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This series (English Monarchs) has an excellent reputation for scholarship and readability. Mr. Ross lives up to those standards. Richard III was not an appealing person, but Ross paints a good picture of the man without descending into the character assassination of Tudor propagandists (and Shakespeare).

Great shape. I like this book.

Charles Ross is a noted traditionalist. He writes this biography of Richard. According to Bertram Fields p 93 Ross selectively quotes from a letter Richard wrote concerning his lawyer Thomas Lyneham request to marry Jane Shore.
OMITTING the last lines where Richard would be sorry but would agree This is done to paint Richard as puritanical and cruel. Ross is a liar.
We now know Lyneham did marry her. I won't listen to writers who pull this kind of thing.

When an author, especially an historian, claims to be approaching his or her subject without bias I expect objectivity and honesty in use of sources. Ross quotes from a letter written by Richard which he apparently feels proves the man was a despot. Unfortunately he only quotes the lines that he believes prove his point. If you read what was written in it's entirety it actually shows, in my opinion, a man well versed in the law and his desire to follow that law. I actually have no idea whether or not Richard III was tyrant but I'd like to be able to read all the information available (not just the pieces Ross wants me to have) and make up my own mind. Is that too much to ask? Unfortunately this is just one example of many that cause me to question his objectivity. Also unfortunate is the fact that he is not alone on either side of the question of Richard III.

Having read a fair amount of historical fiction about Richard III and his contemporaries, I recently began looking into some nonfiction sources to attempt to discover who Richard really was. Charles Ross promises a neutral look at historical sources in order to determine if Richard was the deformed villain of Shakespeare or the loyal but misunderstood hero put forth by Penman. I can summarize the results in three words: we don't know.

Ross seems to lean more toward villain while calling it something more like being a man of his time. He does not give any credence to the idea that Richard may have secured the throne for himself because he found out that his nephews were bastards. There is no real discussion of the possibility that the princes were not murdered. I know that this is an unlikely event, but since people claiming to be the princes both made an attempt at the throne during Henry VII's reign, I would have thought that the possibility should have at least been addressed. Ross accepts as fact that Richard murdered his nephews and then states that this was the reason for the 1483 rebellion. Why would the people rebel on behalf of a deposed king if they believed him dead? To put his sister on the throne? That doesn't seem likely to me. (It certainly didn't work out for Matilda though she had a much stronger claim to the throne than Stephen.) I didn't feel like a good reason was suggested for people to support Henry of Richmond's weak claim. If it was just that they wanted him to marry the young Elizabeth, certainly Richard could have been advised to do the same once Anne died. If they felt Richard was too quick with the executioner's axe, they must have been sorely disappointed in their choice to replace him.

Ross dismisses the idea that Woodvilles were at the heart of the rebellion, but then carries on to list how many Woodvilles and servents of Edward IV's household (therefore Queen Elizabeth Woodville's household) were involved. Could they have believed Edward V still alive or were they attempting to remove Richard to put themselves back in power? These questions were not addressed either. Ross does not seem to support the idea that many wanted the Woodville's removed from power though this has been a common theme in other books that I have read.

I do not doubt the accuracy or attempt at neutrality in this book. It is well written with excellent footnotes. I just feel that some natural bias must have crept in to keep him from asking some of the questions that I would have asked.

In the end, I just feel like so many of our questions about Richard III can not be answered this side of heaven. I know that the romanticized version of him is likely as incorrect as the villainous one, but where in the spectrum he truly belongs we may never know. Many authors have theorized, justified, and guessed at his motivations, but the truth seems to have been lost.

Masterfully balanced

Richard III is easily the most controversial English king, traditionally vilified, but emotionally defended by many writers who argue he was not a usurper and did not murder his deposed 12-year-old nephew or anyone else. These invariably amateur historians and novelists have ironically mushroomed in number since two discoveries in the 1930s laid to rest reasonable historically-informed argument that his nephews did not die in his care. Nevertheless, some of the doubts they raised are enduringly fascinating and the various academic historians who have been overly dismissive of them are unlikely to satisfy the general reader. A more serious fault with biographers on both sides of the argument has been allowing their verdict on his conduct in the critical year 1483 to colour too much their view of the rest of his life and reign, and vice-versa.

Charles Ross's erudite biography avoids both pitfalls. He is not dismissive of the controversy, which he examines as fair-mindedly as possible, and he is careful to examine other aspects of Richard's career on their own merits. For these reasons this is the best and most trustworthy of the many biographies of this king. Actually, achieving these two things goes hand in hand, for once the circumstances under which Richard acted in 1483 are fully considered, the unpalatable truth emerges that the child murders are sufficiently understandable to be weak grounds for judging his other behaviour. No one wants in the slightest to condone them and they caused unsurprising revulsion even in the violent fifteenth century, yet no one has satisfactorily answered the question of what he should have done instead once it was clear the boy king had been hopelessly alienated by his initial decision not to abandon his legitimate interests and acquiesce meekly in the unlawful take-over of the kingdom by the rapacious Woodvilles. Being almost inevitable is precisely what makes the ensuing tragedy so poignant and such a good story.

Ross is not always quite as reliable in detail as in general principle. He calls Edward IV's "former mistress, Eleanor Butler" the daughter, rather than daughter-in-law, of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudely. This matters: her being really the daughter of the first earl of Shrewsbury is a point I shall advance elsewhere as proving Edward's liaison with her could not have made Edward V illegitimate, as claimed. Ross repeatedly calls Edward's brother Clarence his "heir apparent" in the early years of his reign, betraying misunderstanding of a term fundamental to the principles of inheritance so important then. He dismisses the claim that Clarence's son was disbarred from the throne by his attainder on the grounds that Henry VI and Edward IV were both restored to it after attainder, but this ignores the critical point that neither recognized the legality of the other's acts.

Some have complained this book is too drily academic. I am not sure how far that is avoidable for scholarly discussion of controversies, but for me at least it was enlivened by a commensurately dry sense of humour. Tey's "Daughter of Time", the novel that did most to popularise the revisionist view of Richard, is gently mocked with the observation that it was "described by that fount of historical authority, the Daily Mail, as `a serious contribution to historical knowledge.'" Of Paul Kendall, whose supposedly-true history of Richard is wonderfully readable for its imaginative flights, he remarks that "his description of Richard's last moments seems to suggest that he was perched on the crupper of the king's horse."

My main regret is that Ross's narrative of Richard's life missed much of the fascinating detail. I cannot fault him for this, as he made it clear in his preface that he intended to write on certain themes rather than a conventional biography, and these themes, centering on how power was won and held in the fifteenth century, are the most important for understanding him. Nevertheless, it is not a long biography and I do not see why Ross could not have added more detail without upsetting his thematic approach. Had he done so, rather than just being the best book on the subject so far, it would be the definitive one (like those in this excellent series on Edward the Confessor and William Rufus, about whom far less is known). For anyone who feels the same way, I would recommend "The Year of Three Kings: 1483" by Giles St. Aubyn as a reliable and enjoyable supplement.

Edmund Marlowe, author of Alexander's Choice, a novel, www.amazon.com/dp/1481222112