RICHARD III: A FAILED KING (PENGUIN MONARCHS) (HB)

This enlightening, even-handed study builds a complex picture of a king who failed as a monarch. He was killed after only two years in power, without an heir, and his rival Henry Tudor was able to cement an extremely tenuous claim to the throne. Whether Richard was undone by his own fierce ambitions, or by the legacy of a Yorkist dynasty which was already profoundly dysfunctional, the end was the same: he destroyed the very family that he had spent his life so passionately defending.