Richard III of England

Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

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Richard III
Earliest surviving portrait, c. 1520
King of England (more...)
Reign	26 June 1483 – 22 August 1485
Coronation	6 July 1483
Predecessor	Edward V
Successor	Henry VII
Born	2 October 1452 Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire, England
Died	22 August 1485 (aged 32) Bosworth Field, Leicestershire, England
Burial	25 August 1485[1] Greyfriars, Leicester 26 March 2015 Leicester Cathedral
Spouse	Anne Neville ​ ​ (m. 1472; died 1485)​
Issue Detail	Edward, Prince of Wales John of Gloucester (ill.) Katherine, Countess of Pembroke (ill.)
House	York
Father	Richard of York
Mother	Cecily Neville
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Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession of his brother Edward IV. This was during the period known as the Wars of the Roses, an era when two branches of the royal family contested the throne; Edward and Richard were Yorkists. In 1472, Richard married Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick and widow of Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI. He governed northern England during Edward's reign, and played a role in the invasion of Scotland in 1482. When Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Before arrangements were complete for Edward V's coronation, scheduled for 22 June 1483, the marriage of his parents was declared bigamous and therefore invalid. Now officially illegitimate, Edward and his siblings were barred from inheriting the throne. On 25 June, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect, and proclaimed Richard as the rightful king. He was crowned on 6 July 1483. Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, called the "Princes in the Tower", disappeared from the Tower of London around August 1483.

There were two major rebellions against Richard during his reign. In October 1483, an unsuccessful revolt was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. Then, in August 1485, Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor, landed in Wales with a contingent of French troops, and marched through Pembrokeshire, recruiting soldiers. Henry's forces defeated Richard's army near the Leicestershire town of Market Bosworth. Richard was slain, making him the last English king to die in battle. Henry Tudor then ascended the throne as Henry VII.

Richard's corpse was taken to the nearby town of Leicester and buried without ceremony. His original tomb monument is believed to have been removed during the English Reformation, and his remains were wrongly thought to have been thrown into the River Soar. In 2012, an archaeological excavation was commissioned by Philippa Langley with the assistance of the Richard III Society on the site previously occupied by Grey Friars Priory. The University of Leicester identified the human skeleton found at the site as that of Richard III as a result of radiocarbon dating, comparison with contemporary reports of his appearance, identification of trauma sustained at Bosworth and comparison of his mitochondrial DNA with that of two matrilineal descendants of his sister Anne. He was reburied in Leicester Cathedral in 2015.

Richard was born on 2 October 1452, at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the youngest to survive infancy.^[2] His childhood coincided with the beginning of what has traditionally been labelled the 'Wars of the Roses', a period of political instability and periodic open civil war in England during the second half of the fifteenth century,^[3] between the Yorkists, who supported Richard's father (a potential claimant to the throne of King Henry VI from birth),^[4] and opposed the regime of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret of Anjou,^[5] and the Lancastrians, who were loyal to the crown.^[6] In 1459, his father and the Yorkists were forced to flee England, whereupon Richard and his older brother George were placed in the custody of their aunt Anne Neville, Duchess of Buckingham, and possibly of Cardinal Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.^[7]

When their father and elder brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, Richard and George were sent by their mother to the Low Countries.^[8] They returned to England following the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. They participated in the coronation of their eldest brother as King Edward IV on 28 June 1461, when Richard was named Duke of Gloucester and made both a Knight of the Garter and a Knight of the Bath. Edward appointed him the sole Commissioner of Array for the Western Counties in 1464 when he was 11. By the age of 17, he had an independent command.^[9]

Richard spent several years during his childhood at Middleham Castle in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, under the tutelage of his cousin Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, later known as 'the Kingmaker' because of his role in the Wars of the Roses. Warwick supervised Richard's training as a knight; in the autumn of 1465, Edward IV granted Warwick £1,000 for the expenses of his younger brother's tutelage.^[10] With some interruptions, Richard stayed at Middleham either from late 1461 until early 1465, when he was 12^[11] or from 1465 until his coming of age in 1468, when he turned 16.^{[note 1]} While at Warwick's estate, it is likely that he met both Francis Lovell, who was his firm supporter later in his life, and Warwick's younger daughter, his future wife Anne Neville.^[13]

It is possible that even at this early stage Warwick was considering the king's brothers as strategic matches for his daughters, Isabel and Anne: young aristocrats were often sent to be raised in the households of their intended future partners,^[14] as had been the case for the young dukes' father, Richard of York.^[15] As the relationship between the king and Warwick became strained, Edward IV opposed the match.^[16] During Warwick's lifetime, George was the only royal brother to marry one of his daughters, the elder, Isabel, on 12 July 1469, without the king's permission. George joined his father-in-law's revolt against the king,^[17] while Richard remained loyal to Edward, even though he was rumoured to have been having an affair with Anne.^{[18][note 2]}

Richard and Edward were forced to flee to Burgundy in October 1470 after Warwick defected to the side of the former Lancastrian queen Margaret of Anjou. In 1468, Richard's sister Margaret had married Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, and the brothers could expect a welcome there. Edward was restored to the throne in the spring of 1471, following the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, in both of which the 18-year-old Richard played a crucial role.^[19]

During his adolescence, and due to a cause that is unknown, Richard developed a sideways curvature of the spine (scoliosis).^[20] In 2014, after the discovery of Richard's remains, the osteoarchaeologist Dr. Jo Appleby, of Leicester University's School of Archaeology and Ancient History, imaged the spinal column, and reconstructed a model using 3D printing, and concluded that though the spinal scoliosis looked dramatic, it probably did not cause any major physical deformity that could not be disguised by clothing.^[21][22]

