'Badly Named Dogs' - Weekly Reflection 23rd June 2024

Give a dog a bad name and hang him is an English proverb. Its meaning is that if a person's reputation has been besmirched, then he will suffer difficulty and hardship. A similar proverb is he that has an ill name is half hanged.

The proverb dates back to the 18th century or before. In 1706, John Stevens recorded it as "Give a Dog an ill name and his work is done". In 1721, James Kelly had it as a Scottish proverb – "Give a Dog an ill Name, and he'll soon be hanged. Spoken of those who raise an ill Name on a Man on purpose to prevent his Advancement." In Virginia, it appeared as an old saying in the Norfolk Herald in 1803 – "give a dog a bad name and hang him"

The observation is due to negativity bias – that people are apt to think poorly of others on weak evidence. This is then reinforced by confirmation bias as people give more weight to evidence that supports a preconception than evidence which contradicts it

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia)

On Friday last (21^st June) Jane (wife) and I made a trip to Bosworth as it was a nice day. This wasn’t our first visit and in fact our first visit was some thirty-nine years ago when we happened to be driving past. All those years ago there was very little apart from a sign declaring Albion Hill to be the place where the Battle of Bosworth took place.

We now know better and although Richard’s troops may have camped on Albion Hill, the actual battle took place about a mile and half southwest.  Similarly, King Richard 111 was the subsequent victim of Tudor propaganda that sought to besmirch his name. He was ‘given a bad name’, particularly by Shakespeare who was obviously seeking to curry favour with the current reigning Tudor Queen, Elizabeth 1.

Richard, the usurper, the murder of the princess in the Tower, the manipulator, the mean deformed hunch back.  Is it true, well probably not the half of it.

I must resist the urge to speak at length of how Richard was maligned and how due to recent evidence and research he now lies in Leicester Cathedral with a royal coat of arms, recognised as a legitimate King of England. (We visited the Richard 111 exhibition in Leicester a few weeks ago, so we were keeping to a theme)

To finish off our day we watched the film, The Lost King.  This is the story of Phillipa Langley whose dogged determinism led to the finding of Richard’s remains.  Written by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, it is based on the 2013 book The King's Grave: The Search for Richard III by Philippa Langley and Michael Jones and is a true and yet quirky telling of the discovery  of the remains  Richard 111.  She fully approved of the film and in fact has a cameo part.  I could speak about the film itself as there are many life lessons in the story.

However, I want to highlight one particular aspect, Phillipa’s determination to find Richard and to restore and have him recognised as a true and rightful King of England.

Last week as part of a training session with the Welcome Directory (www.welcomedirectory.org.uk) we had three people with us on the Zoom call who had spent time in prison.  We heard of incredible stories of them finding faith whilst in prison and then engaging with a Christian Faith Community upon release. And it was a person who befriended them and walked alongside that helped the most.

Their ‘bad name’ started to change as they began to write a very different narrative and follow a very different story.

There are plenty of people who still view Richard 111 through the lens of Shakespeare and perhaps Laurence Olivier’s performance. "Now is the winter of our discontnent."

Richard 111 laid buried under concrete in a car park. It took the tenacity of one woman to remove that concrete and then begin to help remove the negative biases against Richard 111.

What would it take for us to help remove the ‘concrete’ – the ‘bad name’ that someone may have and to try and help them write a better story?

I am reminded of one of my favourite Bible characters, Banrbas the Apostle of whom we read…

After his conversion, Saul travels sometime later to Jerusalem. Luke writes…

He (Saul) tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus (Acts 9:26-27).

This is the Apostle Joseph or Joses, better known to us as here, as Barnabas, a nickname meaning ‘son of encouragement’ – he is willing to listen to a different narrative about Saul.

Phillippa Langley looked ‘outside’ the common received narrative about Richard.  May it be that we also look ‘outside’ the presenting narrative of those whom we encounter, especially if they have been given a ‘bad name.’