This controversial study argues that although Richard was indeed guilty of, or implicated in, most, if not all of the crimes of which he has been accused, this ruthless, inscrutable man was also very religious, an austere practitioner of a chivalrous code of ethics, a public benefactor and protector of the Church, a founder of chantries and a follower of a strict, puritanical code of sexual morality. He emerges in part a conventional figure of his time, but also, in part, a very unusual, little-understood man, as compelling and yet more complex than Shakespeare's mythical anti-hero.