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= Richard_III_ =
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Introduction
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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.
Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession to
the throne of his older 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, and
their side of the family faced-off against their Lancastrian cousins.
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 Ricardian author
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.
Early life
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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.
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, between the Yorkists, who supported
Richard's father (a potential claimant to the throne of King Henry VI
from birth) and opposed the regime of Henry VI and his wife, Margaret
of Anjou, and the Lancastrians, who were loyal to the crown. 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.
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. 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.
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. With some
interruptions, Richard stayed at Middleham either from late 1461 until
early 1465, when he was 12 or from 1465 until his coming of age in
1468, when he turned 16. 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.
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, as had been the case for the young
dukes' father, Richard of York. As the relationship between the king
and Warwick became strained, Edward IV opposed the match. 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,
while Richard remained loyal to Edward, even though he was rumoured to
have been having an affair with Anne.
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.
During his adolescence, and due to a cause that is unknown, Richard
developed scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine. 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.
Marriage and family relationships
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Following a decisive Yorkist victory over the Lancastrians at the
Battle of Tewkesbury, Richard married Anne Neville on 12 July 1472.
Anne had previously been wedded to Edward of Westminster, only son of
Henry VI, to seal her father's allegiance to the Lancastrian party.
Edward died at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, while Warwick
had died at the Battle of Barnet on 14 April 1471. Richard's marriage
plans brought him into conflict with his brother George. 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". 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.
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". 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. Richard retained Neville's forfeit
estates he had already been granted in the summer of 1471: Penrith,
Sheriff Hutton and Middleham, where he later established his marital
household.
The requisite papal dispensation was obtained dated 22 April 1472.
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. 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.
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, 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". 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". 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. 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. 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. There is no evidence of
Richard's involvement in George's subsequent conviction and execution
on a charge of treason.
Estates and titles
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Richard was granted the Dukedom of Gloucester on 1 November 1461, and
on 12 August the next year was awarded large estates in northern
England, including the lordships of Richmond in Yorkshire, and
Pembroke in Wales. He gained the forfeited lands of the Lancastrian
John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, in East Anglia. In 1462, on his
birthday, he was made Constable of Gloucester and Corfe Castles and
Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine and appointed Governor of
the North, becoming the richest and most powerful noble in England. On
17 October 1469, he was made Constable of England. In November, he
replaced William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, as Chief Justice of
North Wales. The following year, he was appointed Chief Steward and
Chamberlain of Wales. On 18 May 1471, Richard was named Great
Chamberlain and Lord High Admiral of England. Other positions
followed: High Sheriff of Cumberland for life, Lieutenant of the North
and Commander-in-Chief against the Scots and hereditary Warden of the
West March. Two months later, on 14 July, he gained the Lordships of
the strongholds Sheriff Hutton and Middleham in Yorkshire and Penrith
in Cumberland, which had belonged to Warwick the Kingmaker. It is
possible that the grant of Middleham seconded Richard's personal
wishes.
Exile and return
==================
During the latter part of Edward IV's reign, Richard demonstrated his
loyalty to the king, in contrast to their brother George who had
allied himself with the Earl of Warwick when the latter rebelled
towards the end of the 1460s. Following Warwick's 1470 rebellion,
before which he had made peace with Margaret of Anjou and promised the
restoration of Henry VI to the English throne, Richard, the Baron
Hastings and Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, escaped capture at
Doncaster by Warwick's brother, John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu.
On 2 October they sailed from King's Lynn in two ships; Edward landed
at Marsdiep and Richard at Zeeland. It was said that, having left
England in such haste as to possess almost nothing, Edward was forced
to pay their passage with his fur cloak; certainly, Richard borrowed
three pounds from Zeeland's town bailiff. They were attainted by
Warwick's only Parliament on 26 November. They resided in Bruges with
Louis de Gruthuse, who had been the Burgundian Ambassador to Edward's
court, but it was not until Louis XI of France declared war on
Burgundy that Charles, Duke of Burgundy, assisted their return,
providing, along with the Hanseatic merchants, 20,000 pounds, 36 ships
and 1,200 men. They left Flushing for England on 11 March 1471.
Warwick's arrest of local sympathisers prevented them from landing in
Yorkist East Anglia and on 14 March, after being separated in a storm,
their ships ran ashore at Holderness. The town of Hull refused Edward
entry. He gained entry to York by using the same claim as Henry of
Bolingbroke had before deposing Richard II in 1399; that is, that he
was merely reclaiming the Dukedom of York rather than the crown. It
was in Edward's attempt to regain his throne that Richard began to
demonstrate his skill as a military commander.
