Richard III of England

Richard was born on 2 October 1452, at Fotheringhay Castle; he was the twelfth of thirteen children of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and his wife Cecily Neville. Richard was born at the beginning of what is called the Wars of the Roses, a period of three or four decades of political instability and open civil war in the second half of the 15th century. It opposed Richard's father and his supporters (the Yorkists) and King Henry VI, Queen Margaret of Anjou and their supporters (the Lancastrians).

When his father and elder brother Edmund were killed at the battle of Wakefield, Richard (aged 8) and his brother George were sent to the Low Countries. They returned to England after the defeat of the Lancastrians at the battle of Towton. In June 1461, their eldest brother was crowned King Edward IV of England. Richard received the title of Duke of Gloucester and was made a Knight of the Garter and Knight of the Bath.

Richard spent several years of his childhood at Middleham Castle, in Yorkshire, under the tutelage of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (known as Kingmaker). There, he met Francis Lovell, who would become his firm supporter, and his future wife (Warwick's daughter), Anne Neville.

In October 1470, Richard and Edward IV were forced to flee to Burgundy after Warwick defected to the Lancastrians. Although only 18 years old, Richard played crucial roles in the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, which resulted in Edward's restoration to the throne in 1471.

Following the decisive Yorkist victory at Tewkesbury, Richard married Anne Neville on 12 July 1472. Richard's marriage brought him into conflict with his brother George. The reason was Anne's inheritance, which was shared with her sister Isabel, and George had married Isabel in 1469. To win his brother's consent, Richard renounced most of Warwick's land and property.

On the death of Edward IV on 9 April 1483, his 12-year-old son, Edward V, succeeded him. Richard was appointed Lord Protector of the Realm. On 29 April, as previously planned, Richard and the Duke of Buckingham met Queen Elizabeth Woodville's brother, Anthony Woodville. At the Queen's request, they were to escort the young King to London.

At first convivial, Richard arrested Anthony and his nephew, Richard Grey. They were executed on 25 June 1483 on the charge of treason against the Lord Protector. After, Richard met with Edward V and informed him of a plot aimed at denying him his role as protector and whose perpetrators had been dealt with. He then escorted the King to London; he was accommodated in the royal apartments of the Tower of London, where Kings usually awaited their coronations.

On 10/11 June 1483, Richard asked for support against the Queen, her blood adherents and affinity, whom he suspected of plotting his murder. Five days later, the Dowager Queen agreed to hand over her youngest son, the Duke of York, so that he might attend his brother's coronation.

A clergyman is said to have informed Richard that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because of Edward's previous union with Eleanor Butler. This made Edward V and his siblings illegitimate. On 22 June 1483, a sermon was preached declaring Edward IV's children bastards and Richard the rightful King of England. The now King Richard III was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 July. The young princes, who were still lodged in the royal residence of the Tower of London at the time of Richard's coronation, disappeared after the summer of 1483.

After the coronation ceremony, King Richard and Queen Anne set out on a royal progress. During this journey, they endowed King's College and Queen's College at Cambridge University and made grants to the Church. Richard also founded the College of Arms.

In 1483, a conspiracy arose among several disaffected gentries. It was led by Richard's former ally, the Duke of Buckingham, although it had begun as a Woodville-Beaufort conspiracy. It is possible that they had planned to deposed Richard III and place Edward V back on the throne but, when rumours arose that Edward and his brother were dead, Buckingham proposed that Henry Tudor should take the throne and marry Elizabeth of York.

Initially, some of Henry Tudor's ships ran into a storm and were forced to turn around, while Henry himself anchored off Plymouth for a week before learning of Buckingham's failure - they had been troubled by the storm and deserted when confronted with Richard's forces. Buckingham was ultimately convicted of treason and beheaded.

The final confrontation occurred on 22 August 1485, when Richard met the outnumbered forces of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The traditional view of the King's famous cry of Treason! before falling is that during the battle, Richard was abandoned by Lord Stanley, Sir William Stanley and the Earl of Northumberland.

Accounts note that Richard fought bravely and ably during his manoeuvre, but the blows were so violent that the King's helmet was driven into his skull. The identification of King Richard's body shows that the skeleton had 11 wounds, 8 of them to the skull.

After the battle, Richard's naked body was carried back to Leicester tied to a horse, and early sources suggest it was displayed in the collegiate Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, before being buried at Greyfriars Church. The location was then lost, owing to more than 400 years of development, until archaeological investigations in 2012 revealed the site of the church.

Henry Tudor succeeded Richard as Henry VII of England, and sought to cement the succession by marrying Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter and Richard III's niece.

Richard III of England

c. 1520