Richard III (monarch)

This article is about the monarch. For other uses of the term Richard III, please see Richard III (disambiguation).

King Richard III of England (2nd October 1452 - 22nd August 1485) was the last Plantagenet monarch, ruling from 26th June 1483 until his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which effectively ended the Wars of the Roses. He was the last English monarch to die in battle.

Richard's reputation suffered in the centuries after his death: he was depicted as a hunchback responsible for the murder of his predecessor Edward V, one of the 'Princes in the Tower'. This is most obvious in the Shakespeare play of the same name, in which Richard is cast as the main villain. Though his life has been somewhat re-evaluated in the eyes of some over the years, most historians agree that Richard seized the throne and is ultimately responsible for the deaths of the princes.

Richard's remains were rediscovered at Leicester in September 2012 by Leicester University archaeologists, under a car park, and reburied in March 2015 at Leicester Cathedral. Analysis of the remains proved that he was not seriously physically deformed, but did suffer from a spinal curvature.