This project explores the significance of the brief yet notoriously eventful reign of Richard III as king of England from 1483 to 1485. Richard’s legacy is plagued by the memory of his role in the mysterious disappearance and presumed murder of his nephews King Edward V and Prince Richard, Duke of York. Views on the extent of Richard’s involvement in the deaths of his brother Edward IV’s young sons is still widely debated, with some arguing that Richard was vilified by Tudor scholars, particularly Thomas More through his unfinished The History of King Richard III. Richard’s guilt is traditionally assumed to be, at least in part, shared with Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham although, based on More’s account, William Shakespeare’s play Richard III also popularized the involvement in the murders of Sir James Tyrell, a knight of Richard’s court. With Italian cleric Dominic Mancini’s De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium as the sole exactly contemporary source relaying the events of Richard’s accession to the throne, scholars continue to debate the severity of the Tudor era defamation of Richard by both Thomas More and the Third Continuation of the Croyland Chronicle. With Richard’s death at the Battle of Bosworth on 22 August 1485, and the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, the houses of Lancaster and York were joined, ending the official period of the Wars of the Roses which afflicted England and various European allies for over thirty years. This research, through a critical analysis of the contemporary and near-contemporary primary sources which depict the events that led to Richard’s transformation from duke of Gloucester to king of England, aims to understand the extent to which the writings of the Tudor period provided the explanation for Richard’s role and motives in the deaths of the princes in the tower and subsequently defined his legacy.

Zoë would like to thank Dr. Damian J. Smith for their continued support of this project.