Following a decisive Yorkist victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury, Richard married Anne Neville on 12 July 1472.^[23] Anne had previously been wedded to Edward of Westminster, only son of Henry VI, to seal her father's allegiance to the Lancastrian party.^[24] Edward died at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, while Warwick had died at the Battle of Barnet on 14 April 1471.^[25] Richard's marriage plans brought him into conflict with his brother George.^[26] John Paston's letter of 17 February 1472 makes it clear that George was not happy about the marriage but grudgingly accepted it on the basis that "he may well have my Lady his sister-in-law, but they shall part no livelihood".^[27] The reason was the inheritance Anne shared with her elder sister Isabel, whom George had married in 1469. It was not only the earldom that was at stake; Richard Neville had inherited it as a result of his marriage to Anne Beauchamp, 16th Countess of Warwick. The Countess, who was still alive, was technically the owner of the substantial Beauchamp estates, her father having left no male heirs.^[28]

The Croyland Chronicle records that Richard agreed to a prenuptial contract in the following terms: "the marriage of the Duke of Gloucester with Anne before-named was to take place, and he was to have such and so much of the earl's lands as should be agreed upon between them through the mediation of arbitrators; while all the rest were to remain in the possession of the Duke of Clarence".^[29] The date of Paston's letter suggests the marriage was still being negotiated in February 1472. In order to win George's final consent to the marriage, Richard renounced most of the Earl of Warwick's land and property including the earldoms of Warwick (which the Kingmaker had held in his wife's right) and Salisbury and surrendered to George the office of Great Chamberlain of England.^[30] Richard retained Neville's forfeit estates he had already been granted in the summer of 1471:^[31][32] Penrith, Sheriff Hutton and Middleham, where he later established his marital household.^[33]

The requisite papal dispensation was obtained dated 22 April 1472.^[34] Michael Hicks has suggested that the terms of the dispensation deliberately understated the degrees of consanguinity between the couple, and the marriage was therefore illegal on the ground of first-degree consanguinity following George's marriage to Anne's sister Isabel.^[24] There would have been first-degree consanguinity if Richard had sought to marry Isabel (in case of widowhood) after she had married his brother George, but no such consanguinity applied for Anne and Richard. Richard's marriage to Anne was never declared null, and it was public to everyone including secular and canon lawyers for 13 years.^[35]

In June 1473, Richard persuaded his mother-in-law to leave the sanctuary and come to live under his protection at Middleham. Later in the year, under the terms of the 1473 Act of Resumption,^[36] George lost some of the property he held under royal grant and made no secret of his displeasure. John Paston's letter of November 1473 says that King Edward planned to put both his younger brothers in their place by acting as "a stifler atween them".^[37] Early in 1474, Parliament assembled and Edward attempted to reconcile his brothers by stating that both men, and their wives, would enjoy the Warwick inheritance just as if the Countess of Warwick "was naturally dead".^[38] The doubts cast by George on the validity of Richard and Anne's marriage were addressed by a clause protecting their rights in the event they were divorced (i.e. of their marriage being declared null and void by the Church) and then legally remarried to each other, and also protected Richard's rights while waiting for such a valid second marriage with Anne.^[39] The following year, Richard was rewarded with all the Neville lands in the north of England, at the expense of Anne's cousin, George Neville, 1st Duke of Bedford.^[40] From this point, George seems to have fallen steadily out of King Edward's favour, his discontent coming to a head in 1477 when, following Isabel's death, he was denied the opportunity to marry Mary of Burgundy, the stepdaughter of his sister Margaret, even though Margaret approved the proposed match.^[41] There is no evidence of Richard's involvement in George's subsequent conviction and execution on a charge of treason.^[42]

On the death of Edward IV on 9 April 1483, his 12-year-old son, Edward V, succeeded him. Richard was named Lord Protector of the Realm and at Baron Hastings' urging, Richard assumed his role and left his base in Yorkshire for London.^[91] On 29 April, as previously agreed, Richard and his cousin, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, met Queen Elizabeth's brother, with Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, at Northampton. At the queen's request, Earl Rivers was escorting the young king to London with an armed escort of 2,000 men, while Richard and Buckingham's joint escort was 600 men.^[92] Edward V had been sent further south to Stony Stratford. At first convivial, Richard had Earl Rivers, his nephew Richard Grey and his associate, Thomas Vaughan, arrested. They were taken to Pontefract Castle, where they were executed on 25 June on the charge of treason against the Lord Protector after appearing before a tribunal led by Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. Rivers had appointed Richard as executor of his will.^[93]

After having Rivers arrested, Richard and Buckingham moved to Stony Stratford, where Richard informed Edward V of a plot aimed at denying him his role as protector and whose perpetrators had been dealt with.^[94] He proceeded to escort the king to London. They entered the city on 4 May, displaying the carriages of weapons Rivers had taken with his 2,000-man army. Richard first accommodated Edward in the Bishop's apartments; then, on Buckingham's suggestion, the king was moved to the royal apartments of the Tower of London, where kings customarily awaited their coronation.^[95] Within the year 1483, Richard had moved himself to the grandeur of Crosby Hall, London, then in Bishopsgate in the City of London. Robert Fabyan, in his 'The new chronicles of England and of France', writes that "the Duke caused the King (Edward V) to be removed unto the Tower and his broder with hym, and the Duke lodged himselfe in Crosbyes Place in Bisshoppesgate Strete."^[96] In Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, he accounts that "little by little all folke withdrew from the Tower, and drew unto Crosbies in Bishops gates Street, where the Protector kept his houshold. The Protector had the resort; the King in maner desolate."^[97]

