Claim: Richard III is one of Shakespeare's plays.

Richard III -LRB- 2 October 1452 -- 22 August 1485 -RRB- was King of England from 1483 until his death in 1485 , at the age of 32 , in the Battle of Bosworth Field . He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty . His defeat at Bosworth Field , the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses , marked the end of the Middle Ages in England . He is the subject of the historical play Richard III by William Shakespeare .   When his brother King Edward IV died in April 1483 , Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward 's son and successor , the 12-year-old Edward V . As the young king travelled to London from Ludlow , Richard met and escorted him to lodgings in the Tower of London , where Edward V 's own brother Richard of Shrewsbury joined him shortly afterwards . Arrangements were made for Edward 's coronation on 22 June 1483 ; but , before the young king could be crowned , his father 's marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was declared invalid , making their children illegitimate and ineligible for the throne . On 25 June , an assembly of Lords and commoners endorsed the claims . The following day , Richard III began his reign , and he was crowned on 6 July 1483 . The young princes were not seen in public after August , and accusations circulated that the boys had been murdered on Richard 's orders , giving rise to the legend of the Princes in the Tower .   There were two major rebellions against Richard . The first , in October 1483 , was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and Richard 's former ally , Henry Stafford , 2nd Duke of Buckingham ; but the revolt collapsed . In August 1485 , Henry Tudor and his uncle , Jasper Tudor , led a second rebellion . Henry Tudor landed in southern Wales with a small contingent of French troops and marched through his birthplace , Pembrokeshire , recruiting soldiers . Henry 's force engaged Richard 's army and defeated it at the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire . Richard was struck down in the conflict , making him the last English king to die in battle on home soil and the first since Harold Godwinson -LRB- who was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 -RRB- . Henry then ascended the throne as Henry VII .   After the battle Richard 's corpse was taken to Leicester and buried without pomp . His original tomb monument is believed to have been removed during the Reformation , and his remains were lost for more than five centuries , believed to have been thrown into the River Soar . In 2012 , an archaeological excavation was commissioned by the Richard III Society on a city council car park on the site once occupied by Greyfriars Priory Church . The University of Leicester identified the skeleton found in the excavation as that of Richard III as a result of radiocarbon dating , comparison with contemporary reports of his appearance , and comparison of his mitochondrial DNA with that of two matrilineal descendants of Richard III 's eldest sister , Anne of York . Richard 's remains were reburied in Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015 .