Richard III 6 July

On this day, 6 July in 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester was crowned King Richard III. The story goes that after the death of his brother King Edward IV, Richard briefly governed as a regent for Edward’s son King Edward V, but he imprisoned Edward and his brother Richard in the Tower and acquired the throne for himself. Many of the facts about Richard are disputed, largely because his dynasty, the House of York, died with him at the Battle of Bosworth Field and the Tudors, being the victors, wrote the history. At that time history was considered to be a branch of literature. Nevertheless, Richard stands accused of a number of ‘misdemeanours’. To start with, the murder of his 2 nephews, the Princes in the Tower, the murder of Henry VI, the "private execution" of his brother George, Duke of Clarence, the murder of his wife’s first husband, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales and the murder of William, Lord Hastings. Slightly more controversially, he is also accused of forcing his wife, Anne Neville, to marry him against her will, of planning an incestuous marriage to his niece Elizabeth of York (and perhaps killing his wife so he could), of accusing his own mother of adultery. Finally of accusing his late brother the king of being illegitimate, of accusing Jane Shore and Elizabeth Woodville of witchcraft in withering his arm and finally of being illegitimate himself. Imagine these attributes in a modern Labour Party politician?

A soothsayer in, of all places, Leicester, prophesied his death. She is purported to have told him, as he headed off for the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22 1485 to meet Lancastrian forces led by Henry Tudor: "where your spur should strike on the ride into battle, your head shall be broken on the return". On the ride into battle his spur struck the bridge stone of the Bow Bridge; as he was being carried back after the battle, slung over the back of a horse, his head struck the same stone and was broken open, spilling his brains onto the cobbles. His burial site is currently under a car park in Leicester. Oh how the mighty have fallen.