The first perception of Richard the Third offered to the reader is in the form of a portrait. Upon viewing it, Grant depicts him as the “monster of nursery stories. The destroyer of innocence. A synonym for villainy” (Tey, 28). The painting, however, displays different emotions to Grant. Having left out the hunched back, the painter depicted Richard III as a sickly and weathered man, brutalized from years of responsibility and illness. His curiosity peaked, Grant resorts to searching for his villain in English history books. What he finds does not shed much more light on the mystery; the king died in battle and became hated for his supposed deeds by all the British. Having established the commonly held belief of Richard, Grant gathers facts about Richard III from the limited company available to him. His sergeant, nurses, and friends allow him to develop a piecemeal background on what happened to the two princes. Grant consults many sources about the mystery of the boy’s demise, including children’s history schoolbooks and historical fiction on the subject. He discredits what might’ve been his most reliable source, a formal history text of Richard III’s life by Sir Thomas Moore, and continues to delve into first hand sources. Grant his assistant, Carradine, and Marta examine and analyze primary sources such as letters and notes from the time period of Richard III and his relatives. Through discussion of the facts which they gradually uncover, Carradine and Grant are able to discern the true nature of the affair between Richard and his two nephews who he supposedly murdered. They test theories with not only each other, but with the nurses as well. By a combination of deductive reasoning, fact compilation, and insights into the personalities of the royal figures in question, Grant concludes that Henry VII, of the Tudor house, had more to gain from the murder of the princes.

This story has several important morals to be taken into account while studying history. The first, and most prominent, is that the common perception of a man, woman, or event of kind is not necessarily correct. In the case of Richard III, the world believed him a murderer, but Grant proves this to be incorrect. The second moral is that the victors of the past write history. Indeed, it was the Tudors who prevailed in this situation and as a result, it is the Tudor story that is widely believed.