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
Cultural depictions of Richard I of England Cultural depictions of Richard I of England Richard I of England has been depicted many times in romantic fiction and popular culture. The Scots philosopher and chronicler John Mair was the first to associate Richard with the Robin Hood legends in his "Historia majoris Britannae, tam Angliae quam Scotiae" (1521). In the earliest Robin Hood ballads the only king mentioned is "Edward our comely king", most probably Edward II or Edward III. However, Sir Walter Scott's novel "Ivanhoe" popularised Mair's linking of the Hood legends to Richard's reign, and it was taken up by later novelists and by cinema. Typically