Richard III of England

King Richard III of England
King of England and France, Lord of Ireland
King of England (more...)
Reign	26 June 1483 – 22 August 1485 (2 years, 57 days)
Coronation	6 July 1483
Predecessor	Edward V
Successor	Henry VII
Lord Protector of England
Regency	9 April 1483 – 25 June 1483
Monarch	Edward V
Born	(1451-10-02)2 October 1451 Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire
Died	22 August 1485(1485-08-22) (aged 33) Bosworth Field, Leicestershire
Burial	Greyfriars (Franciscan Friary), Leicester[1]
Consort	Anne Neville
Issue	Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales
House	House of York
Father	Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York
Mother	Cecily Neville, Duchess of York

Richard III (1451–1485) was the King of England from 1483 until 1485. He was the last king from the House of Plantagenet.

Richard was part of the House of York during the Wars of the Roses. He was the younger brother of King Edward IV. When Edward IV died, his 12-year-old son became King Edward V. Richard was given the role of "Protector", meaning he would run the country until Edward V became an adult. However, Edward IV, a well known womanizer, had entered into a second, secret marriage with his children's mother, while he was still married to Eleanor Butler; thereby, rendering all seven children illegitimate. The Three Estates and the London City Council began discussions about the evidence brought forth by Bishop Robert Stillington, and concluded that the late king had committed bigamy, making his children bastards who were, therefore, ineligible to inherent the throne. The crown was presented to the oldest male relative of Edward IV, Richard.

The rumour that Richard had ordered the boys to be killed originated in the French court and did not reach England for several months.

Richard put down a rebellion in October 1483 by his old friend the Duke of Buckingham, and the simultaneous first attempt by Henry Tudor and his French troops to land in England to usurp the throne. Buckingham was beheaded for high treason, and bad weather on the English Channel prevented Henry from landing. Henry Tudor successfully landed in Wales in August 1485. While he did not succeed in attracting men to his cause, the Stanley brothers agreed to bring their sizable private army with him. This led to the Battle of Bosworth Field, in which Richard was betrayed and killed by William Stanley's men. His body was put on public display, nude, in Leicester for three days, before Henry allowed the body to be buried in a quickly dug grave in their priory in Leicester.

In 2012, Richard's skeleton was rediscovered beneath a car park, where the priory once stood. It was reburied in Leicester Cathedral in March 2015.

For many years, Richard III was seen as a villain. The Tudor kings and queens encouraged this, as did Shakespeare's famous play Richard III. Almost all writers at the time saw him as either a hero or a villain. In both the past and the present, some writers say that Richard III made many good laws, for example, an accused was innocent until proven guilty, and that land and property could not be seized while an accused awaited trial. He abolished various illegal means by which the southern English nobility made money off the lower classes (which made Richard several enemies). Others argue that he was ruthless, but that this behaviour was common for the powerful people of that time.

1. ↑ Richard was originally buried in the Church of the Greyfriars, Leicester