Sunday, January 27, 2008

more ...

Absolutely no hint of where the Earl is buried. I have sent letters to the local newspapers in the hope one reader, or more, will respond. You can usually rely on locals to know their area.
The Earl’s motto is giving me trouble; it is in Angevin or Norman French. I have asked Oxford University to help.
I’ve written to the Vatican to check out the record of his visit there, when he was obviously granted an audience with the Pope.
I’m writing and/or emailing for copies of guidebooks of Grafton Regis church and Ludlow castle before I visit, so I know what I am going to look at when I get there.
Questia have an online version of his very first book translated into readable type. I am downloading it so I can study it properly. I am tackling 50 pages a night, as I can only highlight one page at a time and bring it into my computer. It’s a long and tedious task, but worth doing.
A print has arrived of Earl Rivers presenting a copy of his book to Edward IV, bought from ebay. The British Library are photographing the other print, Rivers with Caxton, for me and will send it as an attachment to an email. What technology has done for research is incalculable!
The book “Writing Biography and Autobiography” by Brian D Osborne has arrived. It’s a highly readable, interesting handbook. I want to be sure I am doing this right. He advises keeping a critical detachment for the subject: I am finding that difficult at the moment, so much information has been gathered, he was such a challenging and fascinating person that I am overwhelmingly keen to dive in and get started but caution is needed. There is a way to go with the research and I want to visit to the various places that were major in his life: Grafton, Ludlow, Stony Stratford, for a start, London of course, Sheriff Hutton, Pontefract and anywhere else that comes up during the course of studying all available information.
I plan to write a fiction book on the life of Edward IV later. He grew up at Ludlow, he secretly married the earl’s sister, Elizabeth Grey, at Grafton, he visited Pontefract, so there are three instances where my visits will overlap and be worthwhile for two books, three if I write a fictional account of the earl’s life later.

No comments: