Richard III of England

Richard III was the Duke of Gloucester in 1483, and King of England from 1483 until his apparent death in 1485.

Most sources agree that someone resembling Richard III was present at the Battle of Bosworth. However, sources disagree on if this was actually Richard himself. One in particular suggests that it was actually William Shakespeare who was present at the battle, and that Richard took his place afterwards.

Early life
As a "historical celebrity and a notorious villain", Richard found himself visited by time travelling "tourists and rubberneckers" all throughout his life, starting from a very young age, "since [he] was knee-high to a peasant". These included, in his own words, "little green men and big blue fellas with silly hats and machines round their necks, claiming they're on holiday and they're from this century or that century". The first thing Richard determined most had in common was that they had very strong views about whether he should kill his nephews or not, even at a time before their birth.

Secondly, all his visitors were afraid of the Doctor. Richard discovered this quite by chance during a meeting with one creature as "young lad" while living in the old castle in Middleham. The creature was startled by the scream of Richard's father but Richard assured the blob "there was a doctor looking after things" in reference to Doctor Grey at which point the creature "jumped out of its skin and cleared off pronto". It was from this encounter that Richard learned of the Doctor's reputation among his many alien visitors, leading him to simply tell them "the Doctor was in the vicinity" the moment they started talking about his future, resulting in them leaving shortly afterwards. Wanting to know more about this Doctor, Richard resolved to wait until someone who knew him turned up. He then planned to "humour them, string them along a bit, then stick them somewhere dark and nasty and torture them" until they told Richard about him.

After Richard's brother George, Duke of Clarence led an uprising against King Edward IV and was sentenced to death, Richard helped to rescue him from the executioner's block. Richard later claimed George had not been malicious in his actions, simply an idiot, with it being the Woodvilles who had forced Edward into delivering the sentence. Richard allowed George to live out his days in relative anonymity as the landlord of the Kingmaker tavern. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

Rise to power
In 1483, Richard was the Duke of Gloucester. On the night of 9 April of that year, Richard's older brother, King Edward IV, died suddenly. His successor, Prince Edward V, was still a twelve-year-old (AUDIO: The Battle of the Tower) child whose mother's family was manoeuvring to keep the future king under their own control. The Queen Consort sent her brother, Earl Rivers, to escort the prince back to London. The escort passed through Buckinghamshire, where Richard and his ally Henry, Duke of Buckingham joined the Prince's party to keep close watch on both him and Rivers.

After the Prince and Rivers had retired at an inn, Richard and Henry went for a walk outside and were startled by the arrival of the Doctor's TARDIS. A mysterious bearded man dressed in black and calling himself Mr Seyton emerged, claiming to be a wise traveller who had come from the future to provide counsel to Richard. Seyton told Richard he would be crowned king, and centuries later there would even be a play based on his reign. Richard was dubious about Seyton's claims of foreknowledge, but considered his presence a portent. Richard decided to allow Seyton to prove himself as adviser, though he knew Seyton was untrustworthy from the very start.

While still at the inn, Richard was informed that Prince Edward had disappeared, seemingly by escaping through a window. Just as he was about to send out search parties, Peri Brown and Erimem arrived with the unconscious boy, having found him in the nearby forest. Peri and Erimem subsequently agreed to tend to the boy's injuries but discovered detatachable metal parts when undressing him for bed and, convinced the young Prince was a robot, quickly fled. Upon being told of their unannonuced departures, Richard was initially confused as to why they wouldn't want to avail themselves of their hospitality but then considered that they could have been Woodville spies sent to help Edward escape. Richard ceased his panic once he reached their room and found the Princes still there but noticed a loose codpiece on the floor and discovered that the two Princes were actually girls. Edward IV's second and third-born children had been daughters named Susan and Judith, not boys, but Edward had lied about their true identitites for the stability of the kingdom.

When Richard emerged from the room, his manner drastically changed. According to Buckingham, he became "twitchy and troubled, almost addled in his mind". When the escort got back to London, he went "completely loopy" and arrested many without reason yet let most go almost immediately also without cause. In fact, Richard was rounding up and executing everyone who knew the truth about the Princes. This included Hastings, a loyal friend of Edward IV. He then bribed Elizabeth Woodville, Edward's widow, to keep quiet about the whole affair, who was as petrified about the truth coming out as Richard himself. After that, Richard declared the "boys" bastards by voiding the marriage of their parents, paving the way for Richard to be crowned king. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

Early days
Seyton remained the king's adviser, and continually insisted that removing the princes from the line of succession would not be enough to solidify his claim to the throne and they should be killed. Richard was unwilling to murder his brother's children and refused, insisting that locking the princes in the Tower of London was enough. Seyton had a short-lived partnership with the Duke of Buckingham during this time in which they plotted to kill the Princes. Buckingham believed the country to be ripe for uprising, though the Woodvilles were the only family powerful enough to attempt it and would need a catalyst, such as the death of the Princes, to commence open hostilities. Meanwhile, Seyton wanted Richard to personally bloody his hands. After the people found out, Buckingham would have the revolution he desired.