1471 military campaign
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Once Edward had regained the support of his brother George, he mounted
a swift and decisive campaign to regain the crown through combat; it
is believed that Richard was his principal lieutenant as some of the
king's earliest support came from members of Richard's affinity,
including Sir James Harrington and Sir William Parr, who brought 600
men-at-arms to them at Doncaster. Richard may have led the vanguard at
the Battle of Barnet, in his first command, on 14 April 1471, where he
outflanked the wing of Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter, although the
degree to which his command was fundamental may have been exaggerated.
That Richard's personal household sustained losses indicate he was in
the thick of the fighting. A contemporary source is clear about his
holding the vanguard for Edward at Tewkesbury, deployed against the
Lancastrian vanguard under Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset, on 4
May 1471, and his role two days later, as Constable of England,
sitting alongside John Howard as Earl Marshal, in the trial and
sentencing of leading Lancastrians captured after the battle.
1475 invasion of France
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At least in part resentful of King Louis XI's previous support of his
Lancastrian opponents, and possibly in support of his brother-in-law
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, Edward went to parliament in
October 1472 for funding a military campaign, and eventually landed in
Calais on 4 July 1475. Richard's was the largest private contingent of
his army. Although well known to have publicly been against the
eventual treaty signed with Louis XI at Picquigny (and absent from the
negotiations, in which one of his rank would have been expected to
take a leading role), he acted as Edward's witness when the king
instructed his delegates to the French court, and received 'some very
fine presents' from Louis on a visit to the French king at Amiens. In
refusing other gifts, which included 'pensions' in the guise of
'tribute', he was joined only by Cardinal Bourchier. He supposedly
disapproved of Edward's policy of personally benefiting--politically
and financially--from a campaign paid for out of a parliamentary
grant, and hence out of public funds. Any military prowess was
therefore not to be revealed further until the last years of Edward's
reign.
The North, and the Council in the North
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Richard was the dominant magnate in the north of England until Edward
IV's death. There, and especially in the city of York, he was highly
regarded; although it has been questioned whether this view was
reciprocated by Richard. Edward IV delegated significant authority to
Richard in the region. Kendall and later historians have suggested
that this was with the intention of making Richard the 'Lord of the
North'; Peter Booth, however, has argued that "instead of allowing his
brother Richard 'carte blanche', [Edward] restricted his influence by
using his own agent, Sir William Parr." Following Richard's accession
to the throne, he first established the Council of the North and made
his nephew John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln, president and
formally institutionalised this body as an offshoot of the royal
Council; all its letters and judgements were issued on behalf of the
king and in his name. The council had a budget of 2,000 marks per
annum and had issued "Regulations" by July of that year: councillors
to act impartially, declare vested interests and to meet at least
every three months. Its main focus of operations was Yorkshire and the
north-east and its responsibilities included land disputes, keeping of
the king's peace and punishing lawbreakers.
War with Scotland
===================
Richard's increasing role in the north from the mid-1470s to some
extent explains his withdrawal from the royal court. He had been
Warden of the West March on the Scottish border since 10 September
1470, and again from May 1471; he used Penrith as a base while 'taking
effectual measures' against the Scots, and 'enjoyed the revenues of
the estates' of the Forest of Cumberland while doing so. It was at the
same time that the Duke of Gloucester was appointed High Sheriff of
Cumberland for five consecutive years, being described as 'of Penrith
Castle' in 1478.
By 1480, war with Scotland was looming; on 12 May that year, he was
appointed Lieutenant-General of the North (a position created for the
occasion) as fears of a Scottish invasion grew. Louis XI of France had
attempted to negotiate a military alliance with Scotland (in the
tradition of the "Auld Alliance"), with the aim of attacking England,
according to a contemporary French chronicler. Richard had the
authority to summon the Border Levies and issue Commissions of Array
to repel the Border raids. Together with the Earl of Northumberland,
he launched counter-raids, and when the king and council formally
declared war in November 1480, he was granted 10,000 pounds for wages.
The king failed to arrive to lead the English army and the result was
intermittent skirmishing until early 1482. Richard witnessed the
treaty with Alexander, Duke of Albany, brother of King James III of
Scotland. Northumberland, Stanley, Dorset, Sir Edward Woodville, and
Richard with approximately 20,000 men took the town of Berwick as part
of the English invasion of Scotland. The castle held out until 24
August 1482, when Richard recaptured Berwick-upon-Tweed from the
Kingdom of Scotland. Although it is debatable whether the English
victory was due more to internal Scottish divisions rather than any
outstanding military prowess by Richard, it was the last time that the
Royal Burgh of Berwick changed hands between the two realms.
Lord Protector
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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. On 29 April, as previously agreed, Richard and
his cousin, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, met Queen
Elizabeth's brother 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. 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.
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.
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. 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." 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."