On hearing the news of her brother's 30 April arrest, the dowager queen fled to sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Joining her were her son by her first marriage, Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset; her five daughters; and her youngest son, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.^[98] On 10/11 June, Richard wrote to Ralph, Lord Neville, the City of York and others asking for their support against "the Queen, her blood adherents and affinity" whom he suspected of plotting his murder.^[99] At a council meeting on 13 June at the Tower of London, Richard accused Hastings and others of having conspired against him with the Woodvilles and accusing Jane Shore, lover to both Hastings and Thomas Grey, of acting as a go-between. According to Thomas More, Hastings was taken out of the council chambers and summarily executed in the courtyard, while others, like Lord Thomas Stanley and John Morton, Bishop of Ely, were arrested.^[100] Hastings was not attainted and Richard sealed an indenture that placed Hastings' widow, Katherine, under his protection.^[101] Bishop Morton was released into the custody of Buckingham.^[102] On 16 June, the dowager queen agreed to hand over the Duke of York to the Archbishop of Canterbury so that he might attend his brother Edward's coronation, still planned for 22 June.^[103]

Bishop Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, is said to have informed Richard that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because of Edward's earlier union with Eleanor Butler, making Edward V and his siblings illegitimate. The identity of Stillington was known only through the memoirs of French diplomat Philippe de Commines.^[105] On 22 June, a sermon was preached outside Old St. Paul's Cathedral by Ralph Shaa, declaring Edward IV's children bastards and Richard the rightful king.^[106] Shortly after, the citizens of London, both nobles and commons, convened and drew up a petition asking Richard to assume the throne.^[107] He accepted on 26 June and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 July. His title to the throne was confirmed by Parliament in January 1484 by the document Titulus Regius.^[108]

The princes, who were still lodged in the royal residence of the Tower of London at the time of Richard's coronation, disappeared from sight after the summer of 1483.^[109] Although after his death Richard III was accused of having Edward and his brother killed, notably by More and in Shakespeare's play, the facts surrounding their disappearance remain unknown.^[110] Other culprits have been suggested, including Buckingham and even Henry VII, although Richard remains a suspect.^[111]

After the coronation ceremony, Richard and Anne set out on a royal progress to meet their subjects. During this journey through the country, the king and queen endowed King's College and Queens' College at Cambridge University, and made grants to the church.^[112] Still feeling a strong bond with his northern estates, Richard later planned the establishment of a large chantry chapel in York Minster with over 100 priests.^[113] He also founded the College of Arms.^[114][115]

On 22 August 1485, Richard met the outnumbered forces of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard rode a white courser (an especially swift and strong horse).^[130] The size of Richard's army has been estimated at 8,000 and Henry's at 5,000, but exact numbers are not known, though the royal army is believed to have "substantially" outnumbered Henry's.^[131] The traditional view of the king's famous cries of "Treason!" before falling was that during the battle Richard was abandoned by Baron Stanley (made Earl of Derby in October), Sir William Stanley, and Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland.^[132][133] The role of Northumberland is unclear; his position was with the reserve—behind the king's line—and he could not easily have moved forward without a general royal advance, which did not take place.^[134] The physical confines behind the crest of Ambion Hill, combined with a difficulty of communications, probably physically hampered any attempt he made to join the fray.^[135] Despite appearing "a pillar of the Ricardian regime" and his previous loyalty to Edward IV, Baron Stanley was the stepfather of Henry Tudor and Stanley's inaction combined with his brother's entering the battle on Tudor's behalf was fundamental to Richard's defeat.^{[136][137][138][139]} The death of Richard's close companion John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, may have had a demoralising effect on the king and his men. Either way, Richard led a cavalry charge deep into the enemy ranks in an attempt to end the battle quickly by striking at Henry Tudor.^[140]

All accounts note that King Richard fought bravely and ably during this manoeuvre, unhorsing Sir John Cheyne, a well-known jousting champion, killing Henry's standard bearer Sir William Brandon and coming within a sword's length of Henry Tudor before being surrounded by Sir William Stanley's men and killed.^[141] Polydore Vergil, Henry VII's official historian, recorded that "King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies".^[142] The Burgundian chronicler, Jean Molinet, states that a Welshman struck the death blow with a halberd while Richard's horse was stuck in the marshy ground.^[143] It was said that the blows were so violent that the king's helmet was driven into his skull.^[144] The contemporary Welsh poet Guto'r Glyn implies a leading Welsh Lancastrian, Rhys ap Thomas, or one of his men killed the king, writing that he "killed the boar, shaved his head".^{[143][145][146]} The identification in 2013 of King Richard's body shows that the skeleton had 11 wounds, eight of them to the skull, clearly inflicted in battle and suggesting he had lost his helmet.^[147] Professor Guy Rutty, from the University of Leicester, said: "The most likely injuries to have caused the king's death are the two to the inferior aspect of the skull—a large sharp force trauma possibly from a sword or staff weapon, such as a halberd or bill, and a penetrating injury from the tip of an edged weapon."^[148] The skull showed that a blade had hacked away part of the rear of the skull. Richard III was the last English king to be killed in battle.^[149] Henry Tudor succeeded Richard as King Henry VII. He married the Yorkist heiress Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter and Richard III's niece.

