting with bandaged hands to cover his terrible wounds and sores, was in the thick of the fighting and Saladin’s men were quickly overwhelmed. They tried to flee but hardly any escaped. Saladin himself only avoided capture by escaping on a racing camel. Only one tenth of his army made it back to Egypt with him.
The historical text above was lifted from the Infidel Battle Book’s Historical Background for the Battle of Montgisard. In the game, the Army of Jerusalem is only 10 units arrayed against 65 Ayyubid units. That sounds like it should be a one-side loss for Jerusalem, but the Ayyubid army begins in complete disarray and within Charge range of the Knights!
(Note that the stream and hill in the image is ignored for the Battle of Montgisard)
You can learn more or pre-order the Men of Iron Tri-Pack 2nd Printing here.
