Biography of king richard iii

King of England from 1483 to 1485

"Richard III" redirects here. For other uses, see Richard III (disambiguation).

"Richard of Gloucester" redirects here. For other uses, see Richard of Gloucester (disambiguation).

Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession to the throne of his older brother Edward IV. This was during the period known as the Wars of the Roses, an era when two branches of the royal family contested the throne; Edward and Richard were Yorkists, and their side of the family faced-off against their Lancastrian cousins. In 1472, Richard married Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and widow of Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI. He governed northern England during Edward's reign, and played a role in the invasion of Scotland in 1482. When Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Before arrangements were complete for Edward V's coronation, scheduled for 22 June 1483, the marriage of his parents was declared bigamous and therefore invalid. Now officially illegitimate, Edward and his siblings were barred from inheriting the throne. On 25 June, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect, and proclaimed Richard as the rightful king. He was crowned on 6 July 1483. Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, called the "Princes in the Tower", disappeared from the Tower of London around August 1483.

There were two major rebellions against Richard during his reign. In October 1483, an unsuccessful revolt was led by staunch allies

“[An] excellent new biography.”—Keith Thomas, New York Review of Books

“Absorbing. . . . Hicks presents his arguments clearly, drawing them out from his account of Richard’s life, in an exemplary piece of historical writing.”—Lesley Coote, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching

“Hicks has thrown down the gauntlet. Never has Richard the man been more convincingly portrayed. Who is ready to challenge the ruthless and driven Plantagenet drawn from the shadows? This Richard is not the creation of what followed his death, but the thirty two years of life that preceded it. A meticulous and thrilling biography, in which character is destiny.”—Leanda de Lisle, author of Tudor: The Family Story

“The best researched, most comprehensive study of Richard III, especially strong on Richard’s formative experiences. Hicks presents the findings of a lifetime’s archival research with impressive clarity. A must-have for scholars and interested general readers.”—John Guy, author of Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years

“Hicks has written a tour de force, based upon a deep understanding of the vast and divergent secondary literature and a career spent among the archives of fifteenth-century England. The book is at once scholarly and accessible and the definitive biography of this most controversial of kings.”—David Grummitt, author of A Short History of the Wars of the Roses

“The product of almost 50 years of research into Richard and those surrounding him, this is an impressive feat of scholarship from an authority on the tumultuous Fifteenth Century. An important addition to the bookshelves of any student of the Wars of the Roses and of this enduringly compelling monarch.”—Lauren Johnson, author of Shadow King: The Life and Death

The baby was born at one of his mother’s favourite residences, Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the fourth and youngest son of his family. His older brothers were Edward, who was ten, Edmund, nine, and George, four. Descended on both sides from Edward III, they were born into a desperately dangerous world and only the eldest would meet a natural death. The reigning king, Henry VI, was weak, inept and not quite right in the head, and Richard was still a baby when a battle at St Albans in 1455 ushered in the Wars of the Roses, 30 years of sporadic civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York which would end only with his own death in battle at Bosworth Field.

He was named after his father, Richard, Duke of York, Henry VI’s challenger for the throne, and took after him physically – short and dark. A frail baby, he perhaps had one shoulder higher than the other, but he was not hunchbacked or seriously deformed. Nor is it likely that he was two years in the womb and emerged with a full set of teeth. His mother, the pious and beautiful Cecily Neville (‘Cecylee’ she signed herself), was a grand-daughter of John of Gaunt and the aunt of Richard Neville, the ‘Kingmaker’ Earl of Warwick, England’s most powerful magnate and the powerhouse of the Yorkist cause.

Richard probably spent his childhood mainly at Fotheringhay with his mother. When he was seven, in 1459, his father was driven out of England and proclaimed a traitor and outlaw. Richard and George and their mother were handed over by the triumphant Lancastrians to Cecily’s sister Anne, Duchess of Buckingham. They were probably decently treated and within a year Warwick and Richard’s brother Edward won a battle at Northampton and took the King prisoner. Richard’s father returned to England to claim the throne, but the wheel turned again and in December 1460 he was defeated and killed at Wakefield. His severed head was stuck up on the wall of York adorned with a paper cro

Richard III is perhaps most well-known now due to the discovery of his remains in a car park in Leicester.

He was however an important figure in England’s medieval monarchy: brother to Edward IV, he usurped his own nephew, Edward V and took the crown as his own, only to be killed two years later at the Battle of Bosworth, bringing an end to the infamous dynastic battle known as the War of the Roses.

His death marked a significant milestone for the monarchy, the last in a long line of king’s fighting for the House of York.

Born in October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, he was the eleventh child of Richard, Duke of York, and his wife, Cecily Neville.

As a child he fell under the influence of his cousin, the Earl of Warwick who would guide and tutor him in his training as a knight. The earl would later become known as “the Kingmaker” for his involvement in the power struggles emerging out of the War of the Roses.

Meanwhile, his father and his elder brother, Edmund had been killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460, leaving Richard and his other brother George to be sent away to the continent.

As the War of the Roses initiated changing fortunes for both the Houses of York and Lancaster, Richard found himself returning to his homeland after a Yorkist victory was secured at the Battle of Towton.

With his father killed in battle, his older brother Edward assumed the crown and Richard attended his coronation on the 28th June 1461, witnessing his brother become King Edward IV of England, whilst Richard was given the title Duke of Gloucester.

With Edward now in power, the Earl of Warwick began to strategize, arranging for his daughters advantageous marriages. In time however, the relationship between Edward IV and Warwick the Kingmaker soured, leading George, who had married Warwick’s daughter Isabel, to side with his new father-in-law whilst Richard favoured his brother, the king, Edward IV.

Now the family divisions between brothers b