Cultural depictions of Richard III of England Cultural depictions of Richard III of England Richard III of England has been depicted in literature and popular culture many times. In the Tudor period he was invariably portrayed as a villain, most famously in Shakespeare's play "Richard III", but also in other literature of the period. Richard's life was not much depicted again until the 20th century when the "Ricardian" movement sought to restore his reputation. Much of more recent creative literature has portrayed him in a positive light. However his reputation as a hunchbacked villain has remained a familiar historical cliché within popular culture. The foremost work of
Exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England research, Langley urged Ashdown-Hill to contact the producers of Channel 4's "Time Team" archaeology series to propose an excavation of the car park, but they declined as the dig would take longer than the standard three-day window for "Time Team" projects. Three years later, writer Annette Carson, in her book "Richard III: The Maligned King" (2008), independently came to the conclusion that his body probably lay under the car park. She joined forces with Langley and Ashdown-Hill to carry out further research, in the course of which she found what she called a "smoking gun"—a medieval map of Leicester showing