Around six months after meeting them, Richard encountered Peri and Erimem again when he visited the Kingmaker, where the two were working as serving wenches. Sir James Tyrell and a small army of soldiers accompanied him and so it was easy to bring them to London. Richard at first decided to have them both executed, thinking them to know about the Princes, but learnt otherwise when Peri accused both him and the Princes of being robots. He instead kept them alive and forced them to dress up as the two Princes on a weekly basis so that they could continue to be seen in public. The real "Princes", now relieved of their duties, replaced Peri and Erimem as serving wenches at the Kingmaker under the care of their uncle "Clarrie".

At roughly the same time, Richard also imprisoned Seyton and Buckingham for treason. He had been "pulling the strings" of Seyton's scheming for a long time and Seyton had informed him of Buckingham's treachery in a double cross. Seyton spoke to Richard about what a "straight arrow" the Doctor was and how he was sure to stop his plan. Richard asked in response if that meant he would stop Seyton's plan to kill the Princes. Seyton became "cagey" by this which puzzled Richard, so he tortured Seyton until he revealed everything. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

Meeting the Doctor
In 1485, the Fifth Doctor arrived in London to investigate the mystery of the Princes' disappearances. His companions Peri and Erimem had been stranded by the TARDIS in 1483 but they were able to communicate with each other thanks to Peri and a future incarnation of the Doctor leaving letters with Clarrie at their rendezvous at the Kingmaker which he handed to their intended recipients at the correct times. Clarrie also told Richard about these letters, allowing him to be ready for the Doctor's eventual arrival. Later that night, Clarrie lured the Doctor into following him to a meeting with his brother. He told Richard that the man they expected had turned up and was almost certainly watching from afar. As they spoke, James Tyrell, who introduced himself as the Royal High Concussor, incapacitated the Doctor. With the Doctor held as a prisoner, Richard told Seyton's jailer he had "no further use" for him and asked the jailer to "get rid of him" but instead of executing Seyton as Richard had intended, he let him go.

The Doctor eventually awoke in the Tower of London with the former Duke of Buckingham for company. Across multiple visits to his cell, Richard and the Doctor discussed their places in the Web of Time, the former revealing he knew the Doctor did not expect to see Buckingham as he should have died twenty months earlier. On his first visit, Richard ordered Tyrell to give Buckingham a fatal bout of toture to demonstrate the sort of man he was. Having lost his wife and his son to illness and his father and brothers to politics, the only quality left dear to him was loyalty. On his second, Richard assured the Doctor of his capability to murder two kids in cold blood if it was necessary but claimed not to have a reason. He also accused the Doctor of being a god, as he saw past, present and future, and made sure everyone abided by the rules, though Richard soon amended the charge to being worse than a god because at least they allowed their subjects to repent. Finally, Richard offered the Doctor an ultimatum. He summoned Tyrell and told the Doctor that he would order him to kill the Princes. If the Doctor remained silent, then Tyrell would interpret it as permission to let them go free. Although the Doctor was almost fooled, he realised Clarrie was the disgraced Duke of Clarence Richard had helped escape and worked out from there that the "Princes" he was holding were in fact Peri and Erimem, who the Doctor asked Tyrell to go and fetch.

However, Seyton then arrived in the cell with Peri and Erimem armed with a Cyber-rifle. Seyton revealed himself to be Shakespeare and explained that he had stowed away in the TARDIS after the Doctor told him people in the 20th century had started to question Richard's motives for killing the Princes in the Tower and that suspicion had begun to fall on Henry Tudor, the grandfather of his beloved Queen Elizabeth I. This was unacceptable to him so Shakespeare had attempted to influence Richard into committing the murders in a way which would be unmistakable to history, as in his play, though Richard had figured his game from the beginning. As this plan had obviously been unsuccessful, Shakespeare decided to instead take Richard to his native time and have him stand trial for his crimes in the court of Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare, still armed, escorted Richard, the Doctor and his companions back to the TARDIS where they set a course for 1597.

