Biography

by Matthew Lewis

King Richard III was born on 2nd October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the seat of the House of York. He was the seventh surviving child and fourth surviving son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. His father was the most senior noble in England and the richest man after the king. York was a great-grandson of Edward III via that king’s fourth son, Edmund, Duke of York. He was also a great-great-great-grandson of Edward III through his mother Anne Mortimer, a line that led back to that king’s second son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence. York was also a cousin to the reigning king, Henry VI, and was widely considered the heir to the throne while Henry remained childless.

Cecily Neville’s ancestry was hardly less impressive. The Neville family of her father Ralph had been an important northern powerhouse for centuries and had risen to the rank of Earls of Westmoreland. Cecily’s mother, Joan Beaufort, was a daughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, so Cecily was a great-granddaughter of Edward III too, via his third son John. Richard had an illustrious pedigree but his prospects were less than clear as a fourth son, and a career in the Church may have been likely.

Little is known of Richard’s earliest years. From the age of 6, his life would be turned upside down with alarming regularity by the period we remember as the Wars of the Roses. In 1459, as tensions escalated, York gathered his forces at his base of Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border. He brought all of his family there, including his three youngest children Margaret, George, and Richard, who had been at Fotheringhay. Richard passed his seventh birthday watching these forces gather and then march out of Ludlow towards London. Excitement turned to fear when his father returned bearing news that a royal army was hot on their heels.

That fear quickly became terror when York, his two oldest sons Edward and Edmund, his brother-in-law Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury’s son the Earl of Warwick, now known as the Kingmaker, fled from Ludlow during the night. Richard, George, Margaret and Cecily were left behind as a royal army flooded into Ludlow to punish the town for supporting York, looting and burning as they went. Richard was placed into the custody of his maternal aunt, the Duchess of Buckingham. His family were attainted, found guilty of treason and stripped of all their lands and titles.

In early 1460, Warwick led raids on the south coast from Calais, where he had taken refuge with his father and cousin Edward, Richard’s oldest brother. As summer arrived, they attacked in force and on 10th July 1460, the Yorkists were victorious at the Battle of Northampton, and King Henry VI was captured. In September, Richard’s father returned from Ireland, where he had sheltered from the storm with his second son Edmund. When he reached London, York claimed the throne by right of descent from Edward III’s second son, which was presented as a senior claim to Lancastrian descent from that king’s third son. The Act of Accord was the result of much discussion, agreed on 25th October 1460, just a few weeks after Richard’s eighth birthday. It made York and his descendants the heirs to Henry’s throne. Richard had suddenly been transformed from the son of a dispossessed traitor to standing fifth in line to the throne of England.

That year was not yet done with young Richard, though. Henry VI’s queen, Margaret of Anjou, refused to accept the settlement that disinherited her son Edward, Prince of Wales. Raising an army in Scotland, she marched south. York, Edmund, and Salisbury took a force north to confront them. At the Battle of Wakefield on 30th December 1460, York and Edmund were killed. Salisbury was executed shortly afterwards, and their heads were placed on Micklegate Bar in York. As the Lancastrian army pushed south, Cecily Neville panicked in London. Concerned that even her young children were no longer safe from retribution, she put George and Richard into a small boat with a few servants and sent them across the Channel as 1461 began.

Landing in the territory of Philip, Duke of Burgundy, the boys were kept at arm’s length as the sons of a family that appeared to be losing everything in England again. They must have been frightened and concerned for the rest of their family at home. It would have been another bewildering moment for the 8-year-old Richard when they were suddenly whisked to the glittering Burgundian court. Treated as honoured guests, they were informed that their brother Edward had won the crown, defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton, and wanted his brothers home to attend his coronation. Suddenly, Richard was second in line to the throne, was knighted, and created Duke of Gloucester.

During the early 1460’s, Richard remained in London, under the protection of his brother King Edward IV, who may have become something of a father figure to Richard during that period. The second half of the decade saw Richard move into the household of his cousin, the famous Earl of Warwick. Here, he would have continued his education and knightly training, but it is probably at this time that the scoliosis discovered in Richard’s skeleton would have begun to manifest. Richard also met Anne Neville, the Kingmaker’s daughter and Richard’s future wife in Warwick’s household. The two sat at the same table during at least one feast.

