Footnotes

• Although Richard only reigned as King of England for two short years, he is perhaps numbered amongst the more infamous of the nation's rulers. This unfavourable reputation primarily results from the way in which Richard has been implicated, both by contemporary and modern commentators, in the disappearance and probable murder of the twelve-year-old King Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York. Upon the death of Richard's elder brother, Edward IV (1442-1483), he was declared Lord Protector until such a time as the young heir reached his majority. However, when the old king's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was declared invalid, any offspring from the marriage found themselves abruptly removed from the line of succession. Their uncle's subsequent coronation taking place in July, the two young princes were never to be seen again in public after August. The last English king to die on the battlefield, Richard's demise at Bosworth marks the end of the Wars of the Roses and the reign of the Plantagenet dynasty. Villified as a Machiavellian hunchback, it is our view of Richard shaped by Tudor propaganda and endorsed in the pages of Shakespeare's history play that survives.

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Category: Fine Art / Portrait Miniatures

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