During the journey, Richard revealed that there were no princes in the Tower at all. Edward IV had not had sons but daughters, Susan and Judith. Edward kept up the ruse that they were boys in order to guard his family's claim to the throne with male heirs. After Edward's death, Richard discovered the ruse and had kept up the pretence that there were two princes in the tower while in reality he had sent his nieces to live out their lives safely as serving wenches working for Clarrie, innkeeper at The Kingmaker, who was in truth their Uncle George, formely the Duke of Clarence. Shakespeare branded this a fraud on a scale never before seen and demanded to return to 1485 to collect the girls but at that moment they arrived in 1597, on stage during a performance of Richard III. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

Becoming Shakespeare
Although this landing location quickly convinced Shakespeare to leave the TARDIS as he tried to salvage what was left of the interrupted performance, Richard soon followed suit when he saw the playwright speaking with Richard Burbage on the TARDIS scanner. The actor was playing Richard himself and, enraged by his stereotypical portrayal of an ugly, hunchbacked man with a limp and withered arm, confronted Shakespeare about the matter before finally taking Burbage's sword and chasing Shakespeare out of the theatre and throughout London's streets.

However, Shakespeare doubled back to the TARDIS, and threatened to detonate what he believed to be a Sontaran grenade (though was really the Doctor's toothbrush) unless the Doctor returned immediately to 1485. Declaring he owed Queen Elizabeth for everything and that he no longer cared what happened to him, he took Erimem hostage and threatened to detonate the grenade but Erimem broke his arm after Peri pointed out he had his hand on her Royal behind. At that moment, a publisher's robot materialised and told Shakespeare his second draft of The Tempest was 7103 years overdue for delivery. It chased him out of the TARDIS and into the midst of the raging Battle of Bosworth; the Doctor asked Richard to when he wanted to be returned and he was intent on "fulfilling his destiny" so the Doctor had set the coordinates for his final battle. As Shakespeare continued to be pursued by what onlooking soldiers thought to be a "huge knight", his injured arm and limp matched the sterotypical description of King Richard. He was soon cornered by Henry Tudor's troops and forced to climb a tree to save himself from being cut to pieces. One of the King's supporters who witnessed this vowed to let it be recorded that "Richard died fighting like a lion and not blubbing like a big baby hiding up a tree".

With Shakespeare now assuredly dead, the real Richard remained in 1597 to take his allotted place in history; he had never really wanted power and saw taking up Shakespeare's writing career as his second chance at earning a place in history. Richard asked the Doctor how much material he had to write, having experienced trouble early on with spelling his name correctly, and the Doctor told him he "just had to knock up a few plays, a couple of historicals, a handful of tragedies, [and] a few comedies", though recommended asking Francis Bacon for writing tips should he ever struggle with the language. He also told him he was supposed to be writing Henry IV, Part 1 around this time and suggested putting his brother George into his first Shakespearan play to give him the immortality history couldn't, an idea Richard found appealing. Settling into his new life as Shakespeare, Richard was soon joined by Susan and Judith, whom the Doctor had brought forward in time to join him; history recorded that not only had Shakespeare had a son who perished, as he had previously stated, but two daughters named Susanna and Judith, so the Doctor knew their true destiny lay with their uncle as he pursued his own. (AUDIO: The Kingmaker)

Alternative accounts of Bosworth
Other accounts suggested that Shakespeare continued in his life as historically suggested, (PROSE: The Empire of Glass, et al.) while Richard did meet his end on the battlefield at Bosworth. (PROSE: Sometime Never...)

By 2019, his remains had been found in a car park in Leicester. (TV: Resolution)

Other references
Actor Howard Keel starred as Richard III in the 1954 film Tricky Dicky!, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III. (COMIC: The Good Soldier)

Behind the scenes

 * He has been played by Ron Cook and Ian McKellen in different versions of Richard III, Aneurin Barnard in The White Queen and Benedict Cumberbatch in The Hollow Crown.
 * At the time of the recording of The Kingmaker, it was widely believed by historians that accounts of Richard III having a curved spine and shrivelled arm were based entirely in myth. The discovery of his remains in 2012 confirmed that while he was not a hunch-back, he did have scoliosis. DNA testings confirmed a match between the corpse and the descendants of Richard III, at least confirming to scientists that the body was not secretly that of William Shakespeare.