The first In Memoriam notice following the death of Richard III appeared in the next day's council minutes of the City of York: "Wer assembled in the counsaill chamber, where and when it was shewed...that king Richard late mercifully reigning upon us was thrugh grete treason...piteously slane and murdred to the grete hevynesse of this citie..."
"PLANTAGENET -- Richard, great king and true friend of the rights of man, died at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. Murdered by traitors and, dead, maligned by knaves and ignored by Laodiceans, he merits our devoted remembrance."
Parliamentary Record
DATE: November, 1485. AUTHOR: King and council. TEXT: "Rotuli Parliamentarium," ed. J. Strachey, 6 vols.(London, 1767-83), VI, p. 176. (English; spelling modernized.)
The act of attainder records that 'Richard, late duke of Gloucester, calling and naming himself, by usurpation, King Richard the Third.' John late duke of Norfolk, Thomas earl of Surrey, Francis Viscount Lovell, Walter Devereux late Lord Ferrers, John Lord Zouche, Robert Harrington, Richard Charlton, Richard Radcliffe, William Berkeley of Weobley, Robert Brackenbury, Thomas Pilkington, Robert Middleton, James Harrington, knights, Walter Hopton, William Catesby, Roger Wake, William Sapcote, Humphrey Stafford, William Clerk of Wenlock, Geoffrey St German, Richard Watkins, Herald of Arms, Richard Revel of Derbyshire, Thomas Poulter junior of Kent, John Walsh alias Hastings, John Kendal, secretary, John Buck, Andrew Ratt, and William Bramton of Burford, on 21, in 'the first year of the reign of our sovereign lord, assembled to them at Leicester ... a great host, traitorously intending, imagining and conspiring the destruction of the king's royal person, our sovereign leige lord. And they, with the same host, with banners spread, mightily armed and defenced with all manner [of] arms, as guns, bows, arrows, spears, 'glaives', axes, and all other manner [of] articles apt or needful to give and cause mighty battle against our sovereign lord'. Keeping the host together, they led them on 22 August to a field in Leicestershire, and 'there by great and continued deliberation, traitorously levied war against our said sovereign lord and his true subjects there being in his service and assistance under a banner of our said sovereign lord, to the subversion of this realm, and common weal of the same.'
Proclamation of Henry Tudor
DATE: 22-3 August, 1485. AUTHOR: King and council. TEXT: Tudor Royal Proclamations, Vol. I. The Early Tudors (1485-1553), ed. P.L. Hughes and J.P. Larkin (New Haven, 1964), p. 3. (English; spelling modernized.)
'And moreover, the king ascertaineth you that Richard duke of Gloucester, late called King Richard, was slain at a place called Sandeford, within the shire of Leicester, and brought dead off the field unto the town of Leicester, and there was laid openly, that every man might see and look upon him. And also there was slain upon the same field, John late duke of Norfolk, John late earl of Lincoln, Thomas, late earl of Surrey, Francis Viscount Lovell, Sir Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers, Richard Radcliffe, knight, Robert Brackenbury, knight, with many other knights, squires and gentlemen, of whose souls God have mercy.'
http://www.r3.org/
Click on this link to go to the American branch of the Richard III Society, where all devout Ricardians rally round the king's defense!
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