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Jul 7, 2023 · Had Richard prevailed at Bosworth, his reputation might have been viewed as more positive, like those of Henry IV and Edward IV, both of whom polished off their predecessor. But Richard never recovered from his illicit usurpation. Not a bad king, Richard’s reign was nevertheless disastrous.
Oct 4, 2016 · No reputation has suffered more than that of Richard III from the romantic adulation or vituperative condemnation of commentators viewing it from the moral high ground of later ages. Richard has been labelled an ambitious child-murderer, as well as an enlightened ruler viciously libelled by his enemies.
When archaeologists unearthed the battered mortal remains of King Richard III beneath a council car park in Leicester in 2012, they not only made the historical find of the century (so far)...
- Contemporary Evidence
- Tudor Dawn
- The ‘Black Legend’
- A Reputation Restored?
- Why Has Richard’s Legend Survived?
- The Body Under The Carpark
There is certainly evidence that Richard was considered evil in his own lifetime. According to the London ambassador Philippe de Commynes, Richard was ‘inhuman and cruel’, and Dominic Mancini, an Italian in London writing in 1483, proclaimed the people ‘cursed him with a fate worthy of his crimes’. In the Crowland Chronicle, written in 1486, Richar...
The turning point for Richard’s reputation was 1485. He lost the Battle of Bosworth to Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII. Across this time, several sources changed their tune dramatically – probably to gain favour with the new monarchy. For example, in 1483, an employee of the Nevilles named John Rous praised Richard’s ‘fully commendable rule’, who...
Over the following century, a host of Tudor subjects successfully developed a ‘black legend’. Thomas More’s unfinished ‘History of Richard III’, cemented Richard’s reputation as a tyrant. He was described as ‘piteous, wicked’, and responsible for the ‘lamentable murder of his innocent nephews’. Another work was Polydore Vergil’s ‘Anglia Historia’, ...
The following centuries offered a few attempts to challenge Richard as a ‘dreadful minister of Hell’. However, like the Tudor writers before them, they tended to have vested interests and are plagued with inaccuracies. The first revisionist, Sir George Buck, wrote in 1646: Of course, it turns out Buck’s great grandfather was fighting for Richard at...
The big question (apart from ‘Did he murder his nephews?’), is why Richard’s legend has survived and developed throughout the centuries. Firstly, the mystery regarding ‘the princes in the tower’ has never been solved, keeping the debate alive and vivacious. Secondly, as the star of More, Walpole and Shakespeare’s greatest works, whether true or not...
Since 2012, interest in Richard skyrocketed when members of the Richard IIISociety discovered his body under a carpark in Leicester. Richard was treated as a revered monarch, receiving a full funeral by the Archbishop of Canterbury and current members of the Royal Family. Although Shakespeare’s character has largely been taken as fiction, there is ...
Jun 22, 2023 · King Richard III polarises opinion today: even 570 years after his birth in 1452, and 537 years after his death at the Battle of Bosworth, he still fires imaginations and sparks heated debates worldwide.
Mar 11, 2021 · Rejecting the ‘Tudor myth’ of a calculating schemer who revels in evil, they nevertheless point out that while Richard may not necessarily have been a bad man, he was certainly a bad king whose actions ultimately led to the destruction not only of himself but also of the Yorkist dynasty.
May 26, 2024 · In death, Richard III‘s historical reputation would be blackened by the Tudor victors and, most memorably, by William Shakespeare. In his play Richard III, Shakespeare immortalized Richard as a diabolical hunchback, a murderous usurper who butchered his way to power.