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.
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. 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. Hastings was not attainted and Richard
sealed an indenture that placed Hastings' widow, Katherine, under his
protection. Bishop Morton was released into the custody of Buckingham.
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.
King of England
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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 the French diplomat, Philippe de
Commines. 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. Shortly after, the citizens of London,
nobles and commons, convened and drew up a petition asking Richard to
assume the throne. 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'.
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. 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. Other culprits have been suggested, including
Buckingham and even Henry VII, although Richard remains the primary
suspect.
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. 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. He also founded the College of Arms.
Buckingham's rebellion of 1483
================================
In 1483, a conspiracy arose among a number of disaffected gentry, many
of whom had been supporters of Edward IV and the "whole Yorkist
establishment". The conspiracy was nominally led by Richard's former
ally, the Duke of Buckingham, although it had begun as a
Woodville-Beaufort conspiracy (being "well underway" by the time of
the Duke's involvement). Davies has suggested that it was "only the
subsequent parliamentary attainder that placed Buckingham at the
centre of events", to blame a disaffected magnate motivated by greed,
rather than "the embarrassing truth" that those opposing Richard were
actually "overwhelmingly Edwardian loyalists". It is possible that
they planned to depose Richard III and place Edward V back on the
throne, and that when rumours arose that Edward and his brother were
dead, Buckingham proposed that Henry Tudor should return from exile,
take the throne and marry Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV. It
has also been pointed out that as this narrative stems from Richard's
parliament of 1484, it should probably be treated "with caution". For
his part, Buckingham raised a substantial force from his estates in
Wales and the Marches. Henry, in exile in Brittany, enjoyed the
support of the Breton treasurer Pierre Landais, who hoped Buckingham's
victory would cement an alliance between Brittany and England.
Some of Henry Tudor's ships ran into a storm and were forced to return
to Brittany or Normandy, while Henry anchored off Plymouth for a week
before learning of Buckingham's failure. Buckingham's army was
troubled by the same storm and deserted when Richard's forces came
against them. Buckingham tried to escape in disguise but was either
turned in by a retainer for the bounty Richard had put on his head, or
was discovered in hiding with him. He was convicted of treason and
beheaded in Salisbury, near the Bull's Head Inn, on 2 November. His
widow, Catherine Woodville, later married Jasper Tudor, the uncle of
Henry Tudor. Richard made overtures to Landais, offering military
support for Landais's weak regime under Francis II, Duke of Brittany,
in exchange for Henry. Henry fled to Paris, where he secured support
from the French regent Anne of Beaujeu, who supplied troops for an
invasion in 1485.
Death at the Battle of Bosworth Field
======================================================================
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). 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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.
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. Polydore Vergil, Henry VII's
official historian, recorded that "King Richard, alone, was killed
fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies". 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. It was said that the blows were so violent that the
king's helmet was driven into his skull. 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".
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. 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." 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. 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, prior to being hastily and discreetly buried
in the choir of Greyfriars Church in Leicester. In 1495, Henry VII
paid 50 pounds for a marble and alabaster monument. According to a
discredited tradition, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, his
body was thrown into the River Soar, although other evidence suggests
that a memorial stone was visible in 1612, in a garden built on the
site of Greyfriars. The exact location was then lost, owing to more
than 400 years of subsequent development, 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.
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.
Legacy
======================================================================
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. 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. 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. 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.
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. 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. He founded the College of Arms in 1484, he banned
restrictions on the printing and sale of books, and he ordered the
translation of the written Laws and Statutes from the traditional
French into English. During his reign, Parliament ended the arbitrary
benevolence (a device by which Edward IV raised funds), made it
punishable to conceal from a buyer of land that a part of the property
had already been disposed of to somebody else, required that land
sales be published, laid down property qualifications for jurors,
restricted the abusive Courts of Piepowders, regulated cloth sales,
instituted certain forms of trade protectionism, prohibited the sale
of wine and oil in fraudulent measure, and prohibited fraudulent
collection of clergy dues, among others. Churchill implies he improved
the law of trusts.
Richard's death at Bosworth marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty,
which had ruled England since the succession of Henry II in 1154. 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.
Reputation
============
There are numerous contemporary, or near-contemporary, sources of
information about the reign of Richard III. 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.
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". 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". 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.
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. 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, at the
same time ordering the Sheriff of London to imprison anyone spreading
such slanders. 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.
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"
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." 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."
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. 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." 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; Shakespeare's intention perhaps being to use
Richard III as a vehicle for creating his own Marlowesque protagonist.
Rous himself in his 'History of the Kings of England', written during
Henry VII's reign, initiated the process. He reversed his earlier
position, 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". Rous also attributes the murder of Henry VI to
Richard, and claims that he poisoned his own wife. 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."
