Gone Medieval - Richard III

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

Richard III of England is one of medieval history's most controversial figures. He is known to many as a tyrant, a sleazy, greedy king who even murdered his nephew. But how much of this is true? This episode of Gone Medieval is a little different, as our very own Ricardian Matt Lewis takes us through the story of Richard III. Did England need saving from this alleged horrid king?Matt Lewis is the author of Richard III: Loyalty Binds Me, published by Amberley Publishing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis. This episode is going to be something a little bit different. There's no guest joining us. It's just you and me to talk about one of the medieval periods most controversial figures. Anyone who knows me at all will be aware that Richard III is a real focus for my research and my writing. I'm a Cardian, which means that I think history has done a disservice to Richard the 3rd, and I'm also currently the chair of the Richard the Third Society, as well as the author of a biography of Richard.

The traditional view of Richard III is that he was a greedy, scheming, Machiavellian character, who killed his nephews and usurped the throne to rule as a tyrant. This allows for the foundation mythology of the Tudor dynasty, in which Henry the 7th did the kingdom a huge favour by saving it from a monster, ending the debilitating wars of the roses and pressing a reset button on English politics. The revisionist view is at odds with almost every element of that version of history and encourages us to look beyond Shakespeare's dramatic monster to the real man behind the myths and to recognise that the truth is very different from the story that has been widely

accepted for five centuries. So I thought I would offer you my story of Richard the Third's life. Like everything to do with Richard the Third, it's subjective, but I'm going to try and stick to facts wherever possible and let you know where I'm making judgments. I'll try to pick my way through the myriad of people who all share names and are all related to each other as best I can. Anyone who's ever spoken to me about Richard the 3 will know that I'm going to struggle to keep this to a podcast length chat because I tend to get carried away, but I'm going to do my best. So if you've got a cup of tea or a cup of coffee

or perhaps something a little bit stronger and you're sitting comfortably, I'll begin. Richard was born on the 2nd of October 1452 at Fothering A Castle in Northamptonshire, the seat of the House of York. He was the seventh surviving child and fourth surviving son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and his wife, Cecily Neville, the Duchess of York. His father was the most senior nobleman in England and the richest man after the king.

York was a great-grandson of King Edward III via his fourth son, Edmund Duke of York. He was also a great-great-great-grandson of Edward III through his mother, Anne Moore. And that's a line that led back to the king's second son, Lionel Duke of Clarence. York was also a cousin, actually a second cousin once removed, to the reigning king Henry the 6th, and was widely considered the heir to the throne for as long as Henry remained childless. Cecily Neville's ancestry was hardly less impressive. The Neville family of her father Ralph had been an important northern powerhouse for centuries

and had risen to the rank of Earls of Westmoreland. Cecily's mother, Joan Beaufort, was a daughter of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swinford, so Cecily was a great-granddaughter of King Edward III too by his second son, John. Richard had an illustrious pedigree, but his prospects were less than clear as a fourth son, and it's even possible that a career in the church may have been in his future.

Little is known of Richard's earliest years, From the age of six though, his life would be turned upside down with alarming regularity by the period that we remember as the Wars of the Roses. In 1459, as tensions escalated, York gathered his forces at his base at Ludlow Castle on the Welsh borders. He brought all of his family there, including his three youngest children, Margaret, George and Richard, who had previously been at Fotheringay. It was felt that that castle was known. longer safe enough for them. Richard passed his seventh birthday, watching these forces gather

and then march out of Ludlow towards London. Excitement, though, would turn to fear when his father returned, bearing the news that a royal army was hot on their heels. That fear must have quickly become terror when York, his two oldest sons, Edward and Edmund, his brother-in-law, Richard Neville the Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury's son, the Earl of Warwick, known to history as the famous Kingmaker, fled from Ludlow during the night. Richard, George, Margaret and Cecily were left behind as a royal army flooded into Ludlow to punish the town for supporting York, looting and burning as they went. The problem was that part of the Calais garrison brought across by Warwick had defected during the night,

taking with them details of the Yorkist defences and plans. The men who left probably felt that discretion was the better part of valour. They couldn't fight the army that Henry led without committing treason. And capture, possibly even surrender, would have meant almost certain death. I think there were solid reasons for what York and the others did and for believing that his wife and younger children would be safe from any reprisals, Leaving Cecily there allowed her to keep a foot in the door to lay the groundwork for a possible return.

But would a seven-year-old boy understand all of that? Or would he just feel abandoned by everyone in his life he looked to for protection? Richard was placed into the custody of his maternal aunt and the Duchess of Buckingham. His family was a tainted, found guilty of treason and stripped of all their lands and titles. In early 1460, Warwick led raids on the south coast from Calais,

where he had taken refuge with his father and his cousin Edward, Richard's oldest brother. As summer arrived, they attacked in force, and on the 10th of July 1460, the Yorkists were victorious at the Battle of Northampton, and King Henry VI was captured. In September of that year, Richard's father returned from Ireland, where he had sheltered from the storm with his second son, Edmund. When he reached London, York claimed the throne by right of descent from Edward III's second son, which was presented as a senior claim to the Lancasterian descent from that king's third son.

The act of accord was the result of much discussion. It was agreed on the 25th of October 1460 just a few weeks after Richard's eighth birthday. This made York and his descendants the heirs to King Henry's throne. It made any attack on the family treason and provided them with incomes befitting royal princes. Richard had suddenly been transformed from the son of a dispossessed traitor to standing fifth in line to the throne of England. The year was not yet done with our young Richard though.

Henry the 6th's queen, Margaret vonjou, refused to accept the settlement that disinherited her young son Edward Prince of Wales. Raising an army in Scotland, she marched south. York, Edmund and Salisbury took a force north to confront them. At the Battle of Wakefield on the 30th of December 1460, York and Edmund were both killed. Salsbury was executed shortly afterwards and the three heads were placed on spikes on Micklegate Bar, one of the gateways into the city of York. As the Lancasterian army pushed south, Ceciline Evel panicked in London. Concerned that even her young children were no longer safe from retribution,

she put George and Richard into a small boat with a few servants and sent them across the channel as 1461 began. It was a clear demonstration of how far the conflict in England had changed in the space of just over a year that children were no longer considered safe from their parents' enemies. How might Richard have felt being sent away from everyone and everywhere he had ever known into uncertainty and potential danger? It's hard to say, but it's almost certain that it must have left a mark on the young boy. They landed in the territory of Philip, Duke of Burgundy,

and the boys were initially kept at arm's length as the sons of a family that appeared to be losing everything in England. They must have been frightened and concerned for the rest of their family at home. And it would have been another bewildering moment for the eight-year-old Richard when they were suddenly whisked to the glittering Burgundian court. Suddenly they were treated as honoured guests. They were informed that their brother Edward had won the crown, defeated a Lancastrian army at the Battle of Tauten, and he wanted his brother's home to attend his coronation.

Suddenly now, Richard was second in line to the throne of England. He was knighted and he was created Duke of Gloucester. During the 1460s, Richard initially remained in London under the protection of his brother, King Edward IV, who I think may have become something of a father figure to Richard during this period after the loss of York. The second half of the decade saw Richard move into the household of his famous cousin, the Earl of Warwick. Here, he would have continued his education and his knightly training, but it's probably at this time too that the scoliosis discovered in Richard Skulliophers, skeleton would have begun to manifest. We also know that Richard met Anne Neville, the Kingmaker's

daughter and Richard's future wife, in Warwick's household. The two of them are recorded as sitting at the same table during at least one feast. The nature of their relationship can only ever be speculation, but there is room to believe that it was a good one. Whether it involved love is impossible to say, but as a working relationship, it proved highly successful. As Edward and Warwick fell out spectacularly during the final years of the 1460s, Richard was removed from his cousin's custody and given responsibilities by his brother on the Welsh border and in the south-west of England. Offices in the Duchy of Lancaster saw the teenage Richard placed into direct opposition

to Thomas Lord Stanley, a powerful regional noble. When Stanley squabbled with the Harrington family, Richard took the Harrington side, and defended their castle at Hornby. The Harrington family had supported the House of York from the outset of the troubles that would become the Wars of the Roses. The current head of the family, Sir James Harrington, had lost his father and older brother at the Battle of Wakefield, alongside Richard's own father and brother.

