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Facts About Richard III | History's Most Reviled King
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Jun 11, 2025
King Richard III of England is remembered as one of history’s most villainous royals: a cruel, calculating hunchback who did whatever it took to secure power for himself. But there’s a lot more to Richard than what the detractors want you to believe. So, who was the real Richard III?
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Thanks greatly to Shakespeare, King Richard III of England
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is remembered as a cruel, calculating hunchback who did whatever it took to secure power for himself
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Born in 1452, Richard seized the throne and the power that came with it
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His reign wouldn't last long, though. Just two years later, Henry Tudor
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would defeat Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Eager to legitimize the Tudor dynasty
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propagandists denounced Richard as a devilish usurper. But who was the real Richard III
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Today, we're going to take a look at some things you probably didn't know about Richard III
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history's most reviled king. Thanks to the bard, Richard III is typically remembered
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as a guy with a withered arm whose inner crookedness was represented externally and theatrically
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by his deformed hunched back. In real life, a disability isn't caused by inner evil
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And in Richard III's case, there isn't even any historical evidence to support the claim he was a hunchback at all
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In fact, the evidence we do have suggests the opposite. Richard had no significant physical deformities to speak of
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His bones, which were discovered in 2012, reveal that he may have suffered from scoliosis
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with a mild bend of the spine. But that's about it. This minor physical ailment would have simply made Richard short with uneven shoulders
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not the monstrous hunchbacked boogeyman of popular history. After he was hacked to pieces at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485
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the location of Richard III's body was lost to history. However, 528 years later, in February of
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2013, archaeologists from the University of Leicester announced to the world that they had
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found Richard's remains. Where was the king buried all that time? It turns out beneath a parking lot
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for the Leicester City Council. Parking over 24 hours, that's going to be a big fee. Of course
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it wasn't a parking lot when they buried him. At the time of Richard's death, the site was the home
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of the Greyfriars Church, so it makes sense that the body of the king would have been secretly
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buried in a place like that right after the battle. However, it seems a little incongruous
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when, centuries later, archaeologists found themselves exhuming a famous royal, who even had his own Shakespeare play
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from beneath an unassuming parking spot. In his day Richard was known as a relatively competent monarch and possibly a child murderer Yes even now historians still continue to debate what was considered one of the great mysteries of the 15th century
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Did Richard III off his own nephews? And while Richard himself likely didn't take out
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the boys in their sleep, he may very well have had the two youngsters whacked on his behalf
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The facts are these. After seizing the throne from his 12-year-old nephew
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Richard had a new problem. what to do with Edward, his nine-year-old brother
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Richard, Duke of York. In 1483, Richard finally decided. As it was popular with English monarchs at the time
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Richard had the boys locked away in the Tower of London. Perhaps sensing that having two young boys locked up
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so he could steal their birthright wouldn't make for great PR, Richard announced
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that he was doing it for their own protection. The two boys eventually disappeared
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from the historical record. Today, theories about what happened to the two princes in the tower include everything you could possibly imagine
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but most historians just believe that Richard got rid of them to secure power for himself
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Interestingly, in 1674, the skeletons of two children were discovered under some stairs by workmen remodeling part of the Tower of London
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They appeared to be about the right size to be the princes, and King Charles II later had them interred in Westminster Abbey under that assumption
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However, historians have several reasons to question the identification, not the least of which
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is that skeletons of children had been discovered at least once before in an old chamber that had been walled up
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Doesn't sound like a good place to grow up in. When Henry Tudor landed in England
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he had a claim to the throne, but he also had far fewer troops than Richard did
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This being the case, Richard was supremely confident he would finally crush the young upstart and secure his rule
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But it didn't go that way. In truth, the tide was turning against Richard
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You see, the powerful Stanley family had once been loyal supporters of Richard and his claim
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But sensing which way the wind was blowing, they suddenly switched sides just before the Battle
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of Bosworth Field. That battle took place on August 22, 1485. And by all accounts, it was going pretty well for the king
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right up until the Stanleys led a charge that took Richard out
