'Loyalty Binds Me' (Richard’s motto)


1452   2nd October: Richard, later Duke of Gloucester and King Richard III, was born at Fotheringay Castle. He was the 11th child of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville.

1472   12th July: Richard marries Lady Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker, at Westminster Abbey.

1473   Richard’s son Edward born.

1483   9th April: Richard’s eldest brother, Edward IV dies. King Edward IV’s son the Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne as Edward V but is never crowned. He reigns for 77 days and is deposed on 25th June.

          6th July: Edward V’s uncle, Richard III is crowned in Westminster Abbey. After September, the Edward V and his brother the Duke of York are never seen again.

1484   Richard III’s son Edward (perhaps sickly since birth) dies.

1485   Lady Anne dies (possibly of TB). Richard III dies in the Battle of Bosworth Field having reigned for 2 years and 57 days.

Without doubt, Shakespeare's portrait of Richard III is both riveting theatre and a long way from being accurate. Life in the middle ages was nasty, brutish and short. Richard was a man of his times and there is no reason to suppose that he was very different from anyone else in the execution of power.


There seem to have been two Richards, separated by time and by the death of his brother, Edward. The first was a small, puny, and pious young man who lived in his elder brother's shadow. Edward was a giant by medieval standards (over 6’ tall) and was idolised by his younger brothers, George (Duke of Clarence) and Richard (Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III), although George's idolatry soon changed to envy. Against all physical odds, Richard wanted to serve Edward in battle. Richard had spent several of his formative years under the care and tutelage of his mother’s cousin, Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick ('Warwick the Kingmaker') at Middleham castle in the Yorkshire Dales, a home he would have shared with Warwick’s daughter, Lady Anne, 4 years his junior, whom he later married.


At Middleham, Richard worked hard at becoming a warrior, learning to swing the battleaxe with such dedication that he ended up with an over-developed right shoulder. This is the only acceptable and historically documented reference to any kind of deformity. There is no evidence that he had a withered arm or that he limped, so we can quickly dispose of the 'bottled spider' image. Richard’s earliest triumph was when Edward gave him command of the right flank of his army at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. Richard was 18 at the time and by all accounts acquitted himself well. It was at Barnet that the Earl of Warwick was killed, fighting on the Lancastrian side.



Warwick negotiated a marriage between Edward and Lady Bona, a French princess.

In secret, Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Sir John Grey (see Henry VI.iii, Act 3 scene 3).

Warwick swapped sides from York to Lancaster and, assisted by the French King, formed an alliance with Queen Margaret.

To seal the alliance, Warwick betrothed his younger daughter, Anne, to Queen Margaret’s son Edward, Prince of Wales. In the fifteenth-century, a betrothal was a binding contract.

Richard had lived under Warwick's guardianship for a long time and such a family rift must have been traumatic. Richard may have shared Warwick's feelings about Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville but he remained loyal to his brother. The situation was made worse when Richard’s brother George also swapped sides and aligned himself with the Lancastrians.



Edward IV tried to arrange a marriage for George to the daughter of the heir of Burgundy.

George ignored his brother’s wishes and married Warwick’s daughter Isabel, an enormously wealthy heiress.

It is agreed by most sources that Richard acted as peacemaker and persuaded Edward to forgive George.


Richard seems to have grown increasingly disillusioned by his older brother as Edward sank further and further into a life of debauchery and dissipation. When Richard was offered the chance to leave court and take up the Lordship of the North, inheriting his childhood home of Middleham, he accepted the offer. Richard was no courtier and no admirer of Elizabeth Woodville or her large and ambitious family. He made occasional journeys south to attend Royal Councils and, on one occasion, made haste to get there in order to plead for his brother George’s life. George had earlier tried to prevent Richard from marrying Anne Neville and for three years after Warwick’s death challenged his brother and sister-in-law’s very substantial inheritance, an awkward dispute ultimately resolved by the king. George may have deserved to die for his many and continuing treasons but Richard remained loyal to him and resented the fact that Edward had been influenced by the Woodvilles when ordering George’s execution. After George's death, Richard did not return to London for five years.


Many sources suggest that Richard became increasingly popular in the North, and was much respected for his humanity and justice. But on 9th April 1483, his brother Edward, seemingly a man in his prime, likely to rule for the foreseeable future, died. News of Edward's death was brought to Richard by Edward’s Chamberlain, Lord Hastings. Hastings also told Richard that Edward had appointed Richard Lord Protector of his son, the heir apparent - a clear indication of the esteem in which Edward still held Richard. Richard may have had mixed feelings about Hastings, a long-time friend who, like Richard, opposed the power of the Woodville clan. Hastings' main concern was that the Woodvilles, who had charge of the young Prince, would do what they could to retain power by heading for London and seizing the reins of government, flagrantly disregarding the late king's wishes.


Edward IV, the man who had elevated the Woodvilles, was dead. They had few friends and many enemies and were hated for the influence they’d held over the King. The Woodvilles must have known that they were finished if Richard took power, and it was not beyond the realms of possibility that they would take the necessary steps to prevent that from happening. Even so, Richard did not react hastily. He sent a courier to Ludlow where Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers, was acting as guardian to Richard’s nephew, the Prince of Wales. He was instructed to rendezvous with Richard in Northampton, from where the royal party would enter London together.


