Richard III's rehabilitation as a serious historical figure — rather than the Tudor-propagandized villain of Shakespeare — accelerated considerably in the late 20th century, driven in part by the Richard III Society, which was founded in 1924 but gained significant mainstream traction by the 1990s. Gibraltar's commemorative program in this period was notably aggressive in licensing British historical subjects, producing silver proofs on themes that the Royal Mint itself rarely touched. This coin predates by over a decade the 2012 Leicester car park discovery of Richard's remains, which would have made such an issue far more commercially obvious.
Richard III's rehabilitation as a serious historical figure — rather than the Tudor-propagandized villain of Shakespeare — accelerated considerably in the late 20th century, driven in part by the Richard III Society, which was founded in 1924 but gained significant mainstream traction by the 1990s. Gibraltar's commemorative program in this period was notably aggressive in licensing British historical subjects, producing silver proofs on themes that the Royal Mint itself rarely touched. This coin predates by over a decade the 2012 Leicester car park discovery of Richard's remains, which would have made such an issue far more commercially obvious.