After the Battle of Bosworth, Richard's naked body was then carried back to Leicester tied to a horse, and early sources strongly suggest that it was displayed in the collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke,^[150] prior to being hastily and discreetly buried in the choir of Greyfriars Church in Leicester.^{[151][152][153]} In 1495, Henry VII paid 50 pounds for a marble and alabaster monument.^[152] According to a discredited tradition, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, his body was thrown into the River Soar,^[154][155] although other evidence suggests that a memorial stone was visible in 1612, in a garden built on the site of Greyfriars.^[152] The exact location was then lost, owing to more than 400 years of subsequent development,^[156] until archaeological investigations in 2012 revealed the site of the garden and Greyfriars Church. There was a memorial ledger stone in the choir of the cathedral, since replaced by the tomb of the king, and a stone plaque on Bow Bridge where tradition had falsely suggested that his remains had been thrown into the river.^[157]

According to another tradition, Richard consulted a seer in Leicester before the battle who foretold that "where your spur should strike on the ride into battle, your head shall be broken on the return". On the ride into battle, his spur struck the bridge stone of Bow Bridge in the city; legend states that as his corpse was carried from the battle over the back of a horse, his head struck the same stone and was broken open.^[158]

Richard's Council of the North, described as his "one major institutional innovation", derived from his ducal council following his own viceregal appointment by Edward IV; when Richard himself became king, he maintained the same conciliar structure in his absence.^[159] It officially became part of the royal council machinery under the presidency of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln in April 1484, based at Sandal Castle in Wakefield.^[83] It is considered to have greatly improved conditions for northern England, as it was intended to keep the peace and punish lawbreakers, as well as resolve land disputes.^[84] Bringing regional governance directly under the control of central government, it has been described as the king's "most enduring monument", surviving unchanged until 1641.^[84]

In December 1483, Richard instituted what later became known as the Court of Requests, a court to which poor people who could not afford legal representation could apply for their grievances to be heard.^[160] He also improved bail in January 1484, to protect suspected felons from imprisonment before trial and to protect their property from seizure during that time.^[161][162] He founded the College of Arms in 1484,^[114][115] he banned restrictions on the printing and sale of books,^[163] and he ordered the translation of the written Laws and Statutes from the traditional French into English.^[164] During his reign, Parliament ended the arbitrary benevolence (a device by which Edward IV raised funds),^[165][166] made it punishable to conceal from a buyer of land that a part of the property had already been disposed of to somebody else,^[167] required that land sales be published,^[167] laid down property qualifications for jurors, restricted the abusive Courts of Piepowders,^[168] regulated cloth sales,^[169] instituted certain forms of trade protectionism,^[170][171] prohibited the sale of wine and oil in fraudulent measure,^[171] and prohibited fraudulent collection of clergy dues,^[171] among others. Churchill implies he improved the law of trusts.^[172]

Richard's death at Bosworth marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, which had ruled England since the succession of Henry II in 1154.^[173] The last legitimate male Plantagenet, Richard's nephew Edward, Earl of Warwick (son of his brother George, Duke of Clarence), was executed by Henry VII in 1499.^[174]

Reputation

There are numerous contemporary, or near-contemporary, sources of information about the reign of Richard III.^[175] These include the Croyland Chronicle, Commines' Mémoires, the report of Dominic Mancini, the Paston Letters, the Chronicles of Robert Fabyan and numerous court and official records, including a few letters by Richard himself. However, the debate about Richard's true character and motives continues, both because of the subjectivity of many of the written sources, reflecting the generally partisan nature of writers of this period, and because none was written by men with an intimate knowledge of Richard.^[176]

During Richard's reign, the historian John Rous praised him as a "good lord" who punished "oppressors of the commons", adding that he had "a great heart".^[177][178] In 1483, the Italian observer Mancini reported that Richard enjoyed a good reputation and that both "his private life and public activities powerfully attracted the esteem of strangers".^[179][180] His bond to the City of York, in particular, was such that on hearing of Richard's demise at the battle of Bosworth the City Council officially deplored the king's death, at the risk of facing the victor's wrath.^[181]

During his lifetime he was the subject of some attacks. Even in the North in 1482, a man was prosecuted for offences against the Duke of Gloucester, saying he did "nothing but grin at" the city of York. In 1484, attempts to discredit him took the form of hostile placards, the only surviving one being William Collingbourne's lampoon of July 1484 "The Cat, the Rat, and Lovell the Dog, all rule England under a Hog" which was pinned to the door of St. Paul's Cathedral and referred to Richard himself (the Hog) and his most trusted councillors William Catesby, Richard Ratcliffe and Francis, Viscount Lovell.^[182] On 30 March 1485 Richard felt forced to summon the Lords and London City Councillors to publicly deny the rumours that he had poisoned Queen Anne and that he had planned marriage to his niece Elizabeth,^[183] at the same time ordering the Sheriff of London to imprison anyone spreading such slanders.^[184] The same orders were issued throughout the realm, including York where the royal pronouncement recorded in the City Records dates 5 April 1485 and carries specific instructions to suppress seditious talk and remove and destroy evidently hostile placards unread.^[185][186]

As for Richard's physical appearance, most contemporary descriptions bear out the evidence that aside from having one shoulder higher than the other (with chronicler Rous not able to correctly remember which one, as slight as the difference was), Richard had no other noticeable bodily deformity. John Stow talked to old men who, remembering him, said "that he was of bodily shape comely enough, only of low stature"^{[187][incomplete short citation]} and a German traveller, Nicolas von Poppelau, who spent ten days in Richard's household in May 1484, describes him as "three fingers taller than himself...much more lean, with delicate arms and legs and also a great heart."^[188] Six years after Richard's death, in 1491, a schoolmaster named William Burton, on hearing a defence of Richard, launched into a diatribe, accusing the dead king of being "a hypocrite and a crookback...who was deservedly buried in a ditch like a dog."^[189]

