The future Richard III was the fourth son of Richard, 3rd duke of York (died 1460), and his duchess, Cecily Neville, to survive to adulthood. York was the most prominent duke in England, of royal descent, and the most powerful nobleman of his day. Neville came from the most prolific, most politically prominent, and best married of contemporary noble houses. Young Richard was, therefore, supremely wellborn and well-connected; but, as the youngest son, he was of so little account that a verse genealogy of the family merely recorded that he “liveth yet.” Three brothers—Edward, 3rd earl of March; Edmund, earl of Rutland (died 1460); and George, 1st duke of Clarence (after 1461)—reached maturity. Consequently, Richard’s future at first was decidedly unpromising.

During Richard’s youth, York initiated the opening stages of the Wars of the Roses. Three times York was appointed lord protector for his feeble cousin, the Lancastrian king Henry VI (reigned 1422–61 and 1470–71). In 1460 the Yorkist claim—York’s descent through the senior female line from Edward III (reigned 1327–77)—was recognized to be superior to the Lancastrian title through the junior male line of Henry VI. York himself was designated heir to the throne when Henry V died. However, this settlement, the Act of Accord, was resisted, and York was killed attempting to enforce it at Wakefield (now West Yorkshire) on December 30, 1460. This setback was reversed by York’s eldest son, Edward, who decisively defeated the Lancastrians in February 1461; he assumed the title King Edward IV on March 4, 1461, and his coronation took place on June 28. Although merely a child, Richard was directly affected by these upheavals and briefly took refuge in the Low Countries before his brother restored the family fortunes.

The succession of Edward IV made Richard a royal prince. He was quickly created duke of Gloucester and a knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. He and his other brother, George, now duke of Clarence and also a child, resided together in a tower at Greenwich Palace in Kent. About 1465 Richard was placed in the household of his cousin Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, better known as “the Kingmaker.” He was recorded with him at Warwick and York. It was probably late in 1468, when he was 16 years old, that Richard was declared of age, took possession of estates conferred by his brother, and commenced public life, attending court and judicial commissions.

The Wars of the Roses resumed in 1469, when Richard’s brother George and Warwick temporarily seized control of Edward IV and his government. Richard remained loyal and was appointed by Edward as his figurehead in Wales, the real ruling being undertaken by others. When Warwick and George succeeded in reinstating Henry VI as king briefly in 1470, Richard joined Edward IV in exile in The Hague, later accompanying Edward on his victorious campaign in 1471. Richard was prominent at the Battles of Barnet (Hertfordshire), where he was slightly wounded, and Tewkesbury (Gloucestershire), where as constable he summarily condemned the Lancastrian leaders to death. With royal approval and definitely not on his own initiative, he may also have helped kill both Prince Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI.

The real beginning of Richard’s adult life occurred in 1471, when he was 18 years old. Before his accession as king in 1483 he spent a dozen years as a great nobleman. Although this experience was useful training for kingship, it was not intended as such, for Richard cannot have expected to accede to the throne; instead, he built a future for the dynasty that he was intent on founding. Richard appeared at court, as well as at chapters of the Order of the Garter, in Parliament and royal council, and in major ceremonial occasions. He led the largest company in his brother Edward’s abortive invasion of France in 1475 and was the chief mourner for his father and brother Edmund, both slain in 1460, at their ceremonial reinterment at Fotheringhay College in 1476.

Richard’s share of the Warwick inheritance was located partly in Wales but mainly in the north of England, where he was warden for the defense of the western marches toward Scotland. The Neville lands centred on Middleham in Richmondshire (now North Yorkshire), Barnard Castle in the county palatine of Durham, and Penrith in Cumbria. Single-mindedly, Richard extended his estates, adding, for instance, the castles of Helmsley, Richmond, Scarborough, and Skipton, all in Yorkshire; recruited a large retinue; and asserted himself over the other northern peers. Even the earls of Northumberland and Westmorland accepted his preeminence. In 1478 Richard’s acquiescence in—or perhaps positive approval of—charges of treason against his brother George permitted George’s execution, from which Richard was the principal beneficiary.

Although Richard made himself more dominant than the king had originally intended, Edward accepted his hegemony once it had been established. This would be the power base for Richard as king. His self-advancement was crowned by the Scottish war of 1481–83, when he was appointed the king’s lieutenant in the north, recapturing Berwick and briefly occupying Edinburgh. In 1483 Parliament thanked him, granted him Cumberland as county palatine, made him hereditary warden of the western marches, and authorized him to keep whatever Scottish territory he could conquer. A great future on the borders apparently beckoned, but he became king of England instead.

On April 9, 1483, Edward IV unexpectedly died. He was succeeded at once and without question by his eldest son, Edward V, a boy of 12. His uncle Richard, designated lord protector in the late king’s will, swore allegiance to the new king at York. However, the royal council, dominated by the dowager queen’s family, the Wydevilles (also spelled Woodville), decided to crown Edward V at once, which rendered any protectorate unnecessary and probably would have enabled them to rule on his behalf. They overrode the opposition of, among others, Edward IV’s former chamberlain, Lord Hastings, who enlisted Richard as his ally. The Wydevilles mistakenly believed that Richard was their friend, and the queen’s brother Earl Rivers arranged to meet with Richard and the duke of Buckingham en route from Ludlow (Shropshire) to London.