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".
Vergil also says he was "deformed of body ... one shoulder higher than
the right". 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. 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".
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".
Francis Bacon also states that he was "a good lawmaker for the ease
and solace of the common people". 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."
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.
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". 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. 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'. 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.
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. 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. 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, of Lancastrian descent, and between Elizabeth of York and
Joanna's cousin Manuel, Duke of Viseu (later King of Portugal).
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.
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, although Pollard observes that this retraction is
frequently overlooked by later admirers of Richard. 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. 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.
Some 20th-century historians have been less inclined to moral
judgement, 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."
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."
In culture
============
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' (), performed in the
same decade as Shakespeare's work, was probably an influence on
Shakespeare. 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.
Marjorie Bowen's 1929 novel 'Dickon' set the trend for pro-Ricardian
literature. 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. 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. Sharon Kay
Penman, in her historical novel 'The Sunne in Splendour', attributes
the death of the Princes to the Duke of Buckingham. 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. A sympathetic portrayal is given in
'The Founding' (1980), the first volume in 'The Morland Dynasty'
series by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.
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. Also notable are the 1995 film version starring Ian
McKellen, set in a fictional 1930s fascist England, and 'Looking for
Richard', a 1996 documentary film directed by Al Pacino, who plays the
title character as well as himself. The play has been adapted for
television on several occasions.
Discovery of remains
======================================================================
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). 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. 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.
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. 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.
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. A
human skeleton was found beneath the Church's choir.
The excavators found the remains in the course of the first excavation
at the car park.
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 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 cm.
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.
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. A British-born woman who emigrated to
Canada after the Second World War, Joy Ibsen (), was found to be a
16th-generation great-niece of the king in the same direct maternal
line. 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. 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.
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, 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. 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; 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. A museum
to Richard III was opened in July 2014 in the Victorian school
buildings next to the Greyfriars grave site.
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. The face is
described as "warm, young, earnest and rather serious". 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.
In November 2014, the results of the DNA testing were published,
confirming that the maternal side was as previously thought. 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.
Reburial and tomb
===================
After his death in battle in 1485, Richard III's body was buried in
Greyfriars Church in Leicester. Following the discoveries of Richard's
remains in 2012, it was decided that they should be reburied at
Leicester Cathedral, despite feelings in some quarters that he should
have been reburied in York Minster. Those who challenged the decision
included fifteen "collateral [non-direct] descendants of Richard III",
represented by the Plantagenet Alliance, who believed that the body
should be reburied in York, as they claim the king wished. 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. 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". 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" undermining the group's
claim to represent "the only people who can speak on behalf of him". A
ruling in May 2014 decreed that there are "no public law grounds for
the Court interfering with the decisions in question". The remains
were taken to Leicester Cathedral on 22 March 2015 and reinterred on
26 March.
His remains were carried in procession to the cathedral on 22 March
2015, and reburied on 26 March 2015 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. 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.
Richard's cathedral tomb was designed by the architects van Heyningen
and Haward. 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. On top is a funeral crown commissioned specifically for the
reinterment, and made by George Easton. The remains of Richard III are
in a lead-lined inner casket, 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. 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. 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.
Issue
======================================================================
Richard and Anne had one son, Edward of Middleham, who was born
between 1474 and 1476. He was created Earl of Salisbury on 15 February
1478, 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. 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. 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 sister Joanna. The pious princess had already turned down
several suitors because of her preference for the religious life.
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. There is no evidence of infidelity on
Richard's part after his marriage to Anne Neville in 1472 when he was
around 20. This has led to a suggestion by the historian A. L. Rowse
that Richard "had no interest in sex".
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. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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. Katherine's burial place was located in the London parish church
of St James Garlickhithe, between Skinner's Lane and Upper Thames
Street.
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.
He died in 1550.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
======================================================================
On 1 November 1461, Richard gained the title of Duke of Gloucester; in
late 1461, he was invested as a Knight of the Garter. 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:
Arms
======
As Duke of Gloucester, Richard used the Royal Arms of France quartered
with the Royal Arms of England, differenced by a label argent of three
points ermine, on each point a canton gules, supported by a blue boar.
As sovereign, he used the arms of the kingdom undifferenced, supported
by a white boar and a lion. His motto was 'Loyaulte me lie', "Loyalty
binds me"; and his personal device was a white boar.
See also
======================================================================
* King Richard III Visitor Centre, Leicester
* Richard III Experience at Monk Bar, York
External links
======================================================================
* [
https://kriii.com/about-kriii/an-incredible-discovery/ King Richard
III Visitor Center - An Incredible Discovery]
*
*
*
*
*
License
=========
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_
