“A HORSE! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

Those words from “Richard III” by William Shakespeare supposedly describe the plight of the English king, who died 525 years ago today during the Battle of Bosworth.

King Richard has been maligned for centuries, mainly because of the writings of Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More, who may have been “a man for all seasons” and a saint, but obviously not an accurate writer about Richard III.

The unfortunate king is accused of a multitude of crimes, especially the murder of the princes in the Tower, but there’s no proof. The princes were his two nephews who supposedly were in the Tower of London.

More, who was only 7 years of age when Richard died, apparently based his writings on hearsay – and slanted hearsay at that. There is some question about whether he was the author of “The History of King Richard III” or whether his written copy was at the dictation of Bishop John Morton. Some historians claim Morton, one of Richard’s most hostile enemies, wrote that history or at least part of it.

According to More’s description of Richard, “He was little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favoured of visage He was malicious, wrathful, envious, and, from before his birth, ever froward. It is for truth reported that the Duchess his mother had so much ado in her travail that she could not be delivered of him uncut, and that he came into the world with the feet forward … and also not untoothed.”

Richard, sometimes called Crouchback, was said to be a hunchback although no contemporary sources confirm any physical deformity. In fact, A.J. Pollard, who wrote “Richard III and the Princes in the Tower,” pointed out that a portrait of Richard shows that “the right shoulder has been crudely overpainted so as to suggest a deformity.”

Jeremy Potter, author of “Good King Richard?”, noted that “the combined pens of More and Shakespeare have proved deadlier by far than the swords of the king’s enemies at Bosworth.”

Richard also has been accused of murdering his wife and being responsible for the death of his brother, George, the Duke of Clarence, who, according to some reports, drowned in a butt of malmsey (vat of wine).

More, however, might not be as guilty concerning the accusations against Richard in the book as it appears. His book – if it was his book – was never finished but was published by his son-in-law after More’s death. Possibly, More never finished it because he learned the information wasn’t true or it might have been a parody of history.

It’s obvious that many controversies rage about Richard, and there’s even a nursery rhyme with some claiming it pertained to the king’s death while others noted similar writings had been done earlier. The rhyme goes:

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost;

“For the want of a shoe the horse was lost;

“For the want of a horse the battle was lost;

“For the failure of battle the kingdom was lost;-

“And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”

Richard apparently was unseated during the battle with the forces led by the man who became King Henry VII (he later became the father of Henry VIII and the grandfather of Elizabeth I). One of Richard’s problems in that long-ago battle occurred when his horse became mired in the mud and was not due to the lack of a horseshoe nail, according to one report.

A bigger problem, however, was the treachery of so-called allies.

The Richard III Society, which works for a fair hearing for the king, sometimes places memorial notices in newspapers on the date of his death.

A memorable memoriam notice appeared in 1970 when the famed mystery author Rex Stout wrote: “PLANTAGENET – Richard, great king and true friend of the rights of man, died at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. Murdered by traitors and, dead, maligned by knaves and ignored by Laodiceans, he merits our devoted remembrance.”

Potter’s book points that “the Laodiceans were members of one of the early Christian churches of Asia, condemned in the Book of Revelation for being lukewarm. They were to be spewed out because they were neither hot nor cold.”

A 1985 issue of the Smithsonian magazine reported The New York Times was refusing to run the notices “on the specious grounds that if it did, it would have to run similar notices by mourners of Genghis Khan.”

The New York Times’ policy later changed, because a memoriam notice appeared in 1991, but was refused in 1992, according to the Richard III Society. The society reported in 1993 that the newspaper apparently relented, and the American Branch’s “modest notice has appeared every year since then.”

An interesting mystery novel about Richard is “The Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey. Possibly, I like it because it presents information that Richard, the last of the Plantagenet kings, wasn’t the dastardly villain often portrayed.

More than half a millennium has gone by since that August day at Bosworth Field, and it appears doubtful whether the events involving Richard and the princes in the Tower will ever be clarified.

Poor Richard!

Pokas can be reached at timesleader@timesleaderonline.com.