Rob Blackhurst

Amid weak sunshine in a low Norman church, right in the centre of England, the Richard III society are saying prayers for their King.

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It's the 22nd August, the five hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Bosworth, the denouement of the War of the Roses, when Richard lost his crown on Bosworth field. They are meeting in Sutton Cheney's low red Norman church, the place where, according to legend, Richard took the sacrament for the final time before going into battle.

For this occasion, there are red and white roses on either side of the altar. In the visitor's book some of the society have written their archaic tributes in perfect hands: "O bind me fast in loyalty to thee" and "Richard liveth yet". They reek of an unabashed Christian faith that has largely disappeared from the real England, even in lush green parts of it like this. "One day justice will be God's – until then rest in peace" one reads. Others have a kind of erotic lyricism, referring to "England's nightfall".

The service, led, incongruously by a breezily matey C of E woman priest, begins with the Prayer of King Richard, drawn from his Book of Hours that is still preserved in the Lambeth Palace. There are prayers for the Queen, "Our most gracious sovereign Elizabeth" to "endue her plenteously with heavenly gifts".

A coach party have come up from London for the day, but it's getting harder to fill - mainly in late middle age, solidly middle class, and all bookish - some librarians, teachers, former PR men and former English secretaries. The Richard III society was established 86 years ago as the "Fellowship of the White Boar" to "promote a reassessment of King Richard's Character" after centuries of Tudor propaganda. Since Shakespeare's time, Richard has been the wicked Uncle who murdered his nephews in the tower, the hunchbacked monster. But they see him as the last true King of England, before the nefarious influence of the Tudors. Among the membership is Keeping Up Appearances actress Josephine Tusa. – though it has been in slow decline from a height of 4,500 in the mid-eighties to around 2,500 now.

The Society is most famous for being responsible for one of the most enjoyable oddities of British life. For years, on the anniversary of his death, they would pay for space in the obituaries column for: "Plantagenet, Richard. Remember before God, Richard III, King of England, and those who fell at Bosworth Field". They've now given this up – but still have a "reputational manager" to counter negative stories about Richard in the press. When a modern-day RSC production of Richard III portrayed him as Saddam Hussein they described it as "the ultimate insult". These days, though, they are trying to limit the reputation for eccentricity: "We don't want a crack-pot reputation – especially in the world of academia" says Phil Stone, the Chairman, Minor infringements on Richard's reputation we tend to let go"

Otherwise, the society holds carol services at Richard's childhood home at Fotheringay; ensure that builders respect information plaques celebrating moments in his life. (Recently they went into battle with an estate agent who dared to obscure a plaque commemorating Richard's death with a To Let sign), sell hessian bags branded with Richard III, organise trips, and have discussions about mediaeval heraldry. But there's an antiquarian interest too: they sell an academic journal called "The Ricardian" full of dry scholarship about the late mediaeval period and put on lectures about mediaeval fashion, heraldry and social history.

Phil Stone, who, in his day-job is a radiologist in his sixties with lamb-chop sideboards, is aware that if they sound too partisan they might seem a little eccentric to the outside world: "We are the Richard III society – not the Richard III adoration society" he says. There are branches in the old Empire – Australia, New Zealand and the US. "They have more weird ways of going about things," he said. "Most of us think that Richard is innocent of killing the princes in the tower. But there are a few who think he probably did it". As in any organisation of true believers, this doubt in their ranks was too much for some to cope with – and the Richard III Foundation in the US split off when some in the Richard III treasonably suggested that the last true King of England had arranged for the murder of the Princes in the Tower. The foundation now ostentatiously advertises themselves as the "only Ricardian organisation that does not take a neutral view in their defence of King Richard III".

But, in truth, the enemies of the society are not transatlantic rivals, but a more time-pressed age in which retaining members has become more difficult. "Our attrition rate is greater than our recruitment rate," says Phil Stone, the lamb-chop sideboard-sporting chairman. But there are efforts to embrace modernity – including a GPS guided programme, Ricardian Britain, that will identify all the Richard memorial sites in the UK.

It's a moot point why, given modern crimes of the Gulag and Third Reich, campaigners would think it worth preserving the reputation of a fifteenth century English King. Here, their royal patron, the Duke of Gloucester, elevates this seeming eccentricity into a moral principle: "The purpose derives from the belief that the truth is more powerful than lies – a faith that even after all these centuries the truth is important. It is proof that our civilisation values something as esoteric and fragile as reputation is worth fighting for".

It seems in the wake of the extraordinary success of Hillary Mantel's creation of Tudor England in Wolf Hall, there is now an appetite to go on to learn about the origins of the Tudor Dynasty. According to Phillipa Gregory, who has had success with the Red Queen, her biography of Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. "The Tudor's have been massively researched. But this period has not, so I'm coming across characters not known before".

For years, Hitler and Henry have dominated the curriculum, with a black-hole before Henry VIII: "They launch straight into the Tudors at school but it is very difficult to explain the policies of Henry VII without some background on Edward and Richard" says Phil Stone.

Perhaps it's also the attraction of promise unfulfilled, and a simple figure that can be contrasted with the chaos of the present day. Or perhaps, aside from rescuing a besmirched reputation, it's the attraction of a "Damn good detective story". But the story of Richard III, for so long absent from the text books might finally be being rehabilitated. Phillippa Gregory's works of historical fiction about the Wars of the Roses have become bestsellers. And, after a million pound lottery grant, experts have finally located the true site of the Bosworth battlefield on a marsh two kilometres away where it had been previously thought.

There has been a bountiful find of lead canon-balls, coins as well as an exquisite thumbnail gilt silver bore, probably worn by one of Richard's inner circle as they attempted to protect the King from Tudor swords. And perhaps this upsurge of interest will see a less cartoonish view of England's last king to die in battle. As one of the Society said to me with passion: "He was not hunched and stooped, not did he spend ten months in his mother's womb and come out with teeth. All this is nonsense".