Richard III & the Car Park

[Errata]

I guess my big problem is that some things are just kind of inconsistent. The monastery was destroyed under Henry VIII. The logical conclusion is that either Richard's remains were removed to protect them, or they weren't. If they weren't, given that he was entombed and not buried, there should not be relatively intact remains. If he was moved to protect the remains, he shouldn't be there at all. Christopher Wren noted a marker in a garden, but that still would have put the move during the Tudor reign, who would presumably have done a job of it rather than chucking him in the dirt. But as best I can tell, this body was found within the church remains, which means that whoever this was was not reburied after the monastery was leveled.

Add to that a long tradition of those with physical limitations going into the church, and this may be some poor bastard who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By the way, 15th century battle axes were two handed affairs, which actually requires more mobility that a sword and shield. Without a shield, you have to use the haft to block, and if you have limited range in one arm, you are truly hosed. And pain is a big consideration. Consider that the average longsword hits a shield hard enough to knock people flying. Your arms get absolutely wrenched about, and it's no fun at all. If someone with severe scoliosis is has their arm forced past it's limitations, the pain isn't just local. It forces the spine outside of it's limitations. Which really only happens once in a warriors lifetime, because as soon as that happens, he's dead.

I doubt. I doubt hard.

And the Anne Mowbrey thing always struck me as excessively creepy and unnecessary.

[jason_c]

Ah yes the sainted and totally authoritative More...He'd be bound to know where the princes in the tower were buried wouldn't he? Jason, he was just seven years old when Richard lll died...so when he'd grown up a little, presumably someone told him where they were hidden...there were no Plantagenets around were there, so that person could only have been...(gasps)...you've got it...a Tudor...

Like it or not, More was a Tudor creation through and through...they made him, they destroyed him...

All the best

Dave

More being seven years old when the Princes died means nothing. He was certainly close enough to events to talk with those who were around during the time of the murders. He grew up in a fairly well to do family, he would have been surrounded by people who believed they knew the events well. A Tudor told him? Well that wouldnt be a surprise, a person did admit to being involved in the killings(wether you believe this admission is neither here nor there). You can believe More or not, but he has certain accuracies in his account which mean they are not as easily dismissed as you seem to think.

[Phil H]

Still, some of his writings on the Princes in the Tower did subsequently prove to be correct. The bones of two similar aged boys were where he said the Princes bones were incarcerated. The fact that his manuscripts were unfinished diminishes there likelihood as being purely Tudor propaganda. Plus, More appears to be correct about some of the physical deformities of Richard.

Read them again - AS AN HISTORIAN - you'll find master More full of inconsistencies. The supposed bodies of the Princes were said to have been moved from the original place of burial, which contradicts what was supposedly found and interred in Westminster Abbey. In fact several sets of children's bones have been found in the Tower, as with those of an ape.

Errata

I guess my big problem is that some things are just kind of inconsistent. The monastery was destroyed under Henry VIII. The logical conclusion is that either Richard's remains were removed to protect them, or they weren't.

They were not removed, neither were those of Henry I at reading.

If they weren't, given that he was entombed and not buried, there should not be relatively intact remains.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Bodies were not buried INSIDE a funeral monument, but in a vault or grave beneath it (ie in the earth. If the alabaster monument were removed the body would not be touched.

But as best I can tell, this body was found within the church remains, which means that whoever this was was not reburied after the monastery was leveled.

There was no need for a reburial as the remains were already below ground level.

Add to that a long tradition of those with physical limitations going into the church, and this may be some poor bastard who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It may be so - no doubt scientific investigation of the remains will help us. But in my first post in this thread I set out a checklist of points that get a tick, and the fit for Richard seems at first sight to bode well.

By the way, 15th century battle axes were two handed affairs, which actually requires more mobility that a sword and shield.

Rubbish. Battle-axes, like maces and war-hammers, were single hand weapons, used to puncture armour or smash the bones beneath. 2-handed battle-axes are more reminiscent of Hastings or Stamford bridge (the battle not the football ground).

And the Anne Mowbrey thing always struck me as excessively creepy and unnecessary.

Not sure why? You mean her life or her being found and re-buried? It is surely part of the great rich tapestry to historical research.

Phil H

[Sally]

Errata

But as best I can tell, this body was found within the church remains, which means that whoever this was was not reburied after the monastery was leveled.

When was the monastery 'levelled'? I'm asking, I don't know myself. What I do know, however, is that Henry's 'destruction' of the monasteries wasn't all that straightforward. The monastic houses were disbanded, quite often under agreement, and the buildings removed piecemeal for use in other constructions over time. In many cases, much still remains - one of the determning factors there being how much local building stone was readily available.

Generally speaking, the very same individuals who had once been the monastic house became members of the newly created (by Henry, very shortly afterwards) Chapters. They still exist.

Even in cases where the disbanding was violent, no monastery was 'levelled'. They were huge, complex stone buildings, not so easy to destroy overnight without the use of modern demolition machinery. And in any case, why bother when you could harvest them for building materials, some of them precious?

As the the bodies buried in the church, as Phil says, they would have been underground, so would not have been disturbed necessarily by the destruction of the building.

The remains are of somebody of social importance, otherwise they wouldn't be in the chancel. Whether they are those of Richard remains to be seen. However, it should be possible to reach a probable conclusion with DNA testing - it cannot be 100% certain, but with a reasonable degree of likelihood I would have thought.

[Phil H]

The obvious tests - to me as a layman would be:

1) find-spot - is it consistent with logic and historical records;

2) circumstantial evidence from the remains (not a female, wounds, deformities etc);

3) other physical evidence - wounds are consistent with the known circumstances - ie inflicted in battle;

4) carbon-dating or equivalents, if possible;

5) DNA testing on known descendents - may not be conclusive but could narrow down the odds;

6) facial reconstruction (done "blind" to avoid influences) and comparison of result with earliest surviving portraits;

7) forensic examination of any other elenents - fragments of shroud (if any) surrounding soil;

8) if any hair, tissue etc has survived this might yield evidence.

Richard was exposed naked after death to show conclusively that he was dead. I assume therefore that the body, shrouded, would have been buried naked and stripped of any jewellery, so there is unlikely to be anything of cloth, precious metal etc to be analysed or used for dating.

Archaeologists may have other tests they can apply.

But the whereabouts of the body - as Sally says in the chancel, near the high altar (exactly the position to be anticipated for a high status burial) make the chances that we have found king Richard, IMHO, very high. But we must be cautious and scientific before we can be certain. I see no need to be as doubtful as errata appears to be, indeed I am hopeful.

The question then arises, as I have said before - - reburial at Westminster with his wife, or re-interment at Leicester where he has lain for 500 years, and where a memorial slab already exists?

Phil H

[Sally]

Hi Phil

I presume, as you have noted, that quite a few criteria have been met already by the mystery remains -

1) find-spot - is it consistent with logic and historical records;

Consistent with logic, certainly; I don't know if historic records place Richard there or not - do you know?

2) circumstantial evidence from the remains (not a female, wounds, deformities etc);

Presume a match here.

3) other physical evidence - wounds are consistent with the known circumstances - ie inflicted in battle;

I don't know if this is the case, do you know?

4) carbon-dating or equivalents, if possible;

Will give you a date range, but not a specific date. Carbon testing is inexpensive (relatively) and should be possible under the circumstances. It should rule out, for example, the remains being those of a person living in the wrong period - unless there is contamination present.

5) DNA testing on known descendents - may not be conclusive but could narrow down the odds;

Considerably. DNA testing ought to tell us whether the remains belong to a person related to the descendants of Richard's own family. It will not prove that the remains are his, but would offer a strong possibility.

6) facial reconstruction (done "blind" to avoid influences) and comparison of result with earliest surviving portraits;

I think that would be very interesting.

7) forensic examination of any other elenents - fragments of shroud (if any) surrounding soil;

Might not tell us very much.

8) if any hair, tissue etc has survived this might yield evidence.

Unlikely unless he was buried in anaerobic conditions.

[Monty]

Sally,

I believe Sir Christopher Wren wrote of an account of a visit to Leicester and Herricks gardens within which, he was shown, a memorial stone inscribed something like 'Here lies Richard III, former King of England'.

Due to the overlay of maps of the period, and today, that spot is pretty damn close to where is is alledged the memorial stone stood.

Monty

[RivkahChaya]

There's been some interesting stuff in the UK press over the last week or two about the possible burial site of King Richard III (not rhyming slang btw) .... They have unearthed a skeleton with an arrow tip in the spine, a sword wound to the skull and whose owner suffered from scoliosis. Fascinating stuff to my mind. DNA checks being carried out.

Wow.

So give-- what's the rhyming slang?

I'll be interested to hear how tall they reckon Richard was. As the feet of the skeleton are said to be missing, it will have to be an estimate.

Novelists have sometimes assumed he was small, but his brothers were tall (Edward IV was around six four).

They'll have to give estimates with, and without the curvature. He might have stood 5'8, but was potentially 6' with a straight spine.

A word on scoliosis; it isn't just one thing. There are mild and severe cases. In some people it isn't even diagnosed until adulthood, because it is so mild; this happened to my father. Of course, it's less common in men, and didn't tend to get diagnosed unless it was severe at any rate, back when he was a teenager, but he spent two years on active duty in the Air Force, then six years in the reserves, which means he did a lot of running, obstacles courses, etc., hiking with backpacks, and he bicycled about 1/4 mile, and back, to the train stations every day, in his thirties and early forties. He did not start having pain and problems until he got to be about 48. Richard died at 36. It's possible he had a mild case of scoliosis that had not begun to bother him much yet. Had he lived to be 60, he might have spent his last years in a lot of pain, bur we;ll never know. Also, where the curvature is, and whether it's side-to-side, inward, or outward, can make a big difference in the amount of discomfort it causes.

Plus, Richard was an officer. His martial strength may have been as much as a commander and planner, than as someone good in in one-on-one combat.

Phil: these are all good points, but if I might make some comments (the snips are for length, nothing else):
[QUOTE=Phil H;238002]The obvious tests - to me as a layman would be:

1) find-spot - is it consistent with logic and historical records;

2) circumstantial evidence from the remains -snip-;

3) other physical evidence - wounds are consistent with the known circumstances -snip-;

4) carbon-dating -snip-;

5) [m]DNA testing on known descendents -snip- [if there is a known male descendant, a Y-chromosome comparison would help, but the Y degrades more, so doing mDNA first to rule the body in is the better way to go about things];

6) facial reconstruction -snip- [I have my doubts about this one, because IIRC there are no portraits we know were done from life];

7) forensic examination of any other elenents - fragments of shroud (if any) surrounding soil;

8) if any hair, tissue etc has survived this might yield evidence.

[I would combine 2 & 3, 7 & 8, as basically, "anthropological exam of body," and "forensic exam of site and body (with autopsy)."]

I would also add, "Are there any other bodies that would fit these parameters, that are missing?" if mDNA rules the body in as a royal descendant (or, at any rate, a descendant of Richard's mother], and radiocarbon, or fluorine dating (IIRC, fluorine dating is what dated the Piltdown skull to 500 years before its "discovery"), puts the skeleton at the right time, give or take 30 years, and forensic anthropologists assign it an age of mid-30s, and male gender, who else could it be? Do we know where The Duke of Gloucester is buried? What about his son (or was his son beheaded?) We know where Edward IV is, and the other brothers, IIRC, died overseas. It won't be Edward V, somehow having survived to adulthood, because his mDNA is different.

RE: The Daughter of Time. While I recognize that this is a novel, and not an historical text, I was very much intrigued by one point the author made; there's a huge whole in the Tudor/Shakespeare theory of the crime, which is that Richard killed the princes to eliminate them from the line of succession. That makes no sense if no one knew the princes were dead. To kill them secretly, and hide the bodies served no purpose for Richard. If the boys were in his way, and he were either that ruthless, or that afraid of the Woodvilles influence over Edward V, then he needed to have the boys poisoned or strangled, and announce that they had died of a fever, which happened often enough, hold a big state funeral, and inter them at Westminster.

[RivkahChaya]

Consistent with logic, certainly; I don't know if historic records place Richard there or not - do you know?

They don't put him conclusively somewhere else, which if they did, we could just stop right here-- like with the whole Prince Eddy is JTR thing.

[Sally]

Monty

I believe Sir Christopher Wren wrote of an account of a visit to Leicester and Herricks gardens within which, he was shown, a memorial stone inscribed something like 'Here lies Richard III, former King of England'.

Yes, hadn't Herrick himself erected said monument? It seems likely that there was some local lore regarding Richard's burial place, if nothing else.

Due to the overlay of maps of the period, and today, that spot is pretty damn close to where is is alledged the memorial stone stood.

Maps of the period? Of the 17th century do you mean? That was when Wren visited. There are few of those. Until the advent of the OS maps were expensive to produce and drawn up on an individual basis either to demonstrate land ownership or for specific land management purposes.