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Richard's death was absolutely brutal. No less than 11 blows were inflicted before he went down
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Richard III is distinguished for being two significant lasts in the history of the English monarchy
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For one he was the last Plantagenet king a royal dynasty that had been ruling England since the 12th century So basically he was such a flop that he ended his entire lineage
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But beyond that, he holds yet another distinction. He was the very last English king to be killed in battle
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There is a certain honor in that. But at the same time, you're the guy who made every later monarch ask, do I really
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want to ride into battle? It doesn't always go well. Richard's wife, Anne Neville, died in March of 1485
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Though historians are still divided on what caused her death, it is generally agreed that tuberculosis was the most likely culprit
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Almost immediately after her passing, however, rumors started to swirl that Richard had not only poisoned his wife
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but that he had done so in order to marry his own niece, Elizabeth of York
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And it's certainly true that marriage was on his mind. As king, Richard would understand that he needed to remarry
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in order to produce a legitimate heir to succeed him. After all, he was already 32 in an era
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when the average life expectancy was just 35. But whatever his initial plans may or may not have been
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when he did or did not kill his wife, he never made a move on his niece
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Instead, he put an offer out to Princess Joanna of Portugal. However, the courting process ran into a little snag
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when Richard was killed in battle. Richard III's reign was incredibly brief
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He was king of England for only two years, from 1483 to 1485
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Nonetheless, he showed great promise from an administrative point of view. Though most of his reign was bogged down
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by his unending efforts to simply hold on to the throne that he had stolen, it also revealed hints
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of a shrewd and able legal mind. Among his legal reforms were greater protections for poor people in the court
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Historians have also pointed to other evidence that Richard was apparently interested in using
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the law to protect ordinary people, which at the time was a pretty novel idea. Sadly
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for the ordinary people of England, he didn't get a chance to carry out most of his agenda
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As previously explained, after the death of King Edward IV in 1483, Richard III's 12-year-old
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nephew became king, with his younger brother as his heir. Richard soon locked both boys in the Tower of London, under the guise of protecting them
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and shielding them from people who wished to harm them. Thanks, Uncle Richard
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And if imprisoning them wasn enough and if Richard wanted to be king it wasn he also declared the boys illegitimate And just to be sure he did the same to all of the children of his brother and his wife Elizabeth Woodville Illegitimate illegitimate illegitimate illegitimate
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and illegitimate. Oh, you're illegitimate too. This legal maneuver allowed Richard to present himself as the logical true heir to his brother
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and he was officially proclaimed king later that year. Though Richard's only legitimate child, Edward, Prince of Wales, died in childhood
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the king also had two other children. While we don't know when they were born or who their
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respective mothers were, John of Gloucester and Catherine Plantagenet are historically considered
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Richard's issue. They may have been illegitimate, but Richard reportedly cared and provided for them
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and treated them like the family they were. Yet despite these potential dynastic claims
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Richard's line died with his children. As for John and Catherine, nothing is certain
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Henry VII may have eventually executed John, since, illegitimate or not, he was the son of the defeated king
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And Catherine died childless. The 2012 discovery of Richard's grave
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gave researchers the chance to piece together more of his life. Studies conducted on his bones have even revealed clues
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about his eating habits. Consistent with the lifestyle of aristocrats and royals
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in this period, Richard evidently ate a lot of meat and drank a whole lot of wine
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Also, despite being an English king, he appears to have preferred foreign wines
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rather than English ale. Another test revealed that he was literally crawling with worms
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and not the death and decay kind. After taking soil samples from the region near his abdomen
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researchers determined that the illustrious King of England had been afflicted during his lifetime with roundworms
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His case of parasites was not in any way abnormal. Hygiene in the late Middle Ages was poor for commoners
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and royals alike, and lots of them lived with roundworms. In the wake of Richard III's defeat
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popular memory imagined him as a corrupt, evil ruler. But in reality, many people believe that Richard has unfairly gotten a bad rap
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In fact, the whole society now exists to clear his name. Founded in 1924, the International Richard III Society indicates just how widespread Richard's
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popularity has become in recent decades. They could be right that Richard got a bad rap he didn't deserve, or maybe he was just
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the kind of guy who was a lot easier to like after he was gone