The earliest surviving portrait of King Richard III, found at the Cathedral Church of St Martin, in Leicester, UK. Photo: PA
Depictions of King Richard III as a psychopath are unfounded, according to experts.
Psychologists from the University of Leicester said they hoped to “flesh out the bones” and get to the character of the man who has became one of the most controversial kings in English history.
Mark Lansdale, head of the University’s School of Psychology, and forensic psychologist Julian Boon, carried out the study based on the consensus among historians on the monarch’s experiences and actions.
Firstly, they examined one of the most persistent and critical depictions of Richard’s personality – the suggestion that he was a murdering psychopath.
“This reputation, portrayed most famously in Shakespeare’s play, does not seem to have any basis in the facts we have about his life,” they concluded.
They said they found few signs of the traits psychologists would use to identify psychopaths today – such as narcissism, deviousness, callousness, recklessness and lack of empathy in close relationships.
However, they believe the monarch, whose remains were found under a council car park in Leicester city centre last summer, may have exhibited a common psychological syndrome know as an intolerance to uncertainty – which may have manifested in ‘control freak’ tendencies.
Lansdale, head of the university’s school of psychology, said: “This syndrome is associated with a need to seek security following an insecure childhood, as Richard had.
“In varying degrees, it is associated with a number of positive aspects of personality including a strong sense of right and wrong, piety, loyalty to trusted colleagues, and a belief in legal processes – all exhibited by Richard.
“On the negative side, it is also associated with fatalism, a tendency to disproportionate responses when loyalty is betrayed and a general sense of ‘control freakery’ that can, in extreme cases, emerge as very authoritarian or possibly priggish.
“We believe this is an interesting perspective on Richard’s character.”
The experts also looked at how his disability, evident in the curvature of the spine of the king’s remains, may have had an impact on his character and how he interacted with people around him.
It is thought Richard III may have been cautious when interacting with others as deformation in medieval times was linked to having a twisted soul.
Lansdale concluded: “Overall, we recognise the difficulty of drawing conclusions about people who lived 500 years ago and about whom relatively little is reliably recorded; especially when psychology is a science that is so reliant upon observation.
“However, noting that this is the problem historians work with as a matter of routine, we argue that a psychological approach provides a distinct and novel perspective: one which offers a different way of thinking about the human being behind the bones.”