There was a complex argument over the inheritance of the Harrington estates, but it was eventually settled on Sir James's two young nieces, the daughters of his older brother. Lord Stanley moved quickly to marry the girls into his family and lay claim to the estates, centred on the beautiful Hornby Castle. When the Harringtons refused to either hand over the brides or the castle, Lord Stanley had a huge cannon named Mile End,

transported up from Bristol with the intention of blowing the Harringtons out of Hornby. The reason no shot was ever fired is most likely to be found in a document signed by Richard Duke of Gloucester as given under our signet at the castle of Hornby and dated the 26th of March 1470 at the very height of the dispute Richard effectively installed himself

within Hornby and dared Stanley to fire on the king's brother. The incident, I think, shows that Richard valued the loyalty of the Harrington's over the slippery but increasingly powerful Stanleys. It also shows that Richard was unafraid to oppose his brother when he felt Edward was in the wrong. Edward had ordered the Harrington's out of Hornby

and told them to hand over the keys to Stanley. Richard clearly felt the king had made a poor decision and made his feelings clear. Stanley would play a central role later in Richard's life and this episode may have sown the seeds of what was to come. It was probably around this time in the late 1460s or maybe the very early 1470s that Richard fathered two illegitimate children.

The consensus is that they were born before his marriage to Anne Neville and there is no record or even hint of him keeping mistresses after their wedding. John of Pontifract or John of Gloucester and Catherine were acknowledged by Richard and provided for. The identity of their mother or mothers remains a mystery. There are a few hints in some grants that Richard made to ladies but nothing to definitively link either child to a mother. John would vanish after Richard's death at Bosworth and was reportedly in the custody of Henry the 7th during the 1490s,

though his final fate remains unknown. Catherine was married to the Earl of Huntingdon during Richard's reign, but was almost certainly dead by November 1487, when her husband was described in one source as a widower. In 1470, Warwick, joined by George, now Duke of Clarence, an heir to Edward's throne, forced the king out of England and restored King Henry VI. Richard elected to remain loyal to his brother Edward and joined him for a second spell of exile in Burgundy.

This was a period named the re-adeption. It's a word that was made up to explain a situation in which a deposed king returns to his throne. In the spring of 1471, Edward, Richard and a small force set out to retake the kingdom amid storms and treacherous seas. They tried to land in Norfolk but found the coast closely watched. by the Earl of Oxford's men. Moving north, the fleet was scattered by a tempest but made land on the Yorkshire coast, regrouping they began to move towards the city of York. Support was slow to come.

Very slow. Edward began to insist he no longer wanted the crown, just the Duchy of York that was his by right. Whether anyone believed him or the region simply still smarted from the devastation of the Battle of Toughton is unclear. but Edward marched south without facing any opposition. George even submitted to his brother again,

the Chronicles crediting Richard with a critical role in negotiating the renewed friendship between his brothers. They retook London, placing Henry VIth back into the tower, and Edward recovered his family, which now included a son, born in sanctuary during his absence, and named for him. Warwick had refused to confront Edward, but now set out towards,

London, believing in the capital would hold against the king and that he would trap Edward between London's walls and his own army. With Richard and a fresh force, Edward marched a few miles north and met Warwick's army at Barnett. On the 14th of April 1471, Richard, aged 18, got his first taste of battle. Fought in the early morning fog that disorientated the armies, the Battle of Barnet was a fraught affair. Richard led his brother's right flank, and in the confusion of the mist, the troops had lined up off centre,

and Richard was able to flank his opponents easily. He was injured during the fighting, but acquitted himself well, and the Yorkists eventually won the day. Warwick was killed, along with his brother John. Richard may have felt conflicted at the loss of his cousin and former mentor, but also the man who had rebelled so spectacularly

against one brother, corrupting another in the process. Soon after a triumphal return to London, Edward, Richard, George and a refreshed army left again. Margaret von Zhu and her 17-year-old son, Edward Prince of Wales, had landed in the south-west on the same day as the Battle of Barnet. The two armies played cat and mouse along the Welsh border in sweltering heat as Margaret tried to join up with Welsh reinforcements.

They finally clashed at the Battle of Teworthy. on the 4th of May 1471. Prince Edward was killed in the fighting. His mother was captured after the battle, and on the army's return to London, Henry VI was proclaimed dead. The official cause of his death was shock at hearing of his own son's death, but it's equally likely that he was killed.

Some have accused Richard personally of killing both Prince Edward and Henry the 6th. There's no evidence at all to support the former charge, and the latter is based entirely on one source that states that Richard, along with many others, was at the tower during the night that Henry probably died. Hi, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and in my podcast, not just the Tudors, we talk about everything from sex to spying, wardrobes to witch trials. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

In the aftermath of Warwick's death and the vast power vacuum it created in the north of England, Richard married Warwick's younger daughter, Anne Neville. And sister Isabel was already married to Richard's brother George and the two squabbled over the Warwick inheritance, with George insisting that he should have it all. Edward eventually gave George the lands in the Midlands and Richard those in the north. Based around Middellham Castle in Yorkshire, it was here that Richard and Anne spent the bulk of the next decade.

