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
Richard III of England until the last years of Edward's reign. Richard controlled the north of England until Edward IV's death. There, and especially in the city of York, he was highly regarded; although it has been questioned whether this view was reciprocated by Richard. Edward IV set up the Council of the North as an administrative body in 1472 to improve government control and economic prosperity and benefit the whole of Northern England. Kendall and later historians have suggested that this was with the intention of making Richard the "Lord of the North"; Peter Booth, however, has argued that "instead of allowing his