This is a very personal interpretation of Richard III. No book on the Heathcliff of English Kings can be anything else. It is difficult to avoid having strong views on a man who committed what were arguably the most infamous murders in English history.
I have been enthralled by him since I was eleven years old. For a long time I believed passionately in his innocence (so well and persuasively argued in Josephine Tey’s charming novel, The Daughter of Time). As I grew older and learnt to appreciate Thomas More, I began to wonder how someone of such integrity could stoop to character assassination – even though posthumous – as he appeared to, in his history of Richard. Then, having read Paul Murray Kendall, I was inclined to think that the Duke of Buckingham had killed Edward V and his brother (although this was not Kendall’s view). Yet More, not a man to tell lies, still made me uneasy. My final position as a believer in Richard’s innocence was a despairing compromise. Something ‘must have gone wrong’ – he had been misunderstood by his henchmen, who perhaps killed the boys during a crisis.
At last I read the actual sources, the testimony of men who had been observers in London when he seized power in 1483. Reluctantly, I became convinced of his guilt. Once the conversion started I found myself suspecting that the seizure and the murders were both part of a contingency plan – in case his brother Edward IV should die prematurely – which he had laid well in advance.
As others have discovered before me, the evil Richard is even more interesting than the good Richard. Instead of being the victim of a lost cause, he becomes one of the most alarming figures in European history. But to accept his guilt it is indispensable to read at least a summary of the sources. Hence my regrettably complex Introduction to the book.
I must apologize for any affront to the feelings of so many people who are – and who always will be – convinced of his innocence. I once shared their conviction and know how sincerely it is held.
Besides incorporating the most recent scholarship, this new, revised edition reflects what has been learned from Richard’s skeleton – that he was indeed a hunchback and how he died. It also tells us where he had hoped to be buried.