AN AUTHOR from the Isle of Wight has had a new book published on the life and times of Richard III.

Ryde-based M J Trow was educated as a military historian at King’s College, London and is probably best known today for his true crime and crime fiction works.

He has always been fascinated by Richard III and has now written his first book on the subject: Richard III in the North.

The book is a biography complete with battle maps, castle plans and photographs of locations Richard was synonymous with in England, set against the bloody politics of the fifteenth century.

Richard III is England’s most controversial king, forever associated with the murder of his nephews, known as the Princes in the Tower.

As spectacular as his death at Bosworth in August 1485 — the last king of England to die in battle — the discovery of his bones under a Leicester car park centuries later renewed interest in him and reopened old debates.

Isle of Wight County Press:

Richard was not born in the north, neither did he die there, but this detailed look at his life, tracing his steps over the thirty-three years he lived, focuses on the area he loved and made his own.

As Lord of the North, he had castles at Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, Penrith and Sandal. He fought the Scots along the northern border and on their own territory.

When he felt threatened or outnumbered by his enemies during the turbulent years of the War of the Roses, it was to the men of the north he turned for support and advice.

Click Richard III in the North for more.