Richard, The Man behind the Myth

About the Book

When Richard was born, being the youngest son and child of the Duke and Duchess of York, he seemed the most unlikely person to become King. He had learnt at Middleham Castle to be a soldier and a knight, and that is where he first met Anne Neville, later to be his wife. Life had ended abruptly when the Earl of Warwick had fallen out with Edward IV, and Richard was in Edward IV court with its plots and intrigues and unpopular scheming Woodvilles. Richard had married Anne, became the lord of the North, and was well loved. His whole life changed when news came of his brother Edward’s death. He reluctantly went to London only to find himself in the middle of a hornet’s nest. Tales of murder and Margaret Beaufort’s hidden agendas had never made it easy. By the time Bosworth happened, Richard had certainly had nothing but bad luck during his time as King. He had lost his only son and only just become a widow, death must have been preferable. It had seemed that even in death, he had no luck. He was to become the product of Tudor propaganda, a villain in the history books.

About the Author

I always had a passion for history since I was young, and when I first learned about history at school, I could not understand why the period of the Wars of the Roses was so confusing and so conflicting. I first got really passionate about Richard III after visiting a museum in York. As I was in the museum, I had felt quite saddened at what I was looking at; it had plenty of references to Shakespeare’s play, Richard III, and a mock trial to see if Richard was innocent or guilty of murdering the princes in the tower. I heard a small cry in protest, “I hate Richard,” and the graffiti in the visitor book—I knew I had to research about the life of this man. I live with my partner, Graeme, in Scotland, who has helped me on these trips around Yorkshire and helped in using the computer. I am not very good with techniques, and without his patience, this book would never have got this far.