Richard III

 Richard III

There has been renewed interest in Richard III since the discovery of his remains beneath a Leicester car park in the autumn of 2012. Part of the mystery was solved on 4 February 2013, when it was revealed that he was not the diminutive, hunchbacked monster of Tudor myth, but a tall (for his time), good-looking man who suffered from scoliosis of the spine, a condition which would not have been noticed as he went about everyday life. If the Tudor propagandists perpetrated this myth—their theory being that to sanitize Henry VII, it was necessary to blacken the name of his predecessor—what else was made up? Richard remains the most controversial monarch to have occupied the British throne. During his brief reign he was loved and respected by his subjects. His fighting skills were second to none: his loyalty towards his brother, Edward IV, cannot be disputed. From an early age he was compelled to find his own way in life in a violence-orientated world: the brooding archetypal loner who, even when he acquired power, still preferred the quiet Yorkshire countryside to the artificialities of the royal court, where no man was trusting of his fellow. Edward IV’s sudden death plunged England into chaos. Richard, named by him as Protector of his young sons, Edward V and Richard of York, was faced with the dilemma that England would again succumb to the anarchy brought about by the last royal minority—that of Henry VI. He was also faced with the rapaciousness of the boys’ family, the much-hated Woodvilles. The boys were placed within the Tower, but were never seen again, setting in motion a mystery which has never been solved. Did Richard kill his nephews, or were they dispatched by the Duke of Buckingham, or by Henry Tudor and his scheming mother, Margaret Beaufort? What was the true nature of the relationship between Richard and Buckingham? Was Buckingham hoping to use “bromance” as a means of ensnaring Richard to be used as a scapegoat for the heinous crime he was about to perpetrate? Or was Richard simply too trusting, caught out when he was at his weakest—mourning a brother he had adored? The fact that he still has many thousands of devoted supporters, more than 500 years after his death, only points to the fact that Richard III was more than just a king. He was a legend.

Edward IV

 Edward IV: The Sun In Splendour

Edward IV has always been overshadowed by his controversial younger brother Richard III. Such was his reputation that he is mostly remembered for his pursuit of pleasure—the archetypal medieval royal playboy. There was considerably more to him than this. During the first half of his reign he was an astute military tactician, almost on a par with Henry V, who never lost a battle, and during his campaigns invariably triumphed over seemingly unsurmountable odds. Edward was a big man—6 feet 4 inches tall—extremely courageous, and a level-headed strategist at home and abroad. He was a personable, charming and approachable monarch, revered and respected by his subjects. The second half of his reign finds him entirely different. With his Treasury solvent after being stretched to the limit financing the quelling of a decade of civil strife, and with England enjoying a renewed peace marred only by the murky intrigues of his brother Clarence, Edward found himself at liberty to indulge in his fancies. He lived and loved more extravagantly than any king before him. Though devoted to his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, he played the field—there were hundreds of women and at least one male lover. Edward threw lavish parties which were the talk of Europe, and sadly ate himself into an early grave, his death leaving England to face the most chaotic period in its history thus far—and with its greatest mystery, the Princes in the Tower, which remains unsolved to this day.