They had one son during that time, Edward of Middellum, sometimes thought to have been born in 1473, but more likely as later as 1476. In the north, Richard built a reputation as a good lord, offering fair justice. His involvement in local politics inevitably meant that some were dissatisfied, but very few ever voiced such sentiments. There were numerous cases of Richard acting in full. favour of the ordinary person against their social superiors and ensuring that justice was done properly where his own retainers were involved. This was unusual at a time when great lords were

more often accused of protecting thugs in their service from the law. One example came in the early 1470s when John Williamson was brutally murdered by three brothers. The brothers and their father immediately entered the service of Richard as the most powerful local magnate, in order to try and protect themselves from the consequences of their actions. John's wife, Catherine Williamson, brought the case to Richard's attention, and despite the hopes of the felons, the father was immediately arrested and put in jail in York to await trial, while his three sons fled but were pursued by the law. Almost a decade later, a husbandman named John Ransson petitioned the Duke directly about Sir Robert Claxton of Horden,

who was preventing him from working his own lands. Sir Robert was not only John's social superior, but also had a son and a son-in-law in Richard's service. If he expected that to assist him, then he was to be proved very wrong. Richard wrote a stern letter to Sir Robert and ordered him to stop his mischief and restore to ransom what was rightfully his. There are a number of cases like this, and the key question here is why was Richard so willing to defy the norms of the system of livery and maintenance that dominated the social landscape in the 15th century. He pursued equity and justice, but he gained nothing for himself from doing so. The corruption of livery and maintenance allowed noblemen to build vast private armies,

packed with thugs to do their dirty work. Richard shunned that in favour of supporting those with no political power who could give him no support. So we're left to wonder who was upset or threatened by these attitudes. My suggestion is that it was the very people who would take to the field at Bosworth against Richard in 1485. We might also consider how closely the picture of a progressive social reformer fits with the monster that history has bequeathed us. All of this meant that Richard was generally well liked and held in high regard by a region that retains its affection for him to this day. Perhaps they saw the real Richard over more than a decade, not the monster that was painted from the events of the last two years of his life.

All of this is not to say that Richard was perfect. We have the example of his harsh treatment of the elderly Dowager Countess of Oxford for some balance. The Earl of Oxford was in rebellion against Edward IV. The king granted Richard some of Oxford's lands and those of his mother, who was financially supporting her son's revolt. Richard took the dowager countess into custody until she signed over her lands to him. When Henry the 7th became king after Bosworth, Oxford petitioned for the return. of those lands, claiming that Richard had threatened to send his mother to a northern castle where she feared the cold would kill her if she didn't sign. This hostile testimony is the entire basis for this story. There is some evidence that Richard actually paid the Countess compensation for what she lost. Moreover, even if it were true, one story of Richard dealing

harshly with an active rebel is all that can be found to lay against his good reputation as Duke of Gloucester. There is one other accusation. often leveled at Richard, but it really doesn't stand up to scrutiny and it's symptomatic of the kind of thing that Richard is accused of. John Rouse, who wrote a history of the Earls of Warwick, spoken glowing terms about Richard while he was alive. Immediately after Bosworth, he collected up all of his work praising Richard and rewrote them, adding the details that he was retained in his mother's womb for two years, born with a full set of teeth and shoulder-length hair, to paint him as a monster. Rouse is also the only mention of Richard having uneven shoulders, and the reason it was

discarded by many was because it lay alongside such obviously made-up elements of Richard's story. Rouse tells us the story that Warwick the kingmaker's widow, Anne Beecham, was deprived of all her property by Richard, who then locked her up for the rest of her life. The obvious problem with this story is that Anne Beecham outlived Richard by seven years. What actually happened, to the sources, is that Richard and George were keen to claim Warwick's estates by right of inheritance, via their wives, and not to have Warwick attainted for treason and his lands granted to them by the crown. In that way, their tenure would be more assured. Edward VIII achieved this by having Anne Beecham declared legally dead so that her property could go to her daughters. It's also worth

considering that the main beneficiary of this was George, not Richard, since the Warwick lands were centred around the Midlands. We also know. that Richard had his mother-in-law collected from Buley Abbey by Sir James Tyrell and brought to live with Richard and his wife at Middlam Castle where there's no record of her being mistreated until Rouse's later story. In 1475 Richard took part in his brother's invasion of France. The French quickly paid off Edward, but sources suggest that Richard disagreed with his brother

and felt that they should have fought. When Louis XI 11th gave out generous annual pensions to the English king and his men, Richard refused to accept one. In 1482, Richard led a campaign into Scotland on his brother's behalf. Edward had been trying to launch an invasion for over a year, but had been delayed in the south, so he delegated it to his brother. Richard marched all the way to Edinburgh and took the city without a single casualty. The Scots King had been imprisoned by his own nobles, so finding no one to negotiate with, Richard extracted the best deal he could from the city of Edinburgh and withdrew. At the border, Berwick-upon-Tweed had been retaken.

