Richard III (Penguin Monarchs): A Failed King?, Horrox, Rosemary

In this enlightening, even-handed study, Rosemary Horrox builds a complex picture of a king who by any standard metric failed as a monarch. He was killed after only two years on the throne, without an heir, and brought such a decisive end to the House of York that Henry Tudor was able to seize the throne, despite his extremely tenuous claim. Whether Richard was undone by his own fierce ambition, or by the legacy of a Yorkist dynasty which was already profoundly dysfunctional, the end result was the same: Richard III destroyed the very dynasty which he had spent his life so passionately defending.