To what extent was Richard III responsible for his insecurity as King?

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To what extent was Richard III responsible for his insecurity as King?

Richard III is one of the most controversial monarchs who history has seen fit to label a monstrous villain. Most of this is due to Shakespeare’s play ‘Richard III’ who portrayed him as evil personified as well as the Tudor propaganda, which has influenced our perception of him. There have been many historians, who are dedicated to clearing his name, yet in the reverse many propose to expose his vicious crimes. However, of how much of his insecurity was his own fault. Was Richard III completely to blame for the outcome of controversy to his name!

Richard is probably best well known for the rumours about his involvement in the killing of the two princes – his nephews. He declared the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate and said that their two sons (heir to the throne) were ‘bastards’ before taking the throne for himself and murdering the boys. Much like 21st century the killing of children is greatly condemned and by doing this made him unpopular as a king. He made a serious error carrying out this plot and had little hope of holding onto the crown after his actions. By being ruthless and selfish he had immediately lost a great amount of support through only his own fault!  

Henry Tudor (soon to be Henry VII) had strong foreign rulers who backed him. After returning from exile to France Henry got the support of the French King, Charles VIII, due to his anger with Richard’s intervention and negotiation with the Duke of Francis II. This gave him financial and military assistance to support an invasion of England in the hope it would prevent Richard from helping Brittany. Henry also had the backing of Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the Woodville family due to their anger with Richard for disinheriting her children from the throne. Although the involvement of foreign rulers, on Henrys side, was not directly Richards’s fault he greatly instigated it. If he had not gone out looking to make negotiations, which he knew would cause conflict with other countries, then he would not have got himself into that mess. He knew already that he had little support and instead of trying to make amends and become a good leader, he decided to create rivalry through deals with foreigners. His actions only added to his already growing insecurity.

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Also, Richard III owed a lot to ‘Buckingham’. Much like Warwick, Buckingham was seen as a ‘kingmaker’ and had been Richard’s chief supporter during the overthrow of Edward V. He had a great influence on Richard and was the main man in helping him gain the throne. He owed a lot of his success to Buckingham and it was seen that Richard had dependency on him – which revealed a weakness in his position. After becoming king he immediately promoted Buckingham and gave him control of Wales. However, he was not satisfied (he believed he should be owed more ...

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