Edward IV of England Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III of England), were married to Isabel Neville and Anne Neville. Both were daughters of Warwick by Anne Beauchamp and rival heirs to the considerable inheritance of their still-living mother, leading to a dispute between the brothers. In 1478 George was eventually found guilty of plotting against Edward, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and privately executed on 18 February 1478. According to a long-standing tradition, he was "drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine". Edward did not face any further rebellions after his restoration, as the Lancastrian line had virtually been extinguished.
The True Tragedy of Richard III single text of the play, the 1594 quarto, is notably inferior. Modern critics have tended to treat it as a bad quarto and a "reported text." Individual commentators have nominated Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Lodge, George Peele, and Thomas Kyd, among other writers of their generation, as possible authors or revisers of the play; but no scholarly consensus in favour of any single candidate or hypothesis has evolved. "The True Tragedy" bears a general resemblance to Shakespeare's "Richard III", as any play on the same subject would. Critics are not unanimous on the view that Shakespeare used "The True Tragedy" as