Richard stopped in York to celebrate Mass for his dead brother before making his way, supported by an army of 2000, towards Northampton. The new young king (Edward V), accompanied by Woodvilles, had moved on to Stony Stratford, a step closer to London. When Richard sent for Rivers, Rivers’ explanation was that there was insufficient accommodation in Northampton, so that Rivers had moved on, to leave enough space for Richard and his entourage when they arrived.


Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, also arrived in Northampton. Buckingham was 3 when his father had died and 5 when his grandfather (the 1st Duke of Buckingham) was killed in battle. Edward IV had purchased Buckingham’s ward-ship and marriage from the 1st Duke’s executors and married Buckingham at about the age of 10 to the Queen’s sister, Katherine Woodville. In 1483, Buckingham sided with Richard against the Woodvilles. Whatever happened at that time in Northampton changed Richard's course and, to some extent, his character. Apparently Richard, Buckingham and Rivers enjoyed a convivial evening together before Rivers retired to bed, leaving Richard and Buckingham alone together. In the morning, Rivers was arrested. Richard and Buckingham set off for Stony Stratford where the remaining Woodvilles in charge of the young King were put under close guard and sent, with Rivers, to Sandal castle, where they were executed for treason. Several sources claim that Buckingham brought evidence that the Woodvilles were intent on seizing the armaments in the Tower of London, which would have effectively given them control over the city.


Events from now on more or less reflect Shakespeare's version. Richard entered London where Queen Elizabeth had, indeed, sought sanctuary with her other two children (the princess Elizabeth and young Richard, Duke of York). Richard persuaded her to leave her safe place. The princes he housed in royal apartments at the Tower of London, while Richard made plans for young Edward's coronation. It was at this point that the question of the Edward’s children's legitimacy presented itself. It had long been a rumour but now, with the intervention of Richard Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, it was substantiated. Stillington had himself officiated at a marriage ceremony between Edward IV and Lady Eleanor Butler, thereby rendering his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville null and void. Whether Richard had any direct hand in this or whether Buckingham engineered this revelation, is unknown. Richard was certainly under the more sophisticated Buckingham's thrall by this time and was convinced that, unless he became king, the country would be torn apart once again by civil war. The last minority (under the infant Henry VI) was, after all, still vivid in living memory and had resulted in the long and bloody strife between the Houses of York and Lancaster (the Wars of the Roses). Moreover, the last Protector, Humphrey - another Duke of Gloucester - had paid with his life for doing the duty imposed upon him by his brother, Henry V.


Richard decided to take the crown for himself. When Hastings not only opposed him, but also became involved in a plot with the remaining Woodvilles to assassinate him, Richard acted ruthlessly and, in a scene very closely resembling the council meeting in Richard III, sent Hastings to his death. In reality, as well as in the play, Richard displayed a theatricality in this scene which is quite at odds with his known character - even to the point of sending the Bishop of Ely off for strawberries, which actually happened. Perhaps Richard disliked the fact that Hastings had failed to act as a moderating influence on King Edward IV and had even partnered King Edward in the self-indulgent activities that had brought about Edward’s early demise.


The origins of Buckingham's rebellion, only months after helping Richard to the throne, are shrouded in mystery. Shakespeare's version is untrue: Buckingham not only received all that he asked for from Richard, but much more. Richard was grateful for Buckingham's assistance and to shrewd to thwart such a powerful and ambitious man. Buckingham joined Richard for a while in Gloucester before riding on to his castle at Brecon in Wales, where John Morton, Bishop of Ely, and Richard's implacable enemy, was under house arrest. Morton was tutor to the young Thomas More, who was eventually largely responsible for painting the Tudor portrait of Richard which formed the basis of the play. Buckingham and Morton obviously spent a great deal of time together, and after3 months, Buckingham declared against Richard.

Possible reasons for Buckingham’s actions include:

1. His friendship had been a masquerade intended to cloak his own regal ambitions

2. He was left behind in London to dispose of the two young princes and, having done so, received no thanks, and possibly even
a rebuke

3. He had gone to Gloucester to tell Richard that he was incapable of carrying out his instructions to murder the princes, and was
coldly dismissed

4. He was convinced by Morton's arguments that siding with Richmond (the future Tudor king Henry VII) was politically a more astutemove

Richard moved his family down to be with him at Nottingham where he based himself to meet the threat of invasion from Henry Tudor. He called Nottingham 'the castle of his care' because it was there that both his son and wife died there. The most likely cause of Lady Anne’s death was not murder, but tuberculosis.


Richard did toy with the idea of marrying his niece, the young Princess Elizabeth, and had the approval of her mother, Queen Elizabeth. But Richard had to postpone marriage plans until he had defeated Richmond’s invading forces. After the Battle of Bosworth, the people of York lamented Richard’s defeat: 'King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this city.' Henry Tudor (Richmond) charged all those who had sided with Richard ‘traitors’. He married the Princess Elizabeth (uniting the White Rose and the Red) but imprisoned her mother (Queen Elizabeth) Titulus Regius (his claim to the throne), Henry VII catalogued Richard's crimes and initially omitted the killing of the two princes, which were later added, low down on the list. It is perhaps worth noting that Henry stood just as much to gain as Richard from disposing of the princes, because to do so would eliminate Plantagenet opposition to his spurious claim to the throne.

By Terry Wale, an actor, director, playwright and former lecturer in Shakespeare studies at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh.