Richard III and the Wars of the Roses

"The Wars of the Roses…were one of the most confused and confusing chapters of English history; in which each usurper, as soon as he had gained the throne, found himself having to defend it against the next; in which so many members of the feuding families were closely inter-related; in which a man could be both hero and villain at one and the same time… One by one, the royal houses of England destroyed each other and themselves."

- Ludovic Kennedy, Introduction to Hubert Cole’s The War of the Roses

Image Credit: Letson, Ezra. "Tower of London: The White Tower". 2019. JPEG.

The white rose was the chosen symbol of the Yorkists; the red rose was the chosen symbol of the Lancastrians - hence, the Wars of the Roses.

The Life, reign, and death of Richard III

Web and Media Resources

Richard III | Biography & FactsRichard III, the last Plantagenet and Yorkist king of England. He usurped the throne of his nephew Edward V in 1483 and perished in defeat to Henry Tudor (thereafter Henry VII) at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Learn more about Richard III’s life and reign in this article.

Link to the Encyclopedia Brittannica entry on Richard III.

Text Resources: Books

Richard the Third - Paul Murray Kendall

Amazon Synopsis: Paul Murray Kendall's masterful account of the life of England's King Richard III has remained the standard biography of this controversial figure.

Text Resources: freely accessible online academic articles and essays

Richard III’s Historians: Adverse and Favourable Views - Jeremy Potter

The Man Himself Richard III: A Psychological Portrait - Mark Lansdale and Julian Boon

THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER

Text Resources: books

The Princes in the Tower - Josephine Wilkinson

Goodreads Synopsis: In the summer of 1483 two boys were taken into the Tower of London and were never seen again. They were no ordinary boys. One was the new King of England; the other was his brother, the Duke of York, and heir presumptive to the throne. Shortly afterwards, their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took the throne as Richard III. Soon after, rumours began to spread that the princes had been murdered, and that their murderer was none other than King Richard himself. Since 1483 the dispute over Richard's guilt or innocence has never abated. The accusations, which began during his own lifetime, continued through the Tudor period and beyond, remaining a source of heated debate to the present day. For much of this time it has been taken for granted that Richard murdered his nephews to clear his path to the throne, but there are other suspects...Now, in the wake of the discovery of Richard III's remains in a car park at Leicester, it is time to revisit the question of what became of his nephews, the boys known to history as the Princes in the Tower. This study returns to the original sources, subjecting them to critical examination and presenting a ground-breaking new theory about what really happened and why.

Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes - Bertram Fields

Goodreads Synopsis: Notoriously immortalied by Shakespeare and historians, he is history's most infamous royal villian: Richard III, king of England from 1483 to 1485. Crazed with power and paranoia, he is generally supposed to have killed the youthful Prince of Wales and the aged Henry VI, drowned his brother in a vat of wine, poisoned his wife, and, worst of all, murdered his two young nephews, the older of whom was the rightful king--a reign of terror ending only with his own cowardly death on the blood-soaked field of battle. But is all this true? Modern revisionists, citing the unreliability of Shakespeare's sources and the political agenda of historians in Richard's own day, have offered a far different portrait. A brave and valiant soldier, a loyal brother, and an intelligent, able king popular with his subjects and defeated only through treachery, their Richard is the victim of a deliberate campaign of slander devised by his Tudor successors to the throne.

The Princes in the Tower - Alison Weir

Goodreads Synopsis: Despite five centuries of investigation by historians, the sinister deaths of the boy king Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, remain two of the most fascinating murder mysteries in English history. Did Richard III really kill “the Princes in the Tower,” as is commonly believed, or was the murderer someone else entirely? Carefully examining every shred of contemporary evidence as well as dozens of modern accounts, Alison Weir reconstructs the entire chain of events leading to the double murder. We are witnesses to the rivalry, ambition, intrigue, and struggle for power that culminated in the imprisonment of the princes and the hushed-up murders that secured Richard’s claim to the throne as Richard III.

Text Resources: freely accessible online academic articles and essays

Were the Princes in the Tower Murdered? - Isolde Wigram

Good King Richard? - Jeremy Potter

The Dead Bones - W.J. White

THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH

web and media Resources

Battle of Bosworth Field | Combatants, Summary, Significance, & FactsBattle of Bosworth Field, effectively the last battle (August 22, 1485) in the English Wars of the Roses, in which Henry Tudor defeated Richard III.

Link to Encyclopedia Brittannica. Provides a description of the battle, including notable figures and events.

The Battle of Bosworth FieldEarly in August 1485 the would-be Lancastrian king, Henry Tudor sailed across the English Channel from France to south Wales…

Link to Historic UK: The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide. Provides key facts regarding the final battle of the Wars of the Roses, as well as a map of the battlefield.