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Dickon
- GenresHistorical Fiction
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
15 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Mackintosh
20 booksElizabeth Mackintosh published under the pseudonyms
Josephine Tey
and
Gordon Daviot
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 2, 2021
It is unknown when the author of The Daughter of Time wrote this play about Richard III —although Laurence Olivier has said that she brought it to him in 1944*—but it was published and briefly performed posthumously. It opens with a domestic scene in the king’s private apartments at Westminster palace in January 1483. Present are Edward IV, Anthony Woodville , Richard Grey, Lord Hastings, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Prince of Wales. The Prince is playing a game with counters similar to the modern tiddleywinks while the men are discussing preparations for a projected war with France. Richard of Gloucester enters, and while playing with the counters he complains about the Privy Seal’s office as a home for indigent gentry— “[o]r at least for such of them as can afford the original bribe. I haven’t yet discovered what they all do. One signs his name, a second dries the signature, and third rolls up at the document, and a third rolls up the parchment.” And a fourth records the transaction, he adds. When the king tells him not to worry because he has money to pay them all because of his gift for trade, Richard replies that he is not worried about the king’s pocket but the little clerk who has sweated all his life at his desk only to see the place he hoped for go to some newcomer who has the price of a bribe. As he states this, he finishes the game with counters, beating the Prince who lets loose a wail.
When the others leave, the King tells his brother Richard that “the difference between us is that you expect men to be honest and are furious when they turn out to be knaves while I expect men to be knaves and am vastly gratified when they prove—as they occasionally do—to be honest.” The King, feeling guilty, notes that Richard does the work of two men and he gets the credit. When he asks his brother why he does it, Richard replies: “When I was seven, you were my god. When I was fourteen, you were my hero.” And now? Edward asks. “You are my brother. Who eats too much, drinks too much and is rapidly losing his looks. A little campaigning would do you no harm.”
As shown in these scenes, the play conveys Richard’s serious side, but it is told with light touches both of humor and sweetness, as when Princess Elizabeth interrupts the brothers’ conversation, asking for a new gown and ending up asking her father to find her a husband as nice as Uncle Richard.
Act I ends with the execution of Hastings. Richard says, “I had hoped to save England for my brother’s son, but you taught me that if England is to be saved at all, it will not be by any Protectorship. For the last month I have watched you, his councillors, his father’s friends, his liege men, behaving like ill-bred children round a sweetmeat booth that has been overturned. What thought had you for the boy? For England? None! England to you was a place to loot, and the boy a means to an end; and you were ready to risk civil war to achieve that end.”
Act II opens when Richard as King is in Gloucester and receives a delegation of three guildsmen offering a coffer filled with gold. One of the men he recognizes as a man who fought by his side at Tewkesbury. When Buckingham appears on the scene, he is chagrined to find that Richard has declined the gold. He begins plotting with Bishop Morton to overthrow Richard, and attempts to entice Lord Stanley into the plot. Stanley waffles again, as he did when asked to join with Hastings, repeating the refrain, “I have a family to think of.”
After Buckingham’s demise, the scene shifts to Nottingham Castle where a party is in progress. Queen Anne and Princess Elizabeth have taken a break from the festivities. Elizabeth is cheerful and not at all fazed by her relegation to the status of a king’s bastard. Rather she hopes to find a husband who will want to marry her for her eyelashes instead of her rank—and certainly not a man with a pink beard by which she means, as Anne corrects her, a Scots red beard. Anne assures her that they will find her someone nice who will give her a thousand beautiful gowns to shine at parties as she was shining that night. When Elizabeth suggests that Anne does not really like parties, Anne responds, “To be honest, I never see a laden table but I think of the washing up.” Anne then tells her story of her life as a kitchen maid and rescue by Richard , which just serves to fire Elizabeth’s romantic imagination—until the scene is interrupted by the arrival of letters from Middleham with the news of the death of Richard and Anne’s only son, Edward. What follows is a short, poignant scene in which Anne tells Richard she will not mind dying so much because it was always Edward she was afraid to leave, and he will be able to have other sons. “I sometimes think that there is no cruelty like that of a kind woman,” Richard can only exclaim in reply.
After Anne’s death, Richard must confront the rumors that he poisoned her with intent to marry niece. Elizabeth admits she has heard the rumors because “women have hair to be brushed.” “Men shave, But my barber didn’t tell me that one.” replies Richard. Elizabeth is horrified that Richard intends to send her to Yorkshire—out of the world. (Her sentiment echos that of her half-brother Richard Grey, who, when told at Stony Stratford that he is being sent to Middleham, protests that it is so boring there.) Richard promises that the first thing he will do on the field of victory will to be to send for her, an undeserving Cockney. They part with affection—not passion—with Elizabeth giving him St. Catherine’s medal to wear.
