Richard III

Archaeologists recently uncovered a medieval church, Greyfriars, under a parking lot in Leicester, England (pictures here), which is said to be the final resting place of Richard III.  Richard III is believed to be buried in Greyfriars in 1485, after he died at the Battle of Bosworth Field during the War of the Roses.  He is the last King of England to died in battle. 

Richard III is a fascinating figure in history, made especially famous by the play of the same name written by William Shakespeare over 100 years after Richard's death.  Richard III is most noted as being the alleged killer of the two young princes under his care, sons of Richard's brother, King Edward IV.  The princes Edward and Richard were said to have been imprisoned and killed in the Tower of London on Richard III's orders, and led to the legend of the Princes in the Tower.  Richard III was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet Dynasty, which ruled England from 1154 until 1485 - a reign of 14 kings lasting 331 years.

In Shakespeare' play, Richard III is most decidedly an amoral and Machiavellian villain.  However, there are plenty of novelists and historians who argued that the real Richard is not the evil villain he became known to be.  During his short two-year reign, according to Wikipedia, he "instituted what later became known as the Court of Requests, a court which poor people who could not afford legal representation could apply to for their grievances to be heard, introduced bail in to protect suspected felons from imprisonment before trial and protect their property from seizure during that time, founded the College of Arms, banned restrictions on the printing and sale of books, and ordered the translation of the written Laws and Statutes from the traditional French into English."

One of my favorite books ever is Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time," which presents an alternate view of Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.  The title of the book, "The Daughter of Time," is from a quote by Sir Francis Bacon: "Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority," which indicated Tey's view that the evil Richard was a constructed myth, not reality. 

In that book, Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard inspector and a regular character in Tey's books, was in the hospital with a broken leg.  He was really bored and restless, and decided to investigate the case of Richard III after being intrigued by a portrait of Richard III that showed him as being gentle and wise, instead of monstrous and cruel.  With the help of an American researcher who was working at the British Museum, Grant investigated the case like a modern detective without leaving his bed, and concluded that the story of Richard III being a callous murderer and a monster was constructed by the Tudor dynasty that came after him, partly to assert the Tudor claim to the throne. 

The book pointed out the fact that Richard III was never accused or convicted of any murder against the Princes during his time, and that the most famous source of the evil Richard III story came from Sir Thomas More, who was an advisor to Tudor King Henry VIII, and was only eight years old when Richard III died.  This fact led credence to the theory that the evil Richard was simply a creation of the Tudor kings who wanted to establish the legitimacy of their claim to the throne, which they wrested from Richard III during the War of the Roses.  Shakespeare used More's Richard III book heavily in writing his play, so it made sense that his Richard III is also a villain. 

I did not research Tey's sources or evidence, but I did come away convinced that Richard III is not as evil as More and Shakespeare had made him out to be.  It is a very well-written book and has an interesting narrative structure - definitely worth reading for mystery fans.