Richard III: His Life & Character, Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research

For centuries, Richard III has been the villain of English history, murdered by Shakespeare, condemned by Tudor chroniclers, reviled as a hunchbacked usurper. Sir Clements R. Markham wanted to know if any of it was true. Drawing on contemporary records and emerging historical research, Markham constructs a meticulous defense of England's most slandered king. The first half chronicles Richard's life and governance - his competence as a northern lord, his fair administration, his surprisingly popular reign. The second half takes on the charges one by one: the murders, the tyranny, the infamous hunchback. Markham finds Tudor propaganda, political bias, and remarkably little evidence for the traditional narrative. This 1913 work helped launch the modern revisionist project that continues today. For anyone curious about how history gets written - and rewritten - this is a fascinating time capsule of early resistance to the Tudor myth.