The final scene takes places in Richard’s tent on the morning of August 22, 1485, with Richard telling Lovell that he is afraid of the invisible. “I keep wondering who is going to be the traitor this time.” Counseling waiting for reinforcements, Lovell opines,“[t]here is no shame in being cautious.” Richard counters, “But there is shame in being afraid of shadows. If I am to be spend the rest of my life being ruled by what may not happen, I might as well be dead.” Richard will not sit on a hillock watching the battle as Tudor will, but is determined to die facing the enemy and that nothing the may write about him in books can ever alter that.
As with all the “pro-Richard” plays I have read recently, this one lacks (of course) the soaring poetry and dramatic impact of Shakespeare’s larger than life Richard, but it does show us a Richard on a more human scale: a portrait, though sentimentalized, of a good man in extraordinary circumstances.
*See the article Strutting and Fretting His Hour Upon the Stage by Judge R. Weinsoft on the website of the Richard III Society—American Branch.
When the others leave, the King tells his brother Richard that “the difference between us is that you expect men to be honest and are furious when they turn out to be knaves while I expect men to be knaves and am vastly gratified when they prove—as they occasionally do—to be honest.” The King, feeling guilty, notes that Richard does the work of two men and he gets the credit. When he asks his brother why he does it, Richard replies: “When I was seven, you were my god. When I was fourteen, you were my hero.” And now? Edward asks. “You are my brother. Who eats too much, drinks too much and is rapidly losing his looks. A little campaigning would do you no harm.”
As shown in these scenes, the play conveys Richard’s serious side, but it is told with light touches both of humor and sweetness, as when Princess Elizabeth interrupts the brothers’ conversation, asking for a new gown and ending up asking her father to find her a husband as nice as Uncle Richard.
Act I ends with the execution of Hastings. Richard says, “I had hoped to save England for my brother’s son, but you taught me that if England is to be saved at all, it will not be by any Protectorship. For the last month I have watched you, his councillors, his father’s friends, his liege men, behaving like ill-bred children round a sweetmeat booth that has been overturned. What thought had you for the boy? For England? None! England to you was a place to loot, and the boy a means to an end; and you were ready to risk civil war to achieve that end.”
Act II opens when Richard as King is in Gloucester and receives a delegation of three guildsmen offering a coffer filled with gold. One of the men he recognizes as a man who fought by his side at Tewkesbury. When Buckingham appears on the scene, he is chagrined to find that Richard has declined the gold. He begins plotting with Bishop Morton to overthrow Richard, and attempts to entice Lord Stanley into the plot. Stanley waffles again, as he did when asked to join with Hastings, repeating the refrain, “I have a family to think of.”
After Buckingham’s demise, the scene shifts to Nottingham Castle where a party is in progress. Queen Anne and Princess Elizabeth have taken a break from the festivities. Elizabeth is cheerful and not at all fazed by her relegation to the status of a king’s bastard. Rather she hopes to find a husband who will want to marry her for her eyelashes instead of her rank—and certainly not a man with a pink beard by which she means, as Anne corrects her, a Scots red beard. Anne assures her that they will find her someone nice who will give her a thousand beautiful gowns to shine at parties as she was shining that night. When Elizabeth suggests that Anne does not really like parties, Anne responds, “To be honest, I never see a laden table but I think of the washing up.” Anne then tells her story of her life as a kitchen maid and rescue by Richard , which just serves to fire Elizabeth’s romantic imagination—until the scene is interrupted by the arrival of letters from Middleham with the news of the death of Richard and Anne’s only son, Edward. What follows is a short, poignant scene in which Anne tells Richard she will not mind dying so much because it was always Edward she was afraid to leave, and he will be able to have other sons. “I sometimes think that there is no cruelty like that of a kind woman,” Richard can only exclaim in reply.
After Anne’s death, Richard must confront the rumors that he poisoned her with intent to marry niece. Elizabeth admits she has heard the rumors because “women have hair to be brushed.” “Men shave, But my barber didn’t tell me that one.” replies Richard. Elizabeth is horrified that Richard intends to send her to Yorkshire—out of the world. (Her sentiment echos that of her half-brother Richard Grey, who, when told at Stony Stratford that he is being sent to Middleham, protests that it is so boring there.) Richard promises that the first thing he will do on the field of victory will to be to send for her, an undeserving Cockney. They part with affection—not passion—with Elizabeth giving him St. Catherine’s medal to wear.
The final scene takes places in Richard’s tent on the morning of August 22, 1485, with Richard telling Lovell that he is afraid of the invisible. “I keep wondering who is going to be the traitor this time.” Counseling waiting for reinforcements, Lovell opines,“[t]here is no shame in being cautious.” Richard counters, “But there is shame in being afraid of shadows. If I am to be spend the rest of my life being ruled by what may not happen, I might as well be dead.” Richard will not sit on a hillock watching the battle as Tudor will, but is determined to die facing the enemy and that nothing the may write about him in books can ever alter that.
