The most famous unsolved mystery. As an early victim of misinformation it is hardly surprising that this story survived. Richard had absolutely no reason to kill the young princes, whereas Henry VI needed to create the mystery of their deaths to validate his position.

There is no contemporary description of Richard that suggests any physical deformity. One mild comment that "one shoulder was higher than the other" escalated with each mention until eventually Thomas More's history of Richard claimed that he was "little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than the right" and he continued with atrocious stories about his mother and his birth intended to create ominous portent. As Richard was killed at Bosworth in 1495 when More was a small child he had no personal knowledge of the king but his biography of Richard shows the extent of his toadying to the Tudors. His account influenced Shakespeare's play written 100 years after Richard III's death, when it was still acceptable to write unflattering accounts of the last Plantagenet king.

Written in 1997, well before the discovery of Richard's body in a parking lot in Leicester. Biographers take one side or the other but Pollard goes along with the traditional claim that he was a villain who murdered his two young nephews. Nothing I have read convinces me of his guilt. ( )

I read a fair amount about Richard III, and if I were to recommend one adult book on the subject this would be it. I don't agree with everything he says, but it is unusually balanced. It is a traditionalist argument, i.e., he thinks Richard is guilty of murdering his nephews, but he even explodes some of the sillier arguments on that side. As if that were not enough, it is gorgeously illustrated. It includes information on what one might call "Richardology", i.e., the modern controversies, Richard III romance novels, etc.

Most of the academic biographies (Hicks, Horrox, etc.) are traditionalist; the classic pro-Richard biography is Paul Kendall's Richard III. ( )