Good King Richard? An Account of Richard III and his Reputation, 1483-1983

Dust jacket notes: "Richard III, the so-called 'last English King of England' and the wicked uncle of tradition, is the most controversial and enigmatic of monarchs. Could he really have been as black as he was painted by Tudor chroniclers and, if he wasn't, why do some historians go on saying that he was? Why is his enlightened legislation so little noticed? Is there any real evidence that he murdered his nephews, the princes in the Tower? Did he really have a hunchback or was it invented for him after his death as 'proof of villainy'? Is Shakespeare's Richard III a portrayal of the real Richard or no more than a character in a work of fiction? Was St Thomas More really a witness of truth? Good King Richard? is an account of Richard III's life and times, character, appearance and reign, but above all of the Great Debate which has raged since his death between traditionalists and revisionists. Written to mark the 500th anniversary of his accession to the throne, this is a history of his reputation from 1483 to 1983. Contemporary writers whose works are examined include the author of a monastic chronicle, an Italian visitor to fifteenth-century London, a Flemish politician, a chantry priest in the Midlands and a London draper. Later protagonists whose involvement and views are recorded include a formidable array of quarrelsome historians and a colourful assortment of the famous. Among the latter are Jane Austen, Francis Bacon, Charles II, Sir Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, David Garrick, HRH the Duke of Gloucester, David Hume, Charles Lamb, Henry Cabot Lodge, Louis XVI, Sir John Millais, Laurence Olivier, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Walter Scott, Rex Stout, Horace Walpole, John Wesley and Sir Christopher Wren. The author is Chairman of the Richard III Society."