As with all the “pro-Richard” plays I have read recently, this one lacks (of course) the soaring poetry and dramatic impact of Shakespeare’s larger than life Richard, but it does show us a Richard on a more human scale: a portrait, though sentimentalized, of a good man in extraordinary circumstances.
*See the article Strutting and Fretting His Hour Upon the Stage by Judge R. Weinsoft on the website of the Richard III Society—American Branch.
May 10, 2023
Dickon by Gordon Daviot
Reviewed March 25, 2021
Dickon, a play in two acts about King Richard III, was first published in 1953 (which just happens to be the year I was born) but from information in the introduction was likely written several or more years earlier. The author’s name – Gordon Daviot – is a pseudonym of Elizabeth MacKintosh who also wrote under the name of Josephine Tey, a name well known in the world of Richard III. It is Ms Tey's novel The Daughter of Time. It is The Daughter of Time that got many a Ricardian interested in this controversial English monarch, and it should come as no surprise that her play, Dickon, is equally pro-Richard.
In recent months, I’ve read several plays based on the life of Richard III, all of them written in verse form with some being more Shakespearean in language and format than others. (If you’re interested in the titles, they are Dark Sovereign, The Other Richard III, and King’s Games.) While I applaud these various playwrights for tackling Elizabethan / Shakespearean format and language, I found Dickon with its more traditional prose and predominantly modern language to be a refreshing change of pace.
The dialogue is much easier to read and absorb, and I didn’t have to refer to an Elizabethan English dictionary to know what was meant and thus break up the flow of the story.
Daviot also includes detailed descriptions of the characters – how they look, what they’re wearing, the expressions on their faces, what they’re thinking – so that I felt less like I was reading a play and more like I was reading a novel.
For example, when Queen Elizabeth Woodville enters a room, Daviot writes, "Her entry has the effect of a breeze. One feels that the suction created by her vitality would set dead leaves dancing in her wake."
Or her description of John Morton, “a lawyer before he was a churchman, and he is still, at sixty-three, more lawyer than priest. Not the lean meticulous type; but, rather, the type which today is a successful defender in criminal cases; large, vain, showy, clever, insensitive, coaxing or bullying as it suits his purpose. Rich, good-living, one of the greatest pluralists on record."
Act One opens in January, 1483 and through its five scenes, takes us from the final days of Edward IV, his unexpected death, and the very short lived reign of his minor-aged son, Edward V. It ends with the execution of William, Lord Hastings for treason (having been tricked into revealing his plotting when Richard fails to immediately say anything about the news he got from Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, regarding his brother’s pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler), and Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whining about the fact that Richard isn’t going to divvy up the Hastings estates.
The first scene of Act Two takes place in August, 1483. Richard is now king, and has made a stop at the city of Gloucester as part of his royal progress. These final five scenes take us through the last two-and-a-half years of Richard of Gloucester’s life. There are no new insights here, but the characterizations are well drawn and read like real people, not names memorized in history class.
Daviot paints a portrait of Richard as a man who is concerned not just with the nobles, but with the common man, too. At the beginning of the play, he speaks of “the little clerk who has sweated all his life, honestly, at his desk, only to see the place he has hoped for go to some newcomer who has the price of a bribe.”
When he is back home at Middleham with his family, he catches up on what he’s missed while away on the king’s business by going over the account books. He reads aloud, “To the herb-woman, for the boil on Kemp’s neck four pence,” saying, “This is Middleham. If I cannot live it, I can at least look at the picture.”
And when he is king and on his royal progress at Gloucester, he remembers a soldier who fought with him at Tewkesbury, recalling to the man’s delight how they sat under a hedge together, sharing bread and meat.
Another characterization that stands out is that of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham is one of those who, the more he has, the more he wants. At first, Richard thinks this is just a minor annoyance.
When Hastings is taken away for execution, Buckingham practically gloats at the thought of Richard confiscating the man’s estates, saying how useful they will be at the beginning of a new reign. When Richard lets him know that is not going to happen, Buckingham can’t believe this.
Later, when he learns that Richard plans on marrying his son to one of the Spanish princesses, he’s described as “half looking like a child for any sympathy that may be handy.”
In the end, he has his dreams of revenge against Richard thwarted, and the king sums it up well:
“Poor Harry! If he could have brought himself to eat cottar’s food like a man, he would be free now. But he needs must have dainties, even under a thatch roof. And so they caught him.”
There are also bits of humor sprinkled throughout, one of my favorite lines being Thomas Stanley repreatedly saying, “I have a family to think of.”
