Talk:Richard Topcliffe

Psychopath
I see there are two links to a source for this term. The problem I have is that it's a 20thC. diagnosis based on partly known actions of a 16thC. torturer. We try to get away from descriptions of catholics as devoted (see Talk:Adolf Hitler) or fanatical, protestants as zealous, and puritans as stern - because they're just cartoon tags that tell us nothing about the real people. But this example is even worse - to describe him as a psychopath is to assert that he had a psychiatric condition which prevented him from sharing ordinary human feelings. Even to describe him as sadistic would assert that he took pleasure from his torture. The terms are anachronistic, and the evidence to back them up isn't available. Why not just describe him as cruel? He undoubtedly was that.--Shtove 15:52, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Although the link says he was a psychopath, the offending sentence in the article says he gained a reputation for being a psychopath, which makes it anachronistic as Shtove says. Any objections to removing the sentence? Glow worm64 18:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Unless there are objections, I am going to shorten the sentence to remove the word "psychopath". Glow worm64 08:33, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nah, go ahead.--Shtove 12:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

POV is back
Since the above discussion, the offending words have been put back together with a number of other references which are not at all neutral e.g. "fanatic hatred". This is POV because at this time it can't be determined whether his actions were motivated by religious convictionsm, political opinions or pathological hatred. Dabbler (talk) 16:39, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The Fitzherbert Affair
I've been reading G. j. Meyer's book The Tudors. His brief description of the Fitzherbert scandal differs significantly from the one in this article. So, I'm concerned that there is no references for this particular section. Rantedia (talk) 17:16, 24 April 2015 (UTC)rantedia

Rape
This recent edit states that the subject used rape, but the source doesn't seem to assert that and is of questionable reliability in any case.Shtove (talk) 13:07, 24 December 2017 (UTC)