Interesting that one of his descendants wishes to remain anonymous. Dude had a bad rep.
keep the bones where they were and make tons of money for the fees charged for parking on the king. either spread the bones out (one per parking space with a differential fee for the bone parked on) or leave him whole and unknown within the lot so that people would need to try every space to be sure they parked on him.
sell bumper stickers; “i ran over the king”.
I understand that the plan is to re-bury him in Leicester Cathedral – presumably where there already is a memorial for him, which would need to be reworded.
The vertebrae in the accompanying picture are arranged in a very serpentine curve. Can they tell they would have been that curved when he was alive, or are they exaggerating the curvature for the image?
The current memorial is in the middle of the chancel, which - as was the case at Greyfriars - is a more than suitable location for a royal burial. But not exactly convenient if the Richard III Society want to erect a large monument over it. And I rather suspect that the Ricardians’ instincts won’t be for any tastefully restrained option.
What’s the deal with his body getting lost in the first place? Cause he was killed during battle and they didn’t have the opportunity to get it back?
He was buried at a church after the battle. The church was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monastaries, and apparently whatever marker had been set up was destroyed at the same time.
He should probably be buried on a horse.
Meh, we’ve already got the Kingdom
Well, Richard lost the Battle of Bosworth Field, and any surviving supporters would have scattered, trying to save themselves. The supporters of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who had won the battle, would have had no love for the former king, and no interest in giving him a decent Christian burial.
He was buried in a Church.
Right. but it’s not clear that he was buried shortly after the battle. The traditional story is that he was thrown into the River Soar: it may be that the Grey Friars retrieved the body some time later and buried it in their church.
The tradition was that his body was thrown into the river during the Dissolution, some 50 years after he was buried. It’s always been known he was originally buried at Greyfriars by Henry, and Henry VII even apparently built him a marker of some sort that was attested by multiple sources.
Quite. And the ‘tossing his body in the river’ rumor is shown to be a lie by this discovery.
With regards to the reburial, I do hope they go the full monty. I love watching pomp and pageantry. If nothing else, they could do with a rehearsal for the funerals of Prince Philip and Mrs Thatcher.
As for him being an evil child-murderer of a King, well yes, but he was our evil child-murderer of a King IYSWIM.
Doesn’t mean that the smash and burn crew didn’t toss someones body into the river. I don’t think literacy was high on the list of required skills for them. The monks could have pulled up and switched the stone flagging under which bodies tended to be buried [if there were enough loyalists there.]
What sort of genetic analysis can match someone living today with a 15th century ancestor? It doesn’t sound like they had y-chromosome data, and I don’t think mt-DNA analysis would be anywhere near “conclusive”.
The y-chromosome analysis that was used on Sally Hemings descendants only worked because Jefferson had a very unusual y-chromosome.
Maybe they’ll toss them in a river, and do it right this time!
More naked pictures of the royals? Will the Paparazzi ever leave the royal family alone!?
Not conclusive on its own, but the combination of a mtDNA match and the fact that its a 15th century male in his thirties with scoliosis who lived off an aristocratic diet, died of head wounds and was found in the same location Richard was buried in seems pretty hard to argue against.