As Edward and Warwick fell out spectacularly during the final years of the 1460s, Richard was removed from his cousin’s custody and given responsibilities by his brother on the Welsh border and in the south-west of England. Offices in the Duchy of Lancaster saw the teenage Richard placed into direct opposition to Thomas, Lord Stanley, a powerful regional noble. When Stanley squabbled with the Harrington family, Richard took Harrington’s side and defended their castle at Hornby. Stanley would play a central role later in Richard III’s life, and this episode may have sown the seeds of what was to come.

In 1470, Warwick, joined by George, now Duke of Clarence and heir to Edward’s throne, forced the king out of England and restored King Henry VI. Richard elected to remain loyal to his brother Edward and joined him for a second spell of exile in Burgundy. In the spring of 1471, Edward, Richard, and a small force set out to retake the kingdom amid storms and treacherous seas. They tried to land in Norfolk but found the coast closely watched by the Earl of Oxford’s men. Moving north, the fleet was scattered by the tempest but made land on the Yorkshire coast. Regrouping, they began to move towards York.

Support was slow to come. Very slow. Edward began to insist he no longer wanted the crown, just the duchy of York that was his by right. Whether anyone believed him or the region still smarted from the devastation of the Battle of Towton is unclear, but Edward marched south without facing opposition. George even submitted to his brother again, the chronicles crediting Richard with a critical role in negotiating the rapprochement. They retook London, placing Henry VI back into the Tower, and Edward recovered his family, which now included a son, born in sanctuary during his absence, and named for him. Warwick had refused to confront Edward but now set out towards London, believing his capital would hold against the king. With Richard and a fresh force, Edward marched a few miles north and met Warwick’s army at Barnet.

In 14th April 1471, Richard, aged 18, got his first taste of battle. Fought in the early morning fog that disorientated the armies, the Battle of Barnet was a fraught affair. Richard led his brother’s right flank, and the confusion of the mist meant the troops had lined up off centre, and Richard was able to flank his opponents easily. He was injured during the fighting but acquitted himself well, and the Yorkists won. Warwick was killed along with his brother John. Richard may have felt conflicted at the loss of his cousin and former mentor, who had rebelled so spectacularly against his brother, corrupting the other in the process.

Soon after a triumphal return to London, Edward, Richard, George, and a refreshed army were on the march again. Margaret of Anjou and her 17-year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales, had landed in the south-west. The two sides played cat and mouse along the Welsh border in sweltering heat as Margaret tried to join up with Welsh reinforcements. They finally clashed at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4th May 1471. Prince Edward was killed in the fighting, his mother was captured, and on the army’s return to London, Henry VI was pronounced dead. The official cause of death was shock at hearing of his son’s death, but it is equally likely he was killed. Some here accused Richard personally of killing both Prince Edward and Henry VI. There is no evidence for the former charge, and the latter is based entirely on one source that states Richard, along with many others, was at the Tower that night.

In the aftermath of Warwick’s death and the vast power vacuum created in the north of England, Richard married Warwick’s younger daughter Anne Neville. Anne’s sister Isabel was already married to Richard’s brother George, and the two fought over the Warwick inheritance, with George insisting he should have it all. Edward eventually gave George the lands in the midlands and Richard those in the north. Based around Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, it was here that Richard and Anne spent the bulk of the next decade. They had one son, Edward of Middleham, sometimes thought to have been born in 1473, though it was more likely to have been in 1476. Richard also had two illegitimate children, John and Catherine, probably born before his marriage and acknowledged and provided for, though their mother or mothers remain unknown.

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. It meant that Richard was generally well liked and held in high regard by a region that retains its affection for him to this day. Perhaps they saw the real Richard over more than a decade not the monster painted from the events of the last two years of his life.