Richard's death encouraged the furtherance of this later negative image by his Tudor successors due to the fact that it helped to legitimise Henry VII's seizure of the throne.^[190] The Richard III Society contends that this means that "a lot of what people thought they knew about Richard III was pretty much propaganda and myth building."^[191] The Tudor characterisation culminated in the famous fictional portrayal of him in Shakespeare's play Richard III as a physically deformed, Machiavellian villain, ruthlessly committing numerous murders in order to claw his way to power;^[192] Shakespeare's intention perhaps being to use Richard III as a vehicle for creating his own Marlowesque protagonist.^[193] Rous himself in his History of the Kings of England, written during Henry VII's reign, initiated the process. He reversed his earlier position,^[194] and now portrayed Richard as a freakish individual who was born with teeth and shoulder-length hair after having been in his mother's womb for two years. His body was stunted and distorted, with one shoulder higher than the other, and he was "slight in body and weak in strength".^[195] Rous also attributes the murder of Henry VI to Richard, and claims that he poisoned his own wife.^[196] Jeremy Potter, a former Chair of the Richard III Society, claims that "At the bar of history Richard III continues to be guilty because it is impossible to prove him innocent. The Tudors ride high in popular esteem."^[197]

Polydore Vergil and Thomas More expanded on this portrayal, emphasising Richard's outward physical deformities as a sign of his inwardly twisted mind. More describes him as "little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed ... hard-favoured of visage".^[178] Vergil also says he was "deformed of body ... one shoulder higher than the right".^[178] Both emphasise that Richard was devious and flattering, while planning the downfall of both his enemies and supposed friends. Richard's good qualities were his cleverness and bravery. All these characteristics are repeated by Shakespeare, who portrays him as having a hunch, a limp and a withered arm.^[198][199] With regard to the "hunch", the second quarto edition of Richard III (1598) used the term "hunched-backed" but in the First Folio edition (1623) it became "bunch-backed".^[200]

Richard's reputation as a promoter of legal fairness persisted, however. William Camden in his Remains Concerning Britain (1605) states that Richard, "albeit he lived wickedly, yet made good laws".^[201] Francis Bacon also states that he was "a good lawmaker for the ease and solace of the common people".^[202] In 1525, Cardinal Wolsey upbraided the aldermen and Mayor of London for relying on a statute of Richard to avoid paying an extorted tax (benevolence) but received the reply "although he did evil, yet in his time were many good acts made."^[203][204]

Richard was a practising Catholic, as shown by his personal Book of Hours, surviving in the Lambeth Palace library. As well as conventional aristocratic devotional texts, the book contains a Collect of Saint Ninian, referencing a saint popular in the Anglo-Scottish Borders.^[205]

Despite this, the image of Richard as a ruthless tyrant remained dominant in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 18th-century philosopher and historian David Hume described him as a man who used dissimulation to conceal "his fierce and savage nature" and who had "abandoned all principles of honour and humanity".^[206] Hume acknowledged that some historians have argued "that he was well qualified for government, had he legally obtained it; and that he committed no crimes but such as were necessary to procure him possession of the crown", but he dismissed this view on the grounds that Richard's exercise of arbitrary power encouraged instability.^[207] The most important late 19th century biographer of the king was James Gairdner, who also wrote the entry on Richard in the Dictionary of National Biography.^[208] Gairdner stated that he had begun to study Richard with a neutral viewpoint, but became convinced that Shakespeare and More were essentially correct in their view of the king, despite some exaggerations.^[209]

Richard was not without his defenders, the first of whom was Sir George Buck, a descendant of one of the king's supporters, who completed The history of King Richard the Third in 1619. The authoritative Buck text was published only in 1979, though a corrupted version was published by Buck's great-nephew in 1646.^[210] Buck attacked the "improbable imputations and strange and spiteful scandals" related by Tudor writers, including Richard's alleged deformities and murders. He located lost archival material, including the Titulus Regius, but also claimed to have seen a letter written by Elizabeth of York, according to which Elizabeth sought to marry the king.^[211] Elizabeth's supposed letter was never produced. Documents which later emerged from the Portuguese royal archives show that after Queen Anne's death, Richard's ambassadors were sent on a formal errand to negotiate a double marriage between Richard and the Portuguese king's sister Joanna,^[7] of Lancastrian descent,^[212] and between Elizabeth of York and Joanna's cousin Manuel, Duke of Viseu (later King of Portugal).^[213]

Significant among Richard's defenders was Horace Walpole. In Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third (1768), Walpole disputed all the alleged murders and argued that Richard may have acted in good faith. He also argued that any physical abnormality was probably no more than a minor distortion of the shoulders.^[214] However, he retracted his views in 1793 after the Terror, stating he now believed that Richard could have committed the crimes he was charged with,^[215] although Pollard observes that this retraction is frequently overlooked by later admirers of Richard.^[216] Other defenders of Richard include the noted explorer Clements Markham, whose Richard III: His Life and Character (1906) replied to the work of Gairdner. He argued that Henry VII killed the princes and that the bulk of evidence against Richard was nothing more than Tudor propaganda.^[217] An intermediate view was provided by Alfred Legge in The Unpopular King (1885). Legge argued that Richard's "greatness of soul" was eventually "warped and dwarfed" by the ingratitude of others.^[218]

