A word of explanation. Amid some controversy, historians have generally presented King Richard All of England as a thoroughly evil man who clawed his way to power over the corpses of his many victims and who was killed finally in the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. These recently discovered memoirs reveal, however, that the crowned and ironclad man who died in that famous battle was really a loyal double on special assignment. Richard himself lived, not to fight another day, but to write his memoirs during his final years of secluded retirement in Cornwall, on the west coast.

The memoirs also make it perfectly clear that Richard was a man of exalted integrity, unimpeachable intentions, and sterling virtues, a hero whose reputation was irreparably blackened by malevolent and irresponsible chroniclers.

The brief but significant excerpts that follow are presented essentially unaltered, although the language has been modernized for easier reading and some of the gamier expletives have been deleted.