Richard the Third
Short History Of...
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The History of Richard III
It becomes a historical truism that Richard III murdered the two princes. So where did that belief come from? It starts in the early 1500s when the author and politician Sir Thomas Moore begins to write about the scandal. He abandons his text, but his nephew completes the account and publishes it posthumously under his uncle's name. When the play is written around 1591, Queen Elizabeth is ailing and has no air. There is insecurity about who will be the next monarch. Some historians argue that Shakespeare is guilty of propaganda. Depicting the last Plantagenet king, Richard, as history's ultimate villain in order to win favour with the current Tudor monarch, Elizabeth
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