Title: King
Alternate names/spellings: Richard, Duke of Gloucester
Dates: 1452 - 1485 ()
Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard was granted the dukedom of Gloucester on 1 November 1461, and on 12 August the next year was awarded large estates in northern England including the Lordships of Richmond in Yorkshire, and Pembroke in Wales. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare.