Richard III: Return of the King

Richard III's reputation and appearance has dominated the media since the discovery of his skeleton was confirmed on 4 February 2013. Even before the discovery, the legacy of Richard III was a hotly debated issue with myths and misconceptions surrounding his person. In this book, we’re going to concentrate on busting or confirming the most popular myths surrounding Richard III:

• What did he really look like?
• Did he poison his wife so he could marry his niece?
• Did he murder his nephews, the Princes in the Tower?
• What led to his death and what happened to his body?

Richard III’s physical appearance has defined his reputation to this day: According to chroniclers writing under the reign of the Tudors, he was a misshapen monster whose villainy was reflected in his deformity. Richard’s supporters have refuted this claim. But Richard's skeleton has yielded a dramatic piece of evidence: the king really did have a severe spinal curvature which may have given him uneven shoulders. So it turns out not everything written by Tudor historians is mere propaganda . . .

Somewhere in between the hunchbacked, power-mad villain from Shakespeare’s play and the paragon of virtue some of his supporters portray him to be is a real man, and we will attempt to objectively uncover him in this book, presenting facts from primary sources rather than reflecting the author’s personal opinion of Richard III.