Battle of Bosworth Field a horse!" He refuses to withdraw, continuing to seek to slay Henry's doubles until he has killed his nemesis. There is no documentary evidence that Henry had five decoys at Bosworth Field; the idea was Shakespeare's invention. He drew inspiration from Henry IV's use of them at the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403) to amplify the perception of Richard's courage on the battlefield. Similarly, the single combat between Henry and Richard is Shakespeare's creation. "The True Tragedy of Richard III", by an unknown playwright, earlier than Shakespeare's, has no signs of staging such an encounter: its stage directions give no hint
Ricardian (Richard III) was originally a small group of interested amateur historians whose aim was to bring about a re-assessment of the reputation of Richard III. The society became moribund during the Second World War. In 1951 Josephine Tey published her detective novel "The Daughter of Time", in which Richard’s guilt is examined and doubted. In 1955, Laurence Olivier released his film of Shakespeare's "Richard III", which at the beginning admitted that the play was based on legend, and a sympathetic, detailed biography of Richard was published by Paul Murray Kendall, all of which went some way towards re-invigorating the society. The Fellowship