Richard III - FULL Audio Book - by Jacob Abbott SUBSCRIBE to https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=GreenAudioBooks - Richard III (2 October 1452 -- 22 August 1485) was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. When his brother Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's son and successor, the 12-year-old King Edward V. As the young king travelled to London from Ludlow, Richard met and escorted him to lodgings in the Tower of London where Edward V's brother Richard joined him shortly afterwards. Arrangements were made for Edward's coronation on 22 June 1483, but before the young king could be crowned, his father's marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was declared invalid, making their children illegitimate and ineligible for the throne. On 25 June, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed the claims. The following day, Richard III began his reign, and he was crowned on 6 July 1483. The young princes were not seen in public after August, and a number of accusations circulated that the boys had been murdered on Richard's orders, giving rise to the legend of the Princes in the Tower. There were two major rebellions against Richard. The first, in October 1483, was led by staunch allies of Edward IV[1] and also by Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham,[2] his first cousin once removed.[3] The revolt collapsed and Stafford was executed at Salisbury near the Bull's Head Inn. In August 1485, another rebellion against Richard was led by Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor. Henry Tudor landed in his birthplace, Pembrokeshire, with a small contingent of French troops, and marched through Wales recruiting foot soldiers and skilled archers. Richard died during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last English king to die in battle (and the only one to die in battle on English soil since Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066). Because of the circumstances of his accession and in consequence of Henry VII's victory, Richard III's remains received burial without pomp and were lost for more than five centuries. In 2012, an archaeological excavation was conducted on a city council car park on the site once occupied by Greyfriars, Leicester. The University of Leicester confirmed on 4 February 2013 that a skeleton found in the excavation was, beyond reasonable doubt, that of Richard III, based on a combination of evidence from radiocarbon dating, comparison with contemporary reports of his appearance, and a comparison of his mitochondrial DNA with two matrilineal descendants of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York - Richard was born at Fotheringhay Castle, the eighth and youngest child of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York (a strong claimant to the throne of King Henry VI), and Cecily Neville. Richard spent several years of his childhood at Middleham Castle in Wensleydale under the tutelage of his cousin Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (later known as the "Kingmaker" because of his role in the Wars of the Roses). While Richard was at Warwick's estate, he developed a close friendship with Francis Lovell, which would remain strong for the rest of his life. Another child in the household was Warwick's daughter Anne Neville, whom Richard would later marry. At the time of the death of his father and older brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland, at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, Richard, who was eight years old, was sent by his mother, the Duchess of York, to the Low Countries, accompanied by his elder brother George (later Duke of Clarence).[7] They returned to England following the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton and participated in the coronation of Richard's eldest brother as King Edward IV in 1461. At this time Richard was named Duke of Gloucester as well as being made a Knight of the Garter and a Knight of the Bath. Richard was then sent to Warwick's estate at Middleham for his knightly training. With some interruptions, Richard stayed at Middleham until early 1465, when he was twelve.[8] During his adolescence he developed idiopathic scoliosis. - If you enjoyed listening to "Richard III - FULL Audio Book - by Jacob Abbott" please rate, comment and subscribe to GreenAudioBooks. We really appreciate it :) Thanks for viewing Richard III - FULL Audio Book - by Jacob Abbott We hope you enjoyed Richard III - FULL Audio Book - by Jacob Abbott Audio is courtesy of Librivox. For more Librivox audio book recordings please refer to http://librivox.org

• published: 02 Mar 2013
• views: 8262