Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

The most unforgivable crime in Richard III has to be when the king orders the murder of his two young nephews, Edward and Richard. But what if Richard III was framed? Philippa Langley is the amateur historian whose commitment to righting a historical wrong led to the discovery of Richard III’s remains a decade ago. Langley wasn’t a scholar—she was a screenwriter and a member of the Richard III Society. But she had become certain that Richard was the victim of Tudor propaganda, and that Shakespeare’s play had a key role in the slander. Langley convinced academic historians and archaeologists at the University of Leicester to excavate the parking lot where she believed Richard was buried. Those experts did find a body, and DNA analysis confirmed that the remains belonged to Richard III. That discovery led to further insights about the historical Richard. The physical deformities of Shakespeare’s character were Tudor inventions. Far from being a “bunch-backed toad,” the real Richard III had nothing more than a