Seems they could compare the DNA of Richard with that of the alleged remains of the two Princes. That would at least prove they died in the tower and were buried under a stairwell and not spirited out of the country alive.
Jane had been deposed before being beheaded, so she was not queen regnant at the time of her violent death.
The irony is that type of scoliosis he seems to have had (as opposed to the type where the spine curves abnormally front-to-back) often isn’t very visible. Richard probably had one shoulder slightly higher than the other, and would have been short, but otherwise would have appeared pretty normal.
(Which makes sense, when you think about it. In a superstitious age, he probably wouldn’t have been able to govern if he had appeared grossly deformed. And he couldn’t have been so badly affected that he couldn’t ride into war, as we know he led troops in the field on more than one occasion.)
Cool.
This is incredibly cool. I can’t even imagine what it would be like being one of the archaeologists who made the discovery.
I was thinking the same thing, Quintas - now they can match Richard’s DNA against the two kids discovered in the Tower. That wouldn’t show when they died, though, and the window of Richarddunit vs Henrydunit is so small that I don’t think there’s any chance of ever getting a definitive answer.
And the idea of giving him his horse makes me happy all over.
According to Wikipedia the Queen isn’t crazy about exhuming the bodies of the (possible) princes. Maybe this discovery will change her mind.
Very suspicious. What has she been trying to hide? On reflection, she does look a bit like Jessica Fletcher…
that is a wicked curve. i’m betting on a 3-6" loss in height.
Not sure if she counts; Mary I regarded her as a usurper and dated her own reign from the death of Edward VI. She appears in some lists of monarchs, but not all.
It’s tasteless, and I’m definitely ashamed for laughing out loud, but The Onion is already on it:
‘Well, That Was Cool’ Say Archaeologists Before Dumping Bones Of King Richard III Back Into Hole
Failing that, how about two 1/2 coconut shells?
Re his now confirmed deformity. What was the consensus if any pre August 2012 as to whether Dicky was deformed. Tudor myth?
I don’t know about that. The Princes were last seen alive in June 1483. Edward was almost 13 and Richard was almost 10. Rumors were already circulating that they were dead later that year.
Henry Tudor defeated Richard III on August 22, 1485. Realistically, IF the Princes were alive at that time, he couldn’t have killed them until that date or sometime later. Edward V would’ve been almost fifteen and Richard eleven.
The bodies found entombed under the staircase of the White Tower, suspected to be the Princes, have been determined to be between 7-11 and 11-13. The dental evidence seems to narrow the ages a bit further; E.W. Bradford, a professor of dental surgery, concluded based on studying the teeth that one child was about 12 years old, and the other about 8-10 years of age. A strong bit of evidence in favor of the bodies belonging to the Princes is that the jaw of the elder child had hypodontia and bilateral Wormian bones. The skeleton of Anne Mowbray, young Richard’s child-bride, and a close cousin of the Princes (her father was descended twice over from Edward III) had similar hypodontia and dental deformities.
IF the skeletons found in the White Tower are the Princes, the forensic evidence suggests that they both died as prepubescent boys. That would place their deaths during the reign of Richard III, and not Henry VII. I’m summarizing a lot of evidence; those interested in the studies done on the skeletons sometimes identified as Edward V and his younger brother Richard are encouraged to research the matter more thoroughly.
What I’ve encountered ranged from one shoulder higher than the other (hardly uncommon at the time) to the Shakespearean hunchback.
A couple of considerations:[ul]
[li]As noted, the type of scoliosis displayed would not have been quite as noticeable as the fore-and-aft type. There are contemporary accounts which suggest that he padded the lower shoulder and/or draped a cloak over it to minimize the effect.[/li][li]Richard commanded the Yorkist cavalry in his brother’s battles, which meant that he was a mounted soldier himself. This in turn meant that he wielded his weapon — lance, mace or whatever — in his right hand while using his left arm to carry his shield and control his horse (and we ain’t talkin’ no pettin’ zoo pony here). This would kind of argue against the “weerish, withered arm” that Tudor historians ascribed to him.[/li][li]Richard introduced (or reintroduced) the custom of stripping to the waist to be anointed at his coronation. He probably had at least a little of the Plantagenet pride, and it seems unlikely that he would have gone through that ritual if he’d been as hideous as commonly thought.[/li][/ul]The question of whether or not he was a murderous tyrant will not be answered by this discovery. But it seems evident that as far as his appearance is concerned, he continued to suffer a hatchet job long after he took an axe to the head.
They were all usurpers or children of usurpers.
I wish tyrants were recognisable by looks alone.
She is really sweet on him, isn’t she?
Many Richard III defenders seem to be just that little bit off. One I was talking to yesterday said that the discovery of his remains proved that he was really a nice guy. Umm, no, I don’t think it proves anything of the sort.
I dont think Henry did it. I had read somewhere of a third possibility. That they were taken out of the country. To France or Holland or something and just disappeared from history. If the remains in the Tower were shown to be the princes, it would eliminate that possibility.
Tyrants who have been dead for 500 years are easy to be sweet on.