Michael Hicks studies Richard III across his entire life rather than concentrating only on the twenty-six months of his reign. Using a career’s archival research, he follows Richard from a vulnerable younger son of York through exile, service to Edward IV and the accumulation of northern power and experience.
The book argues that Richard’s character was formed by repeated insecurity and calculated self-advancement. Hicks examines his marriages, affinities, seizure of the throne, reforming ambitions and probable responsibility for the princes’ disappearance, presenting a formidable political operator whose strategic skill ultimately failed at Bosworth.