Richard staged his first coup d’état on May 1, 1483, at Stony Stratford (Northamptonshire). He seized Edward V, dismissed his household, and placed Rivers and Edward’s half-brother Lord Richard Grey in custody. Asserting his loyalty to Edward, Richard escorted him to London and was recognized by the royal council as lord protector. Henceforth he was head of government. The queen, her daughters, and Edward’s younger brother, also called Richard, took refuge in Westminster Abbey. Most people’s fears were allayed by Richard’s respectfulness to the king and by his continued preparations for the coronation. On June 13, however, Richard had Hastings executed (his second coup), allegedly for treasonable conspiracy but more probably to remove Edward’s most devoted supporter. On June 16 he secured possession of the younger Richard on the pretext of ensuring that the boy would attend Edward’s coronation. With both princes in his power, Richard publicly declared his claim to the throne, and on June 26 he usurped it. The usurpation was backed by the northern army, which overawed London from its camp at Finsbury Fields. King Richard III and Queen Anne were crowned at Westminster Abbey on July 6, 1483.

Although modern historians reject the allegations of Thomas More and William Shakespeare that Richard planned his usurpation well before Edward IV’s death, they debate precisely when he made up his mind and why. Probably this will never be known with any certainty. Was Richard motivated by personal ambition, by self-defense because he feared the Wydevilles, or by what he honestly considered his duty? His own justification was that he was the rightful heir because Edward IV’s children were illegitimate and therefore disqualified from the crown. According to the so-called precontract story, Edward IV had betrothed himself to Lady Eleanor Butler—an obligation as binding as marriage at this time—and thus had not been free to marry his queen, Elizabeth Wydeville; any children by Queen Elizabeth, therefore, were illegitimate. However, Lady Eleanor was deceased by 1483, and there is no independent or contemporary evidence from the 1460s to support the claim of betrothal, which was never adjudicated by a competent church court. In any event, the betrothal would not necessarily have invalidated Edward V’s kingship once he had acceded. It was also rumoured that Edward IV himself was illegitimate, an allegation which had been made twice before and which is not wholly incredible. (The children of Richard’s elder brother George were supposedly disqualified by his condemnation.) Such arguments may have been invented at the time and were probably pretexts to justify a usurpation on which Richard had already decided.

Perhaps some of Richard’s contemporaries believed the precontract story, but many did not. This invalidates the argument that Richard had no need to kill the princes because they posed no threat to him owing to their illegitimacy. The two princes were obvious focuses for conspiracy. They were sure to become more dangerous as they grew up and progressed from pawns to active plotters. Just like earlier deposed monarchs, they had to be eliminated. Even though there is no reliable evidence, it seems certain that they were killed sometime in 1483—in the summer, when they disappeared, or in the autumn, when their deaths were rumoured. Henceforth politics operated on the assumption that they were dead, which Richard never denied. Although some sources implicate Buckingham, most blame Richard, who had the princes in his power and who evidently decided to conceal their fate.

Richard III presented himself as a reformer committed to justice and morality who would remedy the supposed misrule of Edward IV’s last years and the sexual license of his brother’s court. His signet registers reveal plans to improve the management of the royal estates and the north. He also came to an agreement with Queen Elizabeth and the Wydevilles. She accepted him as king, and he allowed her and her daughters to emerge from sanctuary and provided for them. Unfortunately, his good intentions could not be implemented in a reign of only two years or in the face of serious opposition. Although he abolished the highly unpopular forced gifts (benevolences) employed by his brother, sheer financial desperation forced him to revive them once again. He could not afford the cost of two years of mobilization against the threat of invasion from France. Reluctantly, Richard replaced the natural rulers of southern England, who had rejected his rule, with his own northern supporters, which some southerners equated with tyranny. His position was gravely weakened by the deaths of his only son, Prince Edward, in 1484 and his queen in 1485. There was some good sense in the notion of marriage to Elizabeth of York, his niece and Edward IV’s daughter, who could have strengthened his title, would no longer have been available to marry Henry Tudor, and could have borne him sons anew. This plan, however—if it ever was a plan—was vetoed by his supporters and was highly unpopular.

Richard’s support may have been diminished by highly effective propaganda presenting him as the murderer, like King Herod, of innocent “babes,” a betrayer like Judas Iscariot, a tyrant, and a committer of incest with his niece. Many members of the Yorkist establishment and county elites joined Buckingham and the Wydevilles in the rebellion of southern England late in 1483. Although Richard suppressed it, most of the leaders escaped to Brittany, where on Christmas Day they recognized the exiled Henry Tudor as king. Denounced by Richard as illegitimate, Tudor’s personal claim through the legitimated Beaufort line was extremely weak: it was important that Elizabeth of York remain available as his potential bride. So hostile were the Yorkist exiles to Richard III that they were more concerned with deposing him than with the identity of his replacement.

Although Richard sought Tudor’s extradition, all he achieved was his transfer from Brittany to France, where Tudor was able to recruit highly trained professional French and Scottish mercenaries. With these the exiles invaded England in 1485 and defeated Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The scale and course of the battle and even the site where it took place are obscure and much disputed. A key role was certainly played by the Stanley family, whose northwestern contingents joined Tudor late in the battle. Fighting bravely, Richard himself was killed. Henry VII became the first Tudor king.