RICHARD III

by Chris Skidmore

(W&N £10.99, 464 pp) WHEN we think of Richard III, what comes to mind is Shakespeare’s villainous monarch, the murderer of his innocent nephews.

Yet Chris Skidmore’s biography begins with a very different account from a Silesian knight charmed by Richard’s affability and his splendid appearance.

‘He has very delicate arms and legs, also a great heart,’ the knight wrote, noting that the monarch wore ‘a collar of gold with many pearls the size of peas, and diamonds’.

Skidmore, who is a historian as well as Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, offers a more rounded account of Richard than Shakespeare’s ‘poisonous bunch-back’d toad’.

His Richard is a warrior, but also a scholar and a ruthless politician. Did he murder his nephews to usurp the throne? Skidmore concludes that ‘ what exactly had happened will remain disputed’.