All About History – November 2018

RICHARD III AT WAR
Today Richard III is commonly remembered for two things: his part in the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower, and for being the ‘car park king’ whose remains were uncovered in Leicester in 2012. Less well known, however, is that he was the last English king to die in battle. Richard was a seasoned warrior whose death at Bosworth in 1485, at the hands of Henry Tudor, was his only known defeat. While the way in which Richard usurped the throne led his enemies to depict him as a monstrous villain, they couldn’t deny he was a formidable soldier. For instance, the contemporary historian John Rous, who went as far to compare Richard to the Antichrist, admitted “if I may say the truth to his credit, though small in body and feeble of limb, he bore himself like a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until his last breath”. In this month’s issue, we explore how conflict and the thirty year power struggle we call the Wars of the Roses, in particular, shaped Richard III’s entire life. From witnessing the siege of his home by Lancastrian forces aged seven, to learning the art of war in the Scottish borderlands as a teen, to fighting side by side with his brother at Tewkesbury, and finally defending his own crown. Read all about it inside.