Some 20th-century historians have been less inclined to moral judgement,^[219] seeing Richard's actions as a product of the unstable times. In the words of Charles Ross, "the later fifteenth century in England is now seen as a ruthless and violent age as concerns the upper ranks of society, full of private feuds, intimidation, land-hunger, and litigiousness, and consideration of Richard's life and career against this background has tended to remove him from the lonely pinnacle of Villainy Incarnate on which Shakespeare had placed him. Like most men, he was conditioned by the standards of his age."^[220] The Richard III Society, founded in 1924 as "The Fellowship of the White Boar", is the oldest of several Ricardian groups dedicated to improving his reputation. Other historians still describe him as a "power-hungry and ruthless politician" who was most probably "ultimately responsible for the murder of his nephews."^[221][222]

In culture

Main article: Cultural depictions of Richard III of England

Richard III is the protagonist of Richard III, one of William Shakespeare's history/tragedy plays. Apart from Shakespeare, he appears in many other works of literature. Two other plays of the Elizabethan era predated Shakespeare's work. The Latin-language drama Richardus Tertius (first known performance in 1580) by Thomas Legge is believed to be the first history play written in England. The anonymous play The True Tragedy of Richard III (c. 1590), performed in the same decade as Shakespeare's work, was probably an influence on Shakespeare.^[223] Neither of the two plays places any emphasis on Richard's physical appearance, though the True Tragedy briefly mentions that he is "A man ill shaped, crooked backed, lame armed" and "valiantly minded, but tyrannous in authority". Both portray him as a man motivated by personal ambition, who uses everyone around him to get his way. Ben Jonson is also known to have written a play Richard Crookback in 1602, but it was never published and nothing is known about its portrayal of the king.^[224]

Marjorie Bowen's 1929 novel Dickon set the trend for pro-Ricardian literature.^[225] Particularly influential was The Daughter of Time (1951) by Josephine Tey, in which a modern detective concludes that Richard III is innocent in the death of the Princes.^{[226][227][228]} Other novelists such as Valerie Anand in the novel Crown of Roses (1989) have also offered alternative versions to the theory that he murdered them.^[229] Sharon Kay Penman, in her historical novel The Sunne in Splendour, attributes the death of the Princes to the Duke of Buckingham.^[230] In the mystery novel The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters (1974) the central plot revolves around the debate as to whether Richard III was guilty of these and other crimes.^[231] A sympathetic portrayal is given in The Founding (1980), the first volume in The Morland Dynasty series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.^[232]

One film adaptation of Shakespeare's play Richard III is the 1955 version directed and produced by Laurence Olivier, who also played the lead role.^[233][234] Also notable are the 1995 film version starring Ian McKellen, set in a fictional 1930s fascist England,^[235][236] and Looking for Richard, a 1996 documentary film directed by Al Pacino, who plays the title character as well as himself.^[237][238] The play has been adapted for television on several occasions.^{[239][240][241]}

On 24 August 2012, the University of Leicester, Leicester City Council and the Richard III Society, announced that they were going to look for the remains of King Richard. The search was managed by Philippa Langley of the Society's Looking for Richard Project with the archaeology run by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS).^{[242][243][244][245][246]} The participants looked for the lost site of the former Greyfriars Church (demolished during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries) to find his remains.^[247][248] By comparing fixed points between maps, the church was found, where Richard's body had been hastily buried without pomp in 1485, its foundations identifiable beneath a modern city centre car park.^[249] In 1975 Audrey Strange of the Richard III Society predicted that the lost grave lay beneath one of the three car parks that partly cover the site of the former Grey Friars Priory.^[250] In the mid-1980s, academic David Baldwin, a medieval historian formerly of Leicester University, concluded that the burial site lay further to the east, beneath the northern (St Martin's) end of Grey Friars Street, or the buildings that face it on either side.^[154][251]

The excavators found Greyfriars Church by 5 September 2012 and two days later announced that they had found Robert Herrick's garden, where the memorial to Richard III stood in the early 17th century.^[252][253] A human skeleton was found beneath the Church's choir.^[254]

The excavators found the remains in the course of the first excavation at the car park.^{[255][256][257]}

On 12 September, it was announced that the skeleton might be that of Richard III. Several reasons were given: the body was of an adult male; it was buried beneath the choir of the church; and there was severe scoliosis of the spine, possibly making one shoulder^[252] higher than the other. There was also what appeared to be an arrowhead embedded in the spine; and there were perimortem injuries to the skull. These included a shallow orifice which was probably caused by a rondel dagger, and a scooping depression to the skull that was probably inflicted by a sword.

Further, the bottom of the skull had a gaping hole, where a halberd had entered. Forensic pathologist Stuart Hamilton with APT, Matthew Rogers, said this injury would have left the man's brain visible and certainly would have killed him. Jo Appleby, the osteo-archaeologist who excavated the skeleton, said it was “a mortal battlefield wound in the back of the skull". The base of the skull had another fatal wound from a bladed weapon thrust, leaving a jagged hole. Inside the skull, there was evidence that the blade penetrated to a depth of 10.5 centimetres (4.1 in).^[258]

In total, the skeleton had 10 wounds: four minor injuries on the top of the skull, one dagger blow on the cheekbone, one cut on the lower jaw, two fatal injuries on the base of the skull, one cut on a rib bone, and one final wound on the pelvis that was probably inflicted after death. It is generally accepted that Richard's naked corpse was tied to the back of a horse, with his arms slung over one side and his legs and buttocks over the other. The angle of the blow on the pelvis suggests that one of those present stabbed Richard's right buttock with substantial force, as the cut extends from the back to the front of the pelvic bone, an action intended to humiliate. It is also possible that Richard and his corpse suffered other injuries which left no trace on the skeleton.^{[259][260][261]}

British historian John Ashdown-Hill had used genealogical research in 2004 to trace matrilineal descendants of Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, Richard's elder sister.^{[262][263][264][265]} A British-born woman who emigrated to Canada after the Second World War, Joy Ibsen (née Brown), was found to be a 16th-generation great-niece of the king in the same direct maternal line.^[266][267] Her mitochondrial DNA was tested and belongs to mitochondrial DNA haplogroup J, which by deduction, should also be the mitochondrial DNA haplogroup of Richard III.^{[213][268][269]} Joy Ibsen died in 2008. Her son Michael Ibsen gave a mouth-swab sample to the research team on 24 August 2012. His mitochondrial DNA, passed down the direct maternal line, was compared to samples from the human remains found at the excavation site and used to identify King Richard.^{[270][271][272][273]}

On 4 February 2013, the University of Leicester confirmed that the skeleton was beyond reasonable doubt that of King Richard III. This conclusion was based on mitochondrial DNA evidence,^[274] soil analysis, and dental tests (there were some molars missing as a result of caries), as well as physical characteristics of the skeleton which are highly consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard's appearance.^[275] The team announced that the "arrowhead" discovered with the body was a Roman-era nail, probably disturbed when the body was first interred. However, there were numerous perimortem wounds on the body, and part of the skull had been sliced off with a bladed weapon;^[191] this would have caused rapid death. The team concluded that it is unlikely the king was wearing a helmet in his last moments. Soil taken from the remains was found to contain microscopic roundworm eggs. Several eggs were found in samples taken from the pelvis, where the king's intestines were, but not from the skull, and only very small numbers were identified in soil surrounding the grave. The findings suggest that the higher concentration of eggs in the pelvic area probably arose from a roundworm infection the king suffered in his life, rather than from human waste dumped in the area at a later date, researchers said. The mayor of Leicester announced that the king's skeleton would be re-interred at Leicester Cathedral in early 2014, but a judicial review of that decision delayed the reinterment for a year.^[276] A museum to Richard III was opened in July 2014 in the Victorian school buildings next to the Greyfriars grave site.^{[263][274][277]}

On 5 February 2013 Caroline Wilkinson of the University of Dundee conducted a facial reconstruction of Richard III, commissioned by the Richard III Society, based on 3D mappings of his skull.^[278] The face is described as "warm, young, earnest and rather serious".^[279] On 11 February 2014 the University of Leicester announced the project to sequence the entire genome of Richard III and one of his living relatives, Michael Ibsen, whose mitochondrial DNA confirmed the identification of the excavated remains. Richard III thus became the first ancient person of known historical identity whose genome has been sequenced.^[280]

In November 2014, the results of the DNA testing were published, confirming that the maternal side was as previously thought.^[268] The paternal side, however, demonstrated some variance from what had been expected, with the DNA showing no links between Richard and Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort, a purported descendant of Richard's great-great-grandfather Edward III of England. This could be the result of covert illegitimacy that does not reflect the accepted genealogies between Edward III and either Richard III or the 5th Duke of Beaufort.^{[268][281][282]}

Reburial and tomb

After his death in battle in 1485, Richard III's body was buried in Greyfriars Church in Leicester.^[7] Following the discoveries of Richard's remains in 2012, it was decided that they should be reburied at Leicester Cathedral,^[283] despite feelings in some quarters that he should have been reburied in York Minster.^[284] Those who challenged the decision included fifteen "collateral [non-direct] descendants of Richard III",^[285] represented by the Plantagenet Alliance, who believed that the body should be reburied in York, as they claim the king wished.^[286] In August 2013, they filed a court case in order to contest Leicester's claim to re-inter the body within its cathedral, and propose the body be buried in York instead. However, Michael Ibsen, who gave the DNA sample that identified the king, gave his support to Leicester's claim to re-inter the body in their cathedral.^[286] On 20 August, a judge ruled that the opponents had the legal standing to contest his burial in Leicester Cathedral, despite a clause in the contract which had authorized the excavations requiring his burial there. He urged the parties, though, to settle out of court in order to "avoid embarking on the Wars of the Roses, Part Two".^[287][288] The Plantagenet Alliance, and the supporting fifteen collateral descendants, also faced the challenge that "Basic maths shows Richard, who had no surviving children but five siblings, could have millions of 'collateral' descendants"^[285] undermining the group's claim to represent "the only people who can speak on behalf of him".^[285] A ruling in May 2014 decreed that there are "no public law grounds for the Court interfering with the decisions in question".^[289] The remains were taken to Leicester Cathedral on 22 March 2015 and reinterred on 26 March.^[290]

His remains were carried in procession to the cathedral on 22 March 2015, and reburied on 26 March 2015^[291] at a religious re-burial service at which both Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester, and Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. Also present at the ceremony was Archbishop of Westminster and Roman Catholic Primate of England, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, as Richard III professed Catholicism.^[292] The British royal family was represented by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Countess of Wessex. The actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who later portrayed him in The Hollow Crown television series, read a poem by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.^[241][293]

Richard's cathedral tomb was designed by the architects van Heyningen and Haward.^[294] The tombstone is deeply incised with a cross, and consists of a rectangular block of white Swaledale fossil stone, quarried in North Yorkshire. It sits on a low plinth made of dark Kilkenny marble, incised with Richard's name, dates and motto (Loyaulte me lie – loyalty binds me). The plinth also carries his coat of arms in pietra dura.^[295] On top is a funeral crown commissioned specifically for the reinterment, and made by George Easton.^[296] The remains of Richard III are in a lead-lined inner casket,^[297] inside an outer English oak coffin crafted by Michael Ibsen, a direct descendant of Richard's sister Anne, and laid in a brick-lined vault below the floor, and below the plinth and tombstone.^[295] The original 2010 raised tomb design had been proposed by Langley's "Looking For Richard Project" and fully funded by members of the Richard III Society. The proposal was publicly launched by the Society on 13 February 2013 but rejected by Leicester Cathedral in favour of a memorial slab.^{[298][299][300]} However, following a public outcry, the Cathedral changed its position and on 18 July 2013 announced its agreement to give King Richard III a raised tomb monument.^[301][302]

Richard and Anne had one son, Edward of Middleham, who was born between 1474 and 1476.^[303][304] He was created Earl of Salisbury on 15 February 1478,^[305] and Prince of Wales on 24 August 1483, and died in March 1484, less than two months after he had been formally declared heir apparent.^[306] After the death of his son, Richard appointed his nephew John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, as Lieutenant of Ireland, an office previously held by his son Edward.^[307] Lincoln was the son of Richard's older sister, Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk. After his wife's death, Richard commenced negotiations with John II of Portugal to marry John's pious sister, Joanna, Princess of Portugal. She had already turned down several suitors because of her preference for the religious life.^[308]

Richard had two acknowledged illegitimate children, John of Gloucester and Katherine Plantagenet. Also known as 'John of Pontefract', John of Gloucester was appointed Captain of Calais in 1485. Katherine married William Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, in 1484. Neither the birth dates nor the names of the mothers of either of the children are known. Katherine was old enough to be wedded in 1484, when the age of consent was twelve, and John was knighted in September 1483 in York Minster, and so most historians agree that they were both fathered when Richard was a teenager.^[213][309] There is no evidence of infidelity on Richard's part after his marriage to Anne Neville in 1472 when he was around 20.^[310] This has led to a suggestion by the historian A. L. Rowse that Richard "had no interest in sex".^[311]

Michael Hicks and Josephine Wilkinson have suggested that Katherine's mother may have been Katherine Haute, on the basis of the grant of an annual payment of 100 shillings made to her in 1477. The Haute family was related to the Woodvilles through the marriage of Elizabeth Woodville's aunt, Joan Wydeville, to William Haute.^[312] One of their children was Richard Haute, Controller of the Prince's Household. Their daughter, Alice, married Sir John Fogge; they were ancestors to Catherine Parr, sixth wife of King Henry VIII.^[313]

Hicks and Wilkinson also suggest that John's mother may have been Alice Burgh. Richard visited Pontefract from 1471, in April and October 1473, and in early March 1474, for a week. On 1 March 1474, he granted Alice Burgh 20 pounds a year for life "for certain special causes and considerations". She later received another allowance, apparently for being engaged as a nurse for his brother George's son, Edward of Warwick. Richard continued her annuity when he became king.^[314][315] John Ashdown-Hill has suggested that John was conceived during Richard's first solo expedition to the eastern counties in the summer of 1467 at the invitation of John Howard and that the boy was born in 1468 and named after his friend and supporter. Richard himself noted John was still a minor (not being yet 21) when he issued the royal patent appointing him Captain of Calais on 11 March 1485, possibly on his seventeenth birthday.^[213]

Both of Richard's illegitimate children survived him, but they seem to have died without issue and their fate after Richard's demise at Bosworth is not certain. John received a 20-pound annuity from Henry VII, but there are no mentions of him in contemporary records after 1487 (the year of the Battle of Stoke Field). He may have been executed in 1499, though no record of this exists beyond an assertion by George Buck over a century later.^[316] Katherine apparently died before her cousin Elizabeth of York's coronation on 25 November 1487, since her husband Sir William Herbert is described as a widower by that time.^[213][7] Katherine's burial place was located in the London parish church of St James Garlickhithe,^{[note 6]} between Skinner's Lane and Upper Thames Street.^[318]

The mysterious Richard Plantagenet, who was first mentioned in Francis Peck's Desiderata Curiosa (a two-volume miscellany published 1732–1735) was said to be a possible illegitimate child of Richard III and is sometimes referred to as "Richard the Master-Builder" or "Richard of Eastwell", but it has also been suggested he could have been Richard, Duke of York, one of the missing Princes in the Tower.^[319] He died in 1550.^[320]

Bronze boar mount found on the Thames foreshore, and thought to have been worn by a supporter of Richard III.^[321]

Coat of arms as Duke of Gloucester

On 1 November 1461, Richard gained the title of Duke of Gloucester; in late 1461, he was invested as a Knight of the Garter.^[322] Following the death of King Edward IV, he was made Lord Protector of England. Richard held this office from 30 April to 26 June 1483, when he became king. During his reign, Richard was styled Dei Gratia Rex Angliae et Franciae et Dominus Hiberniae (by the Grace of God, King of England and France and Lord of Ireland).

Informally, he may have been known as "Dickon", according to a sixteenth-century legend of a note, warning of treachery, that was sent to the Duke of Norfolk on the eve of Bosworth:

Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold,
For Dickon, thy master, is bought and sold.^[323]

• King Richard III Visitor Centre, Leicester
• Ricardian (Richard III)
• Richard III Experience at Monk Bar, York