In 1475, Richard took part in his brother’s invasion of France. The French quickly paid off Edward, but sources suggest that Richard disagreed with his brother and felt they should have fought. When Louis XI gave out generous annual pensions to the English king and his men, Richard refused to accept one. In 1482, Richard led a campaign into Scotland on his brother’s behalf. Edward had been trying to launch the invasion for over a year but had been delayed in the south, so he delegated it to his brother. Richard marched all the way to Edinburgh and took the city without a single casualty. The Scots king had been imprisoned by his own nobles, so with no one to negotiate with, Richard extracted the best deal he could from the city of Edinburgh and withdrew. At the border, Berwick upon Tweed had been retaken. The strategically vital border point had been given to Scotland by Margaret of Anjou to secure Scots help in 1460 and has remained on the English side of the border since 1482.

The events of 1483 are complex and dealt with in great depth elsewhere on this site. The year began with fresh hostility from France. Edward IV died unexpectedly in April 1483 as French ships began to probe and raid the south coast. London was gripped by tension and rivalry as Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s widow, and William, Lord Hastings, the deceased king’s right-hand man, took armed men into the streets against each other. Richard was called south to resolve the problems and oversee the succession of his 12-year-old nephew as Edward V. In the end, Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage was declared bigamous, and Richard was petitioned to take the throne. He and Anne were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6th July 1483.

During a royal progress to the north, Richard created his son Prince of Wales, and the royal family were lavishly entertained in York. However, a revolt was already being planned in the south. Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, had been at Richard’s right hand throughout the crisis of 1483 but suddenly decided to rebel. Some southern gentry and knightly men also planned to revolt, and Henry Tudor, a claimant to the earldom of Richmond who had been in exile in Brittany for 12 years, also assembled a fleet to take part. Weather and good intelligence allowed Richard to act quickly and decisively to avert the rebellion. Buckingham was captured and executed. Tudor never managed to land and returned to Brittany.

Richard’s only parliament was held in early 1484 and has since been widely praised for the quality of laws it introduced. In March 1484, Elizabeth Woodville gave her daughters into Richard’s custody after he swore to protect them and find them good marriages. However, Richard’s rule remained under threat from Henry Tudor who had sworn at Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day 1483 to take Richard’s throne and marry Edward IV’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth of York. Amid this, Richard’s personal life was hit by tragedy. His only legitimate son Edward died in April 1484, creating personal tragedy and a politically damaging succession problem. Anne, Richard’s wife of more than ten years, died on 16th March 1485.

Faced with the political consequences of personal losses, Richard began to negotiate a marriage to Joanna of Portugal, a princess with Lancastrian blood. As part of the negotiations, Elizabeth of York was to marry Manuel, Duke of Beja (later King Manuel I of Portugal), allowing Richard to keep his promise to find suitable matches for his nieces and remove her from Henry Tudor’s plans. These negotiations were twisted into a rumour that Richard planned to marry his niece himself, which he was forced to deny publicly.

Richard almost negotiated the handover of Henry Tudor from Brittany, but Tudor escaped across the border into France just in time. The French had been wary of Richard since the events of 1475 and, following the death of Louis XI in 1483 when his son was 13, were undergoing their own minority crisis. It served their concerns to back an assault on England. With French backing, Henry Tudor invaded, landing in south-west Wales in August 1485. As he made for London, Richard, who had been based in Nottingham, cut him off near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. At the ensuing Battle of Bosworth, Richard was betrayed by the Stanley family. Thomas, Lord Stanley, the same man Richard had clashed with previously, was Henry Tudor’s stepfather, and Thomas’s brother William led the charge that changed the battle and killed King Richard III. Polydore Vergil, who wrote under the Tudors and was generally hostile to Richard, joined the unanimous praise for Richard’s bravery on the battlefield, stating, ‘King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies.’

Richard III’s legacy is one of controversy and debate over the crimes he had been accused of, but it is also one of fair and equitable rule. Reconciling the good lord who championed the plight of the ordinary person to the monster history has recorded from 1483 to 1485 is a large part of the fascination this man holds for the Richard III Society.