The True Tragedy of Richard III a source for his play, though the majority tend to favour this judgement. Geoffrey Bullough treats "The True Tragedy" as a "probable source" for "Richard III", citing several commonalities (as when, in both plays, Richard calls for a horse on Bosworth Field, yet refuses to flee the battle) — though Bullough admits that the nature of the plays' relationship is "not clear." The uncertainty in dating has allowed a few commentators to propose a reversed priority, and to argue that the author (or reviser) of "The True Tragedy" may have borrowed from Shakespeare's play. Shakespeare appears to have known of
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