10. Richard III Had A Difficult Childhood... He Was Kept As A Lancastrian Prisoner Of War From The Age Of Seven
Born during the height of the Wars of the Roses - fought between the two houses of the Plantagenet dynasty, Lancaster and York - Richard III (pictured above) endured a turbulent childhood. First of all he was kept as a prisoner of war for a year from the age of seven when the Lancastrians captured him and some of his Yorkist siblings. Then, at the age of eight, Richard was sent into exile with his elder brother George to the Low Countries (modern-day Belgium and Holland) by his mother Cecily Neville following the death of their father (Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York) and brother (Edmund, Earl of Rutland) at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. Although the exile lasted less than six months, Richard's imprisonment and banishment proved to be extremely tumultuous. This, coupled with the fact he was born into a civil war between two rival royal households, led to his bitter hatred of all-things Lancastrian. So give him a little bit of a break...
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
