Re-evaluating Richard III: How Historians are Re-assessing Shakespeare’s Greatest Villain

Jane Orton
May 12
8 min read

Updated: May 19

In our last post, we met Richard III, Shakespeare’s greatest villain, anti-hero of the legendary Wars of the Roses, possible murderer and loser of the second most important battle in English history! Has history misjudged Richard? Dr. Orton investigates Richard’s recent reassessment by historians.

If you’re an A Level History student, this is a summary of one of the main topics you will need for your exams. For university-level scholars or independent researchers, we’ve included clickable links to useful literature, primary sources and canonical scholarship you’ll need to know. For other interested learners, or those who like a good historiographical spat, read on!

The Historiography of Richard III

Dominic Mancini’s (1483) De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium (The Occupation of the Throne of England by Richard III) is one of the earliest accounts of Richard III. Mancini was in England in the summer of 1482, and had access to London gossip, but this document was not discovered until the 1930s.

Of course, it was in the interests of Henry Tudor and his family to ensure that Richard was seen as an evil usurper. Henry Tudor was worried himself about being seen as a usurper, having won his throne in battle rather than solely by descent. He backdated his reign to the day before the Battle of Bosworth. He also made sure that Parliament did not sit and that he did not marry Elizabeth of York until he had already been crowned, ensuring that his legitimacy was not seen to rely on any of these things.

As a result, we tend to find that Tudor depictions of Richard III are harsh. Shakespeare, writing during the reign of Henry Tudor’s granddaughter Elizabeth I, depicts Richard III as a hunchback, usurper and murderer.

In Shakespeare’s time, the Tudor dynasty was established, but Elizabeth II was still aware that her grandfather had won his throne in battle – not through an undisputed birth right. It suited Elizabeth to show the Tudors as heroes and Richard III as the villain.

Shakespeare relied on Elizabeth for patronage and social influence, so it was in his interest to write a play that turned Henry VII into a national hero – and Richard into a debauched antagonist.

In Shakespeare’s Richard III, Richard describes himself as “rudely stamped…Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,/Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time/Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,/And that so lamely and unfashionable/That dogs bark at me as I halt by them.” Richard also appears in Henry VI part ii and Henry VI part iii.

Another prominent Tudor source is Sir Thomas More’s The History of King Richard III, according to which Richard was “. . .little of stature, ill featured of limbs, crook backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right . . .he was malicious, wrathful envious and, from before his birth, ever forward.”

More was only seven at the time of the Battle of Bosworth, but he became Henry VIII’s Lord High Chancellor in 1529 and was executed for treason in 1535. More has often been dismissed as an unreliable historian because of his pantomime portrayal of Richard. However, Professor of History Tim Thornton rehabilitates More as a reliable source due to links with John Dighton (“who may well have been the surviving murderer”) and the sons of his alleged partner in crime, Miles Forest.

The Crowland Chronicle (also known as the Croyland Chronicle) calls Richard’s assumption to the throne an “act of usurpation.” The Chronicle was written at the Benedictine Abbey of Crowland in Lincolnshire and describes English history from 655 to 1486. It was believed by William Fulman, who translated the document in 1684, that the part covering Richard III was written by John Russell (Richard’s chancellor), rather than being a second-hand account of a Crowland monk. However, this has been challenged by historians and it might be the case that an anonymous monk had more freedom to write freely. There’s a good discussion of the Crowland Chronicle in the video on this link.

John Rous was associated with the Yorkists, although it’s possible that Rous was trying to win the favour of the Tudors. Rous had previously praised Richard III in the English edition of his 1483 the Chronicle Roll of the Earl of Warwick (the “Rous Roll”), describing him as “the most mighty Prince Richard King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland” who got :great thanks of god and love of all his subjects, rich and poor and great love of the people of all other lands about him.”

However, in his Historia Regum Angliae, written between 1485 and 1491 and made public in 1716, Rous gives a bizarre account of Richard’s birth, saying that his mother was pregnant for two years and that he was born with teeth and hair to the shoulders. He even compares Richard to the Antichrist. Click the link for a video of popular historian Lucy Worsley translating the document from Latin!

