Some here might find this interesting if they haven't heard.

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/world ... 7709.story

So, it was confirmed to be him then?

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Thanks for the link. It was an interesting read. I did not know he established bail and the presumption of innocence. Off to study Terence now!

I am so happy about this. I always believed he was a decent guy,one of England's better kings. This should help historians to heal him of his dirty reputation, and make him more respected. After LOTR, 15th century history is my main interest (you can see I live in the real world!).

Dear god i hope he gets buried in York (you know, the city he fought under the banner of for his entire life), and not Leicester.

Also i agree, he was one of Englands better kings. No matter what spinal abnormalities were found i don't believe someone with a severe hunch could have fought like he did at Bosworth!

The house of York had about as much to do with that city as Lancaster had for their opponents. Westminster, Winchester or Windsor would be more natural resting places for a king of England

Frankly, though, if you've been to Leicester you know that it needs all the help it can get

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I disagree, one of the many reasons he was so disliked was because he was northern and spent the majority of his life ruling the north (which at the time was basically a palatinate kingdom). It was also because of how he chose to manage the north that the Stanley brothers refused to fight at the battle of Bosworth, and their neutrality throughout the battle is one of the biggest causes of his death. So no, York would be a fitting place for Richard!

Indeed, he did enjoy strong links to York, but only after 1471 at the very earliest. He was born in Northamptonshire and, apart from his years training as a knight in Warwick's care, spent much of his childhood outside England in exile. Moreover, some of his northern holdings were taken from Warwick in due course and not necessarily that loyal. He arguably enjoyed as good support from his other lands, less perhaps those in the South West, which was generally hostile to the house of York. There is a risk of imposing a false north/south element to the conflict. The inactivity of Northumberland and actions of Stanleys of Derbyshire at Bosworth challenges that paradigm though. Also the Stanley's were hardly neutral at Bosworth, Richard was killed whilst fighting the troops of William Stanley.

The idea of him being a gruff northerner is quite entertaining though, if reeking of Tudor myth

Anyway, why would a Duke of Gloucester have fought under the banner of the city of York? Surely he would have used his own white boar...

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Now is the discount on our winter tent....
Regardless of what he was in life, at least he will get a dignified burial now. Though York and Leicester are arguing over where he will be buried.

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Not 'confirmed' as such. DNA profiling can never be 100%, all you can expect is degrees of probability (as I know from my days studying a Bsc in Crime Scene Science ).

However, it is known that:

(a) the remains found have a DNA profile which closely matches that of a known descendant of Richard III (a man named Michael Ibsen, via one of the Kings mistresses IIRC).

(b) IIRC, the bones were found to contain high traces of certain minerals etc, indicating a meat/fish rich diet.

(c) The remains were found in the vicinity of the known burial place of Richard III. Contemporary writers mention that the King was buried near some monastary or abbey. The structure was later demolished in Henry VIII (himself a Tudor and the son of the king who deposed Richard) so the exact location was not known, but it was known to be in the general area.

(d) The skeleton features damage which resembles battle wounds, such as a portion of the skull cut off; as well as "humiliation injuries".This is similar to contemporary accounts of the Kings death.

(e) the skeleton features a curved spine, causing one shoulder to appear higher than the other resulting in a hunched appearance. Tudor propaganda and contemporary popular culture from Shakespeare et al depicted the King as a hideous Hunchback.


All of which tends to the obvious conclusion that the skeleton is very probably Richard III himself.

Although it is of course vaguely possible that some other Nobleman descended from the same line as Michael Ibsen with a deformed spine and living on a rich diet was also killed violently around the same period of history and buried in the same general area.

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I'm no legal expert, but from a historical perspective it's hard to propose a credible counter argument for now.



Edit with view of Battlefields Trust:

The Battlefields Trust congratulates Richard Buckley and his team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester on their excellent work to discover the remains of Richard III and identify the remains as definitively his. This is a triumph for archaeology. This find comes hard on the heels of the discovery of the true topography of the battlefield at Bosworth (1485) by archaeologists from the Battlefields Trust and Leicester County Council in 2010. That work pinpointed the spot where Richard was unhorsed in a (since drained) marsh and where he then received the wounds that can now be studied on his skeleton. Putting the two pieces of archaeology together means that we can reconstruct in detail the events that led to the end of the Yorkist dynasty and the start of the Tudors. They reinforce and inform each other.

The Trust has no views on the next stage – Richard III’s reinterment - other than to make some observations. Richard was buried in hallowed ground with Christian rites even though – several times over– it was not the funeral he had intended. His burial site, although not his actual tomb, was desecrated later. He should be reinterred now according to the proper rites obtaining in 2013. The important point is for a dignified and appropriate commemoration.

The Battlefields Trust
Dedicated to the Preservation, Interpretation and Presentation of Battlefields as Education and Heritage Resources

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My (more regularly updated) painting blog:
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The Blackadder picture is hilarious! My most sincere contrafibularities for posting this most antipericombobulous image.

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Published ebooks:
Instrument of the Empire
A Note of Defiance
Phantom Ships, Ghost Flotilla
More to come!