Though the picture of Richard is a sympathetic one, Daviot leaves a few things unanswered such as the fate of Richard’s nephews, allowing the reader a chance to form his or her own opinion, although it’s pretty obvious to this reader who the culprit was supposed to be.
This is another play that I would love to see performed, but probably never will. Ah well, at least I was able to read it and see it played out in the theater of my mind. A big 5-star rating for this one!
Reviewed March 25, 2021
Dickon, a play in two acts about King Richard III, was first published in 1953 (which just happens to be the year I was born) but from information in the introduction was likely written several or more years earlier. The author’s name – Gordon Daviot – is a pseudonym of Elizabeth MacKintosh who also wrote under the name of Josephine Tey, a name well known in the world of Richard III. It is Ms Tey's novel The Daughter of Time. It is The Daughter of Time that got many a Ricardian interested in this controversial English monarch, and it should come as no surprise that her play, Dickon, is equally pro-Richard.
In recent months, I’ve read several plays based on the life of Richard III, all of them written in verse form with some being more Shakespearean in language and format than others. (If you’re interested in the titles, they are Dark Sovereign, The Other Richard III, and King’s Games.) While I applaud these various playwrights for tackling Elizabethan / Shakespearean format and language, I found Dickon with its more traditional prose and predominantly modern language to be a refreshing change of pace.
The dialogue is much easier to read and absorb, and I didn’t have to refer to an Elizabethan English dictionary to know what was meant and thus break up the flow of the story.
Daviot also includes detailed descriptions of the characters – how they look, what they’re wearing, the expressions on their faces, what they’re thinking – so that I felt less like I was reading a play and more like I was reading a novel.
For example, when Queen Elizabeth Woodville enters a room, Daviot writes, "Her entry has the effect of a breeze. One feels that the suction created by her vitality would set dead leaves dancing in her wake."
Or her description of John Morton, “a lawyer before he was a churchman, and he is still, at sixty-three, more lawyer than priest. Not the lean meticulous type; but, rather, the type which today is a successful defender in criminal cases; large, vain, showy, clever, insensitive, coaxing or bullying as it suits his purpose. Rich, good-living, one of the greatest pluralists on record."
Act One opens in January, 1483 and through its five scenes, takes us from the final days of Edward IV, his unexpected death, and the very short lived reign of his minor-aged son, Edward V. It ends with the execution of William, Lord Hastings for treason (having been tricked into revealing his plotting when Richard fails to immediately say anything about the news he got from Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, regarding his brother’s pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler), and Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whining about the fact that Richard isn’t going to divvy up the Hastings estates.
The first scene of Act Two takes place in August, 1483. Richard is now king, and has made a stop at the city of Gloucester as part of his royal progress. These final five scenes take us through the last two-and-a-half years of Richard of Gloucester’s life. There are no new insights here, but the characterizations are well drawn and read like real people, not names memorized in history class.
Daviot paints a portrait of Richard as a man who is concerned not just with the nobles, but with the common man, too. At the beginning of the play, he speaks of “the little clerk who has sweated all his life, honestly, at his desk, only to see the place he has hoped for go to some newcomer who has the price of a bribe.”
When he is back home at Middleham with his family, he catches up on what he’s missed while away on the king’s business by going over the account books. He reads aloud, “To the herb-woman, for the boil on Kemp’s neck four pence,” saying, “This is Middleham. If I cannot live it, I can at least look at the picture.”
And when he is king and on his royal progress at Gloucester, he remembers a soldier who fought with him at Tewkesbury, recalling to the man’s delight how they sat under a hedge together, sharing bread and meat.
Another characterization that stands out is that of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham is one of those who, the more he has, the more he wants. At first, Richard thinks this is just a minor annoyance.
When Hastings is taken away for execution, Buckingham practically gloats at the thought of Richard confiscating the man’s estates, saying how useful they will be at the beginning of a new reign. When Richard lets him know that is not going to happen, Buckingham can’t believe this.
Later, when he learns that Richard plans on marrying his son to one of the Spanish princesses, he’s described as “half looking like a child for any sympathy that may be handy.”
In the end, he has his dreams of revenge against Richard thwarted, and the king sums it up well:
“Poor Harry! If he could have brought himself to eat cottar’s food like a man, he would be free now. But he needs must have dainties, even under a thatch roof. And so they caught him.”
There are also bits of humor sprinkled throughout, one of my favorite lines being Thomas Stanley repreatedly saying, “I have a family to think of.”
Though the picture of Richard is a sympathetic one, Daviot leaves a few things unanswered such as the fate of Richard’s nephews, allowing the reader a chance to form his or her own opinion, although it’s pretty obvious to this reader who the culprit was supposed to be.
This is another play that I would love to see performed, but probably never will. Ah well, at least I was able to read it and see it played out in the theater of my mind. A big 5-star rating for this one!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews