Richard III

Well…it was ‘im.

The remains found under Leicester carpark are those of Richard III himself, who died while waiting for the carpark to open.

This is going to be a real moneyspinner for a number of peeps. Leicester Council Leader said that Richard’s remains will leave Leicester over his dead body (his opponents are already booking said leader a place in Sainsbury’s car park). The council have spent £850,000 on turnng the ex-grammar school next to the carpark into a tourist centre. Ignoring Richard’s own desire to be buried in York Minster, what’s left of him is going to be interred in Leicester Cathedral.

Those remains show a number of dents in his skull and two arrowheads in his back. I believe his head was smashed to bits when his body, slung over a horse, went over the bridge over the Soar – too narrow to take doublefile traffic in those days. They’d have taken more care if they had listened to Leicester Council leader.

His remains also show he had severe scoliosis. – though not as bad as the Tudor caricature of the evil hunchback. Being bent (literally, that is) must have been seen as a very unRoyal sign of guilt by the superstitious gits of his time.

oh well, RIP Richard III
RIP the Princes in the Tower
RIP Lucrezia Borgia
RIP Savonarola
RIP all of us in the end

that’s nice of Terry…

maybe he’s right, even…

and maybe he’s wrong, even (it has actually been known)…

but I dont remember telling anyone who I am???

the reason beng that anonymity is key in chatrooms…

so I can reveal that I am not Richard III

There is a programme on channel 4 at 9pm tonight about it… I think its fascinating. I think he should be buried in York Minster though not Leicester… just for the record :D

@mrs_teapot wrote:

There is a programme on channel 4 at 9pm tonight about it… I think its fascinating. I think he should be buried in York Minster though not Leicester… just for the record :D

a fascinating programme, Mrs T and the first scientific reconstruction of his face – a very handsome king.

What was weird – apart from the sense of wonder at watching the discovery of a king dead over 500 years under a carpark – was the nutty sense of fierce loyalty of those who think Richard was nnocent. He may well have been innocent, but ffs he’s been dead more than 500 yrs. Yet people get very fierce in theri advocacy. The woman who has worked so hard (and with a staggering success) to search for the body had a sense of love in her eyes as she looked at the reconstructed face- she wanted to put the Royal Standard over the cardboard box carrying the remains.

Why?

I always felt that it was a mixture of a sense of identifying with someone misunderstood – a good man slandered and spat on in history – and the Once and Future King loyalty towards King Arthur – everyone else has forgotten him, but a feudal sense of loyalty remains in some – loyaulte me lie Loyalty Binds Me was Richard’s motto

Anyway, that is one programme I was glad to have seen. I had to laugh when, after conf9rming the terrible wounds suffered by the skeleton, the narrator said that this was definitely either Richard III or one unlucky monk.