Richard's early life

Richard Plantagent, later Duke of Gloucester, and later still King Richard III, was born to Cecily Neville, and Richard Duke of York, at Fotheringhay Castle, in the county of Northamptonshire, England, on the 2nd of October 1452.
Apart from a cryptic comment from a rhyme written much later that 'Richard liveth yet' he disappears from history for a while. But then he was the yougest son of a large family and not expected to come to much of importance. The phrase 'liveth yet' only means he was still living at the time the rhyme was written, and not that he was weak, or deformed, or in any way different from any other child, except, unlike some of his siblings, that he was still alive at the same age that they had died.
Henry, William, Thomas, and John, all died in infancy, as did the sister born after Richard, Ceciley's last child Ursula.
For those needing sources, the rhyme is called "A Dialogue Between A Secular And A Friar" and is basically about the lineal descent of the Clare family, whose descendant the House of York was from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III, whose daughter married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, our Richard's great grand parents, and his link to the royal family of England through the female line.
KEEP UP! THIS STUFF IS IMPORTANT!! :-) TEST LATER! :-)
Oh yes, the famous Duke of Clarence, he of the legendary death, was our Richard's brother George. More later though of him.
Back to the Yorks and our newly born Richard, youngest son of York. [Good pun there Shakespeare! Again, more later on that one too!]
Richard's father was the Duke of York, the richest man in the land, and to all intents and purposes the rightful king of England.
You see back in 1399 the crown had been wrested away from the rightful king Richard II, by the son of Edward III's third son, Henry Bolingbroke, who became king as Henry IV. At the time, the rightful heirs, the York antecedents, were still too young to contest the matter, and the House of Lancaster planted it's backside on the throne. Henry's son was the famous Henry V, he who went to war with the French and trounced them at Agincourt. Not the hero of myth makers though, as like with our Richard, and the Scottish king Macbeth, William Shakespeare, writing drama many years later, changed the facts to suit good theatre. Henry V died young of dysentary, leaving his crown to a 9 month old infant, another Henry, the Sixth. That was when the real trouble began. But that isn't part of our story yet.
The point of all that was to help you to see that Richard came into the world the youngest son of a family that stood close to the throne, but not as close as it should have been, a family descended through TWO sons of Edward III, while between the second son and fourth, who the Yorks were descended from, stood the third son, and the House of Lancaster who had usurped the crown in 1399.
Still with me? Hope so.
An infant on the throne of England. Not good news for anybody but the nobles who began to wrestle for control of the king, the coutry, and the riches possible from high position.

I'm taking a break there, with Richard in the world.
Going to see Benjamin Button to decide if I think it deserves my personal Oscars this year!




Richard liveth yet