RICHARD III 1488 - 1485
Born 1443. - Married Anne, daughter of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, by whom he had one son. - Began to reign,1483. - Reigned 2 years. - Died 1485.
DOMINIONS
PRINCIPAL EVENTS Lord Rivers and others beheaded, and the young king
and his brother, the duke of York, murdered, 1483. Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, claims the throne;
and defeat and death of Richard. End of the Wars of the Roses, 1485. RICHARD III. King of England, the last of the Plantagenet kings born at Fotheringhay Castle in 1450,
was the youngest son of Richard, duke of York, who was killed at Wakefield. On the accession of his brother Edward
IV. he was created Duke of Gloucester, and during the early part of Edward's reign served him with great courage
and fidelity. He married in 1473 Anne Neville, joint-heiress of the Earl of Warwick, whose other daughter was united
to the Duke of Clarence, and quarrels rose between the two brothers over their wives' inheritance.
England, Ireland, and Calais.
On the death of Edward in 1483, the Duke of Gloucester was appointed protector of the kingdom; and he immediately caused his nephew, the young Edward V., to be declared king, and took an oath of fealty to him. But Richard soon began to pursue his own ambitious schemes. Earl Rivers, the queens brother, and Sir R. Grey, a son by her first husband, were arrested and beheaded at Pomfret, and Lord Hastings, who adhered to his young sovereign, was executed without trial in the Tower. It was now asserted that the king and his brother were illegitimate, and that Richard had a legal title to the crown. The Duke of Buckingham supported Richard, and a body of peers and citizens having offered him the crown in the name of the nation he accepted it, and on July 8, 1483, was crowned at Westminster .
The deposed king and his brother were, according to general belief, smothered in the Tower of London by order of their uncle. (See Edward V.) Richard governed with vigour and ability, but was not generally popular, and in 1485. Henry, earl of Richmond head of the house of Lancaster, landed with a small army at Milford Haven. Richard met him on August 23 rd with an army of 15,000 men at Bosworth, in Leicestershire. Richmond had only 6000 men, but relied on the secret assurances of aid from Stanley, who commanded a separate royal force of 7,000, in the midst of the battle, Stanley, by falling on the flank of the royal army, secured the victory to Richmond. (See Henry VII.)
Richard possessed courage as well as capacity; but his conduct showed cruelty, dissimulation, treachery, and ambition. He has been represented as of small stature, deformed, and of a forbidding aspect; but his personal defects have probably been magnified.
OFFICIALS
Archbishop - Thomas Bourchier, 1483 - 1485.
Chancellor - John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, 1483 - 1485. Thomas Barowe, Keeper, 1485; Henry Stafford, Duke of
Buckingham, Lord High Constable; John Lord Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and Earl Marshall; Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland,
Warden of the Scottish Marches, and Great Chamberlain of England; Thomas Lord Stanley, Lord High
Constable, December, 1483.
ACTS AND DOCUMENTS
In 1484 by 1 Richard III. c. 2, benevolence were abolished. According to Sir Thomas More Richard himself levied them afterwards, and they were commonly levied under Henry VII. Printed in the Statutes. The Statutes of Richard III were the first in the English language, and the first printed.
WARS
After an abortive insurrection by the Duke of Buckingham,
the Earl of Richmond was brought over by a combination of Yorkists and Lancastrians.
At Bosworth, on August 22nd, 1485, Richard was betrayed by Lord Stanley and the Earl of Northumberland, and defeated
and killed in consequence by the troops of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, and Sir William Stanley. As the leader
of the House of York, the Lancastrians were of course hostile to him, as the supplanter and probable murderer of
the children of Edward IV.; the Yorkist party was not warmly in favour of him; and as a resolute king and strong
ruler the French feared him and the nobility distrusted him. The latter hoped by a coalition to set up a king who
should be in their hands. This calculation the statesmanship of Henry VII., using the means which the state of
popular feeling and European policy afforded him, completely foiled.
