He was a younger brother of Edward IV and the eleventh child of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. Tudor propaganda, notably the biography by Thomas More and Shakespeare’s plays Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III, portrayed him as a monster from birth, always a traitor to his own family; but as Duke of Gloucester he served Edward faithfully and was an able soldier and a capable administrator in northern England. Upon the accession of his young nephew Edward V, he became Protector of England: the council over which he presided included his enemies, the Woodvilles, and he gained in popularity from striking at their power. His usurpation of the throne in June 1483 caused no outright hostility, but in all save the Yorkist north of England there was revulsion when it came to be believed that he had had Edward V and his brother killed in the Tower of London. (When and how they died remains a mystery.) He had long expected a further invasion of England by the Lancastrian Henry Tudor (Henry VII), but when a battle was fought at Bosworth Field in August 1485 he was defeated and killed because he had lost the support of his army. His body was hurriedly buried at Leicester, but the precise location was subsequently forgotten. In 2012 an archaeological excavation at a likely site found a skeleton, which DNA tests proved to be Richard’s remains. It showed he had suffered from scoliosis—curvature of the spine—which suggests that his portrayal by Shakespeare and others as a hunchback had some basis in fact.