Introduction

This photo courtesy of Cindy Tschök

The lost king, Richard III, has been found. After 530 years, he has finally received honorable burial. Now the world is learning he wasn’t a hunchback – and much else besides.

Richard's reign is buried in mystery and controversy. For many, he is a monster of biblical proportions. Most historians agree that the usurping Tudors rewrote history and and lost no opportunity to paint him a villain, much as Hitler would have villified Churchill, had he won World War II. The problem is that by the end of the sixteenth century Tudor propaganda had become historical fact. In the familiar Tudor mantra, Shakespeare writing for the Tudors portrays Richard III as the wicked uncle who murders his two little nephews in the Tower. In Biblical terms, he is made out to be the evil brother Cain, in "Cain and Abel." Richard is the murdering, incestuous husband who poisons his wife to marry his niece. To embellish the fascinating tale of the devil reborn in the guise of Richard III, he is made to be diabolically ugly, a hunchback born with a tail, who died a coward on the battlefield.

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The truth is very different and far more convincing. My novels give an account of the reign of Richard III based on the historical actions of Richard's life, not on the Tudor myth. Here, the last of the long line of Plantagenet kings of England stands tall once again to claim his place beside his valiant forebears and change the world with his passion for justice. Here, unfolds an Arthurian tale of a reluctant king who fought for justice in a land torn by civil war and was undone by treachery.

With Richard’s death at Bosworth Field died the Age of Chivalry, plunging England into the terrors of the bloody reign of the Tudors.