Exclusive interview with author Chris Skidmore on his biography of Richard III, the king found under the parking lot, most infamously accused of killing the princes in the tower
By Gabrielle Pantera
“The rise of the Tudors could not be properly understood unless you also looked at the downfall of Richard III, England’s most controversial king,” says Richard III author Chris Skidmore.
“When I looked at what had been written about Richard, there wasn’t actually a comprehensive modern narrative biography of the king. The last author who attempted to do this was Paul Murray Kendall in 1955. There have been so many discoveries in the archives since then, not to mention the discovery of Richard’s body in 2012. In the UK, Richard III has been consistently nominated as the most interesting character in British history. So, I thought there was no better time to write a complete and comprehensive life of the king for the twenty-first century.”
Richard was immortalized by Shakespeare’s play, but was he really as portrayed, a physically deformed murderer? In 2012 his skeleton was discovered under a parking lot in Leicester, fittingly enough under a parking spot labeled “R”. As a historian Skidmore writes the authoritative biography of Richard III, a man praised as a saint and cursed as a usurper king.
The War of the Roses between the Yorks and Lancasters was raging from the time Richard is born. To keep the crown did he kill his nephews, the princes in the tower? Or was it clever propaganda, fake news by the Tudors? Richard became king under suspicious circumstances. And he was the last English king to die on the battlefield at Bosworth field.
“My last book, The Rise of the Tudors, focused on how the Tudor family rose from relative obscurity in Wales to become challengers to the throne,” says Skidmore. “I looked at the remarkable young career of Henry Tudor, who defeated Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485. Henry was exiled in France from a young age, but then came back to seize the throne. The English nobility turned against Richard III after he had decided to take the throne from his nephew Edward V, one of the princes in the tower.”
Skidmore’s interest in the history of his country started as a child, with his local church and its history spanning centuries. His office overlooks Westminster Hall, built in the fourteenth century and that hosted coronation the banquets of Richard III and Henry VIII.
Skidmore says there are thousands of documents in the National Archives in Kew, near London, that have yet to be cataloged, and that some remain unread.
“I love looking for new material in the map room there,” says Skidmore. “I order up a box at a time. It’s a case of going through, paper by paper. Like panning for gold, but it’s worth it for the nuggets of new information. There is obviously all the secondary reading and primary source material that has to be covered, but I believe the whole point of writing a new history book is that you must have something new to say, and ideally new information to publish.”
It took Skidmore four years to research and write this book. At the same time he’s been a government minister, fought two general elections, married and had two children.
Richard III is Skidmore’s fourth book. He wrote his first book at age 26, ten years ago, a biography on Edward VI, then Death and the Virgin Queen about Elizabeth I and her relationship with Robert Dudley, then Rise of the Tudors. Richard III is shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction Book at the Parliamentary Book Awards hosted by the Publishers Association. Death and the Virgin Queen was commended for the Johnathan Rhys Llewellyn Prize. Richard III has yet to be optioned for film or TV. Death and the Virgin Queen was made into the documentary The Virgin Queen’s Fatal Affair, that won a Royal Television Society Award for Best Documentary Specialist Factual.
Skidmore is currently writing a book on Henry VII. Skidmore is based in London and Bristol, and is the MP for Kingswood, South Gloucestershire. He was born in Bristol, where his family is still based. His website is www.chrisskidmore.co.uk. He’s active on Twitter @bosworthbattle.
Richard III: England’s Most Controversial King, by Chris Skidmore. Hardcover: 464 pages. Publisher: St. Martin’s Press. April 24, 2018. Language: English. ISBN-13: 978-1250045485 $29.99
