Prof Michael Hicks

The story of the most vilified English king, from model of nobility to murderer and monster. Richard III has been written off in history as one of England's evil kings. His usurpation of the throne from his nephew, the story of the 'Princes in the Tower' and generations of pro-Tudor historians ensureed his fame as the disfigured murderer portrayed in Shakespeare's eponymous play. Then, in the twentieth century, Richard III found his apologists - those who regarded him as more sinned against than sinning. The process of rehabilitation had begun. This study by an acclaimed scholar of Richard III strips away the propaganda of the centuries to rescue Richard from his critics and supporters alike. Analysing contemporary evidence and recreating the course of Richard's life in it fifteenth-century context, Michael Hicks reveals a complex and powerful figure and charts Richard's bewildering transformation in his own lifetime from a model of nobility, via kingship, to tyrant and monster.