Tudors, 12th-century Plantagenets and a Nazi are hot on his foppish heels but Richard III remains the most fascinating figure in the eyes of historians and the public, an annual poll has revealed.

BBC History Magazine’s History Hot 100 puts the villainous – or misunderstood – monarch at number one for the second year running, undoubtedly helped by the discovery of his remains under a Leicester council car park.

The bones of the last Plantagenet king, who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, were discovered in 2012, reigniting interest in a king whose reputation as a deformed sadist burns enduringly bright because of Shakespeare.