There's no tale more twisted than that of the English monarchy. Betrayal, murder, illness, disappearances, fierce battles, and marriage between close relatives are common occurrences.
King Richard III's brief two-year reign in the late 15th Century was marked by all of the above, and therefore makes for good fodder for historical fiction. I recently read
Philippa Gregory's
Cousins War series, which was made into the Starz drama
The White Queen, and tells Richard's story along with others of that era. One of the things that makes these books so fascinating is that they're told from the very different perspectives of the women in the story, including Richard's sister-in-law
Queen Elizabeth, his wife
Anne Neville, and the mother of the man who dethroned him,
Margaret Beaufort. The first two are also characters in Shakespeare's version of Richard III historical fiction, currently playing at the longest-running Minneapolis theater,
Theatre in the Round. I went into the play with all of this background, and therefore unlike a lot of Shakespeare, I was able to follow the many characters and plot twists and quite enjoyed this take on a bizarre and fascinating period of history.
