Few figures in history have been as vilified as Richard III. The man who ruled England for just two years more than 500 years ago was portrayed by Shakespeare as a humpbacked, homicidal tyrant who murdered his own kin to seize the throne. That picture has endured through history, giving some of the richest performances in theater and film of pure villainy.
But the confirmation last week that it was indeed his body that was found buried under a car park in Leicester, England, offers England a chance to reconsider the legacy of Richard III and should press people to think harder about history and the "certainties" of the past.
Born in 1452, Richard III was king of England from 1483 until his death in the Battle of Bosworth Field in August 1485. He was the last king of the House of York and his defeat in war — the last English king to die on the battlefield — marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty that had ruled England since 1154, and began the reign of the Tudors.