Richard III and Bastard Feudalism: Bought Loyalty That Broke at Bosworth

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Richard of Gloucester was born in October 1452 into an England run on bastard feudalism, where super-wealthy nobles paid retainers in cash and protected them in court through livery and maintenance. At eight he lost his father, the Duke of York, at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, and the victors set a paper crown on the duke's severed head above the gates of York. Under his brother Edward IV, Richard became a loyal enforcer in the north, married Anne Neville in 1472, and led a campaign into Scotland in 1482. When Edward died in April 1483, Richard became Lord Protector for 12-year-old Edward V as the queen's Woodville family moved to control the boy.

Edward V reigned 78 days. A sermon at St Paul's declared Edward IV's marriage bigamous, making his children illegitimate, and Richard took the throne on June 26, 1483, as his nephews vanished in the Tower of London. His chief ally the Duke of Buckingham rebelled within months, and southern Yorkists fled abroad as Richard handed their lands to northern loyalists. After Anne Neville died in March 1485, rumors that he poisoned her to marry his niece Elizabeth of York forced a public denial. Henry Tudor landed in Wales that August, and at Bosworth on August 22 the Stanleys watched from a hill before attacking Richard, who died after killing Henry's standard bearer.

• Edward III's great dukedoms for his sons created the class of super nobles with their own private armies.
• Under livery and maintenance a retainer wore his lord's badge, such as Richard's white boar, and was shielded from the courts.
• Margaret Beaufort, under house arrest, brokered the alliance that promised Henry Tudor's marriage to Elizabeth of York.
• Rhys ap Thomas, paid by Richard to guard the Welsh coast, joined Henry Tudor's army instead.
• Henry VII united the roses in the Tudor Rose and curbed livery and maintenance to strip lords of private armies.