King Richard III remains one of England’s most controversial monarchs, both reviled and romanticized through the centuries. His reign, though short (1483–1485), left a deep and enduring mark on English history. The last king of the House of York and the last Plantagenet monarch, Richard was the final English king to die in battle. But it’s not only his military fate that keeps him alive in memory—it’s the enduring legends, many fueled by Tudor propaganda and Shakespeare’s dramatic pen. These stories have blurred the line between fact and fiction, turning Richard III into one of the most mythologized figures in British history.Here are six of the most compelling and controversial legends surrounding Richard III:
The Murderer of the Princes in the Tower
Perhaps the most infamous legend about Richard III is that he ordered the murder of his two young nephews, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury—the so-called Princes in the Tower. After their father, Edward IV, died in 1483, the 12-year-old Edward V was set to inherit the throne. Richard, then Duke of Gloucester, was appointed Lord Protector. However, he declared the boys illegitimate and assumed the throne for himself.
Soon after, the princes disappeared from the Tower of London, never to be seen again. Many contemporaries and later historians accused Richard of orchestrating their deaths to secure his crown. Thomas More and Raphael Holinshed fueled this claim in the 16th century, and Shakespeare sealed it in the public imagination.
However, modern scholars remain divided. Some argue that Henry VII, who defeated Richard at Bosworth, may have had a motive to eliminate the boys to strengthen his own claim. With no definitive proof and only circumstantial evidence, the truth remains a haunting mystery.
The Crooked King: Hunchback or Hatchet Job?
Shakespeare’s portrayal of Richard III as a twisted, deformed villain—“rudely stamp’d,” “unfinished”—cemented the image of a physically and morally misshapen tyrant. The image of a hunchbacked king has persisted for centuries, shaping popular conceptions of Richard as a grotesque figure, both externally and internally.
For a long time, historians debated whether this was mere Tudor propaganda. Then, in 2012, Richard’s remains were discovered beneath a car park in Leicester. The skeleton showed that Richard did indeed suffer from scoliosis, which would have made one shoulder higher than the other but would not have rendered him a deformed monster.
This discovery vindicated some accounts while dispelling others. Richard was not a hunchback, but he did have a curvature of the spine—enough to inspire exaggerated portrayals by his enemies. The myth was rooted in truth, but twisted to suit a political narrative. shutdown123