Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (3 of 6): England (5 of 9)the History of Edward the Fift and King Richard the Third Unfinished

This is the original Tudor account of England's most infamous succession crisis, the raw material that seeded Shakespeare's darkest imagination. Holinshed's chronicle documents the death of Edward IV and the terrifying vulnerability of his young sons, Edward V and the Duke of York, left in the Tower of London while their uncle Richard of Gloucester maneuvers for the crown. The chroniclers record the whispered accusations, the vanished princes, the nobles who conveniently died or switched allegiances, and Richard's relentless rise, a tale of ambition soveniently dressed in the language of duty and divine providence. Written by men who interviewed survivors of the Wars of the Roses and drew from now-lost records, this text offers an extraordinary window into how Tudor England understood its own bloody recent past. For anyone who has ever been haunted by Shakespeare's Richard III or the mystery of the Princes in the Tower, this is where the legend meets the document.