This strategically vital border point regularly switched hands and had most recently been given to Scotland by Margaret of Anjou to secure their help in 1460. It has remained on the English side of the border ever since 1882. The events of 1483 are complex and wide open to interpretation that depends largely on your view of Richard. I've tried to present the man confronted by those tough decisions in that year to help inform a view of his actions.

Does the Richard that we've encountered so far sound like a child-killing usurping tyrant? The year began with fresh hostility with France. Edward VIII died unexpectedly in April 1483 as French ships began to probe and raid the south coast of England. London was gripped by tension and rivalry as Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV's widow, and William Lord Hastings, the deceased king's right-hand man, took armed men into the streets against each other. Richard was called south to resolve the problems and oversee the succession of his 12-year-old

nephew as Edward V. In the end, Edward VIII and Elizabeth Woodville's marriage was declared bigamous, and Richard was petitioned to take the throne. He and Anne were crowned at Westminster Abbey on the 6th of July, 40. This is the barest summary of the facts that we have. The Fates of the Sons of Edward VIII is a story for another time, but one thing the sources are clear about is the authorities in London who examined the evidence of Edward VIII's bigamy, found it compelling and accepted it.

Parliament was not in session at the time, but the group was described as the three estates and was made up of the senior clergy, nobility, and authorities of London, the mayor and the aldermen, who had gathered ready for, for a planned session of Parliament. What they heard and examined evidence of is the so-called pre-contract story.

This claimed that Edward VIII had already been legally married to Lady Eleanor Talbot, later Eleanor Butler, and by this point deceased. Under canon law, the effect of the bigamy was to make Edward's supposedly second marriage

to Elizabeth Woodville illegal and all of the children of that marriage, including Edward V and his younger brother, illegitimate and incapable of inheriting the throne. For some, this seems too convenient, clearing the way for Richard to take the throne. I'm less convinced by that argument, and I suspect it was anything but convenient, scuppering all of Richard's plans and the work to this point. Why did the story emerge at that precise time after Edward VIII's death?

I would answer that it probably couldn't have emerged before then, without the one exposing it losing their life. Edward had executed his own brother George in 1478, and part of the attainder against him in Parliament, hints admittedly vaguely and obtusely, that George was challenging the legitimacy of Edward's children. It wasn't therefore a new story, and it had cost the king's own brother his life.

Would you repeat it in public while Edward was still alive? But as I said, that's a story for another time. Richard is also accused of executing William Lord Hastings, Edward IV's friend, along with Anthony Woodville Earl Rivers and his nephew, Sir Richard Gray, as part of his efforts to clear the way to the throne. He's accused of doing this unfairly, illegally and without any kind of trial. But this is to ignore the fact that Richard had since 1469

held the office of Constable of England. This entitled him, nay it required him, to summon a court-martial in the case of evidence of treason, and it entitled him to try cases of treason, to pass judgment and sentence without any right of appeal. Edward V. Fourth had given his brother these powers to make sure that nothing could unsettle the Yorkist crown. So in 1483, Richard was calling on these powers. Lord Hastings, Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Gray did have a trial. In the cases of Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Gray, the Earl of Northumberland is described in one source as their judge.

So I would argue that these were judicial executions. Whether men were guilty of any treason or not is perhaps a different story. I would suggest that perhaps they were. But now Richard is king, his wife Anne is queen. And one of the first things he does is to leave London. And this seems really odd to me if you think that Richard had been desperate to get all of this power that he suddenly has, that his first move would be to walk away from the centre of all of that

power and to leave space for his enemies to move into. During a royal progress to the north, Richard created his son, Edward of Middleram, as Prince of Wales, and the royal family were lavishly entertained in York. But revolt was already being planned in the south. Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, had been at Richard's right hand throughout the crisis of 1483, but suddenly decided to rebel. Some of the southern gentry and knightly men also planned to revolt. And Henry Tudor, a claimant to the earldom of Richmond, who had been in exile in Brittany for 12 years, also assembled the fleet to take part. Weather and good intelligence allowed Richard to act quickly and decisively to avert the rebellion.

Buckingham was captured and executed. Tudor never managed to land and returned to Brittany. I strongly suspect that Buckingham meant to make his own bid for the Crown in October 1483. Some have looked to Buckingham as a potential murderer of the princes in the tower as a way to discredit and destabilise Richard to improve his own chances. For my money, nobody killed the princes in the tower in 1483. Richard's only parliament was held in early 1484 and since then has been widely praised for the quality of the laws that it introduced.

There were reforms to the system of bail to prevent it being denied to anyone and to stop goods being seized before a conviction. Jury composition was reformed to end the bribery of juries by wealthier members of society. Landlaw was updated to drive out corrupt practices and fraud, several measures focused on justice and trade, and have always attracted admiration. I would suggest that these policies represent a continuation of riches' interests during his time in the north,

but moving them onto a national stage threatened the interest, of more powerful people. Those who had prospered from the corruption of Edward VIII's government that Richard complained about were the very men who headed abroad to seek out Henry Tudor and who returned to fight against Richard at Bosworth. I would suggest that this drive to root out corruption and improve justice for those lower down the social ladder

was the primary driver for men seeking to unseat Richard. The fate of Edward IV's sons was no more than a convenient honourable sounding cover for their otherwise distasteful motives. In March 1484, Elizabeth Woodville gave her daughters into Richard's custody after he swore to protect them and find them good marriages. Richard's rule, however, remained under threat from Henry Tudor. He had sworn at Wren Cathedral on Christmas Day, 1483, to take Richard's throne and marry Edward IV's oldest daughter, Elizabeth of York.

Amidst all this, Richard's personal life was hit by tragedy. His only legitimate son, Edward, died in April 1484, creating a personal tragedy but also a politically damaging succession problem. And Richard's wife of more than 10 years died on the 16th of March 1485 too. Faced with the political consequences of those personal losses, Richard began to negotiate a marriage to Joanna of Portugal, a princess with Lancastrian blood. As part of the negotiations,

Elizabeth of York was to marry Manuel Duke of Beyer, who was later King Manuel I of Portugal, allowing Richard to keep his promise to find suitable matches for his nieces and also to remove her from Henry Tudor's plans. These negotiations were twisted into a rumour that Richard planned to marry his niece himself and he was forced to publicly deny this.

This points to the opposition to Richard that was current during his reign, but there is no evidence whatsoever that Richard really planned to marry his niece, an evidence that he was arranging a Portuguese marriage for her. I think the idea that he meant to marry Elizabeth of York himself was a distortion of the truth to make Richard look bad. Richard almost negotiated the handover of Henry Tudor from Brittany,

but he escaped across the border into France just in time. The French had been wary of Richard since the events of 1470. and following the death of Louis XI 11th in 1483, when his son was just 13, were undergoing their own minority crisis. It served their concerns to back an assault on England. With French support, Henry Tudor invaded, landing in South West Wales in August 1885. Richard was reportedly excited by the news and the chance it presented to see off the last threat to his crown. Although much is made of Richard's military reputation, it is worth remembering that he had not actually taken part in a battle for 14 years by 1485. As Tudor made for London, Richard, who had based himself centrally in the kingdom at Nottingham, cut him off near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire.

At the ensuing Battle of Bosworth, Richard was betrayed by the Stanley family. Thomas Lord Stanley, the same man that Richard had clashed with previously, was also Henry Tudor's stepfather. and Thomas's brother William reportedly led the charge that changed the battle and killed King Richard III. Polidore Virgil, who wrote under the Tudors and was generally hostile to Richard, joined the unanimous praise for Richard's bravery on the battlefield, stating, King Richard alone was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies. Richard III's legacy remains one of controversy and debate due to the crimes that he's been accused of, but it's also one of fair and equitable rule.

Reconciling the good lord who championed the plight of the ordinary person with the monster that history has recorded from 1483 to 1485 is a large part of the fascination this man continues to hold for me and for many others. Mind you, I don't think there ever was a monster there at all, if you look closely enough. I hope you've enjoyed this explainer episode and that perhaps we can do a few more on some other subjects. Please subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts

and listen out for another new episode from my fantastic co-host, Dr Kat Jarman, coming on Tuesday.