Having spoken last month about some misconceptions about Francis, which are often, if not solely, presented in fiction and sometimes have bled into actual historical debatte, I decided to write now about some of the presentations of Francis in fiction which are particularly notable and, given they contradict what evidence there is about him, somewhat galling.
A fair warning, this can get a bit ranty.
(1) Francis, the notoriously unfaithful husband
It`s the most widespread portrayal of him in fiction. Most if not all popular depictions of him show him as cheating on his wife, Anne. As I have addressed before, while there is no evidence for it, it is perfectly possible he was, in fact, unfaithful. There is nothing to contradict this in itself, and it is a valid choice in fiction. However, there are some pieces of evidence which strongly suggest that he did not flaunt possible unfaithfulness, which is very often what he does in fiction. Often, Francis is shown to be deeply in love with his mistress and treat her as his wife in all but name, while Anne is hardly mentioned.
(2) Francis scorning his wife
Somewhat connected with the above, very many novels have Francis hate or scorn his wife. This does not mean presenting a distance between them - which, again, evidence does not necessarily support, but which is possible. This means Francis and/or the narrative literally calling Anne ugly, miserable, a horrible person, frigid, etc. Given that we know he was close with her family, this is quite unlikely, and often this seems to be included in fiction solely to showcast a difference between the main protagonists of such novels, which are usually Richard and his wife, Anne Neville, who are portrayed as blissfully happy.
(3) Francis, the malcontented fool
This portrayal has Francis presented as a complete idiot whose solid reasons for choosing to rebel against the victorious Henry VII are brushed aside as foolish, ill-thought out or simply not understandable. This sometimes laps over into non-fiction, and Francis simply dismissed as a "querulous" or "malcontent" post August 1485 without any dwelling as to why he was not content, although it is far less frequent, as in such Francis is often not mentioned at all or only in passing. In novels which go on after Richard`s death, however, it is found too often. One famous novel has a character point out to him that Richard`s life was worthless anyway with his wife being dead, which is not only rather insulting in itself but manages to make it sound as if Francis`s own feelings about what happened to his best friend do not matter at all. Some others present him as simply stirring up trouble for the sake of trouble. Strangely, such novels almost never address the actual problems of his rebellions - such as that the first was extremely underplanned, that without a rival claimant it was unlikely to succeed, that he would almost certainly not survive - and when they do address things such as what being declared a traitor means for him, it is often made to look like as if Francis was not aware of these repercussions. This does not mean novels which present the rebellions themselves as being wrong, it means those who dismiss all reasons why Francis chose to do so as idiocy and make him choosing to stay loyal to his dead friend look reprehensible, stupid and not understandable.
(4) Francis, the man who wasn`t there
As in non-fiction, it happens far too often that Francis is just simply not included in novels. This makes sense when it is written from a point of view of someone who would not meet him often or have anything to say to him, but if it details Richard`s life or even just kingship, it is rather strange when he is rarely or not at all mentioned. In such cases, he sometimes appears in the background but never says anything, and is often replaces by an invented character who is Richard`s closest confidant.
(5) Francis who is far too old
This is somewhat less jarring, as Francis`s birthdate is contented, though the CPR makes his birth year pretty clear. However, the aging up of him often affects not just simply his age, but is done so Francis can be presented as being somewhere he was in reality too young to be. Often, he is included as fighting in the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, though there is absolutely no indication he was even near, and he was only fourteen years old in any case. Sometimes, this also affects the portrayal of his marriage, as mentioned above, and Francis is said to be unhappy with his wife and the marriage as not working at a time when he was only a teenager and his wife Anne a child, and they would not have lived together for years in real life.
This is, of course, pretty broad. There are reasons to change parts of known history for a narrative, and several ways to read evidence. However, in some cases the evidence is pretty clear, and these problems also pop up in novels which are claimed to be sticking as close to known history as possible, or in novels which detail changes to known facts in the afterword but fail to address those to Francis.
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