Another Tudor-era historian was Polidoro Virgili of Urbino (Polydorus Vergilius or Polydore Vergil), a sixteenth century Italian diplomat, humanist priest and historian. Henry VII asked Vergil to write Anglica Historia, an account of English history in around 1505, with the first manuscript being finished in around 1513. Vergil says that Richard came to power by subtlety and slight as a usurper and “thought of nothing but tyranny and cruelty.”

After the Tudors, historians began to re-evaluate Richard’s character. In 1619, Sir George Buck’s The History of King Richard the Third re-examined Richard’s claim to the throne. Buck was ambassador for King James I, and Master of the King’s Revels. In 1768, Horace Walpole’s Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third argued previous historians had repeated caricatures about Richard and cast doubt on the idea that he murdered the Princes in the Tower.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the re-evaluation continued. Giles St. Aubyn, in The Year of Three Kings: 1483 argued that Tudor propaganda emphasised Richard’s physical deformity to imply that he also had a deformed mind. Michael Hicks’ The War of the Roses points out that Tudors were worried about the legitimacy of their own dynasty, which why they needed to vilify Richard III.

Today, Richard has many defenders (often known as Ricardians). Examples are the Richard III Foundation Inc., and the Richard III Society.

Richard as a Champion of Ordinary People

Some historians try to get a sense of Richard’s character by examining his only parliament (held in early 1484) or his actions as a lord of the north of England.

Matthew Lewis writes for the Richard III Society: “In the north, Richard built a reputation as a good lord, offering fair justice. His involvement in local politics inevitably meant that some were dissatisfied, but very few ever voiced such sentiments. There are numerous cases of Richard acting in favour of the ordinary person against social superiors and ensuring justice was done properly where his own retainers were involved. This was unusual at a time when great lords were more often accused of protecting thugs in their service from the law.”

*The Lille Manuscript for Dominic Mancini*

Dr. David Johnson argues that Richard was a progressive and enlightened lawmaker, protecting ordinary people from dishonest officials. For instance, he passed an act which prevented officers seizing the goods of any person arrested on suspicion of felony, tried to prevent bribery in the jury and passed an act to free common people from unreasonable charges. He also wrote laws in English rather than the traditional French and Latin,) and protected the domestic market by taking action against foreign competition.

According to Paul Murray Kendall, Richard also took care to foster the art of printing and the dissemination of learning by books.

Professor of English Law, H. G. Hanbury argues that Richard’s legislation shows him to be “a singularly thoughtful and enlightened legislator” with everyone’s interests at heart, rich or poor.

Richard the Brave

Richard might have been ambitious, ruthless in some respects, but he was a good lawmaker in others. It also seems just to say that Richard was brave in battle and had skill and integrity in matters of war, at least. When Edward invaded France, in 1475, Louis XI offered pensions to the English king and his men to avoid battle in the Treaty of Picquigny. Richard refused to accept a pension on principle. In 1482, Richard led a campaign into Scotland on his Edward’s behalf, took Edinburgh without a single casualty and regained Berwick upon Tweed. In addition, we should think of the standards of Richard’s day: Edward IV was ruthless in safeguarding his rule, arranging an “accident” for Henry, Duke of Exeter, for example.

Even those who had motive to dislike Richard credited his bravery. John Rous’ Historia Regum Angliae says that, at death, Richard “bore himself like a noble soldier.” Thomas More acknowledges Richard’s “wit and courage” and Polydore Vergil writes of Richard’s death that he “alone was killyd fighting manfully in the thickest presse of his enemies.”

Of course, there are those who think Richard’s defenders have gone too far. Desmond Seward’s Richard III, England’s Black Legend rebuts the ‘white legend’ arguments that try to rehabilitate Richard’s reputation, and even the ‘grey legend’ argument that sees Richard as a flawed person, but not our most evil tyrant. Writers such as James Gairdner, and Alison Hanham (the latter is a good place to see primary sources) also support the black legend model.

Whatever you think of the revision of Richard III’s reputation, at least now there is a healthy debate!

In our next post, discover Richard’s legacy in the mythology of the city of Leicester.

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