Richard III
Hunchbacked English monarch
Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last English monarch killed in battle.
Shakespeare's play made him a byword for villainy and physical deformity—the scheming hunchback who murders his way to the throne.
He's a real Richard III suggests ruthless ambition.
The 2012 discovery of his skeleton under a Leicester parking lot renewed debates about his actual character and confirmed his spinal curvature.
- Wars of the RosesPlantagenet succession conflict
- hunchbackSpinal deformity causing stooping
- crooked backCurved or misaligned spine
- soliloquyDramatic speech to oneself
- DNA analysisExamining hereditary material
royal succession · forensic anthropology · Shakespearean tragedy · villain speech · historical fiction · public memory · usurper · moral ambiguity · iambic pentameter · skeletal remains · scoliosis · medieval monarchy · English throne · winter of discontent · princes · popular myths · theatrical adaptation · horse
- Shakespeare CharactersHamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo, Juliet
- 15th Century FiguresChristopher Columbus, Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Gutenberg, Joan of Arc, Isabella I
- Shakespeare VillainsIago, Lady Macbeth, Claudius, Edmund, Regan
- Shakespeare RoguesFalstaff, Iago, Pompey, Edmund, Aaron
- medievalknights, castles, cathedral, kings, queens
- royaltyking, queen, prince, princess, kings
Richard IIIHenry VII
First Tudor monarch
Henry Tudor · Richmond · Henry VIII · Elizabeth I · Mary I
Richard IIIHenry V
Medieval English king
Alfred the Great · King Arthur · Richard the Lionheart · Elizabeth I · Edward the Confessor