Richard III of England due to the fact that it helped to legitimise Henry VII's seizure of the throne. The Richard III Society contends that this means that 'a lot of what people thought they knew about Richard III was pretty much propaganda and myth building.' The Tudor characterisation culminated in the famous fictional portrayal of him in Shakespeare's play "Richard III" as a physically deformed, Machiavellian villain, ruthlessly committing numerous murders in order to claw his way to power; Shakespeare's intention perhaps being to use Richard III as a vehicle for creating his own Marlowesque protagonist. Rous himself, in his "History of the
Exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England by Turi King and others has shown that historical rates of false paternity are around 1–2% per generation. Professor Michael Hicks, a Richard III specialist, has been particularly critical of the use of the mitochondrial DNA to argue that the body is Richard III's, stating that "any male sharing a maternal ancestress in the direct female line could qualify". He also criticises the rejection by the Leicester team of the Y chromosome evidence, suggesting that it was not acceptable to the Leicester team to conclude that the skeleton was anyone other than Richard III. He argues that on the basis