Land surveying was inaccurate, to boot. I don't know the details in this case, but generally speaking it would be pretty hard to demonstrate any exact spot using maps of that date.

Still, its all very intrguing, and at the moment it does appear that there are fairly strong grounds for expecting this individual to be Richard.

Interesting stuff.

[jason_c]

Still, some of his writings on the Princes in the Tower did subsequently prove to be correct. The bones of two similar aged boys were where he said the Princes bones were incarcerated. The fact that his manuscripts were unfinished diminishes there likelihood as being purely Tudor propaganda. Plus, More appears to be correct about some of the physical deformities of Richard.

Read them again - AS AN HISTORIAN - you'll find master More full of inconsistencies. The supposed bodies of the Princes were said to have been moved from the original place of burial, which contradicts what was supposedly found and interred in Westminster Abbey. In fact several sets of children's bones have been found in the Tower, as with those of an ape.



Phil H

Several sets of childrens bones have been found, yes. One set of bones being found exactly where More said they would be.

More had an agenda of course. I dont think anyone would say he is an uninterested chronicler of the times. Yet he appears to have amassed a decent amount of material in his manuscript. Such material comes with time consuming interviews of witnesses and possibly studying other manuscripts.

Anyway, the most obvious reason for assuming Richards guilt are the actions of Elizabeth Woodville. Her sideing with Henry VII suggests she believed Richard guilty. Does this prove his guilt? No. However it is a strong piece of evidence against him by someone in the thick of the events.

Here's the guarantee she herself demanded of Richard for her remaining daughters. It suggests she believed the Princes were no guests of Richard, but prisoners:


"I Richard, by grace of God, etc., in the presence of you, my lords spiritual and temporal, and you, my Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, promise and swear...that if the daughters of Elizabeth...will come to me out of the Sanctuary of Westminster and be guided, ruled, and demeaned after me, then I shall see that they shall be in surety of their lives...nor any of them imprison in the Tower of London or other prison, but that I shall put them into honest places..."

[Steve S]

I guess my big problem is that some things are just kind of inconsistent. The monastery was destroyed under Henry VIII. The logical conclusion is that either Richard's remains were removed to protect them, or they weren't. If they weren't, given that he was entombed and not buried, there should not be relatively intact remains. If he was moved to protect the remains, he shouldn't be there at all. Christopher Wren noted a marker in a garden, but that still would have put the move during the Tudor reign, who would presumably have done a job of it rather than chucking him in the dirt. But as best I can tell, this body was found within the church remains, which means that whoever this was was not reburied after the monastery was leveled.

Add to that a long tradition of those with physical limitations going into the church, and this may be some poor bastard who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

By the way, 15th century battle axes were two handed affairs, which actually requires more mobility that a sword and shield. Without a shield, you have to use the haft to block, and if you have limited range in one arm, you are truly hosed. And pain is a big consideration. Consider that the average longsword hits a shield hard enough to knock people flying. Your arms get absolutely wrenched about, and it's no fun at all. If someone with severe scoliosis is has their arm forced past it's limitations, the pain isn't just local. It forces the spine outside of it's limitations. Which really only happens once in a warriors lifetime, because as soon as that happens, he's dead.

I doubt. I doubt hard.

And the Anne Mowbrey thing always struck me as excessively creepy and unnecessary.

Well.there's the two-handed Poll-Axe used on foot,but there's also the Horseman's axe..........And shields(other than for jousting or footman's bucklers) are out of use in western europe by that time......

[Sally]

They don't put him conclusively somewhere else, which if they did, we could just stop right here-- like with the whole Prince Eddy is JTR thing.

Well, no, not really. Historic documents are not always correct, you know.

Sometimes they are simply mistaken, sometimes deliberately misleading.

In any case, it seems that there is tradition placing Richard in this former garden, so we have some evidence that he was at least thought to be there 400 years ago.

[Steve S]

Anyway, the most obvious reason for assuming Richards guilt are the actions of Elizabeth Woodville. Her sideing with Henry VII suggests she believed Richard guilty. Does this prove his guilt? No. However it is a strong piece of evidence against him by someone in the thick of the events.

Here's the guarantee she herself demanded of Richard for her remaining daughters. It suggests she believed the Princes were no guests of Richard, but prisoners:


"I Richard, by grace of God, etc., in the presence of you, my lords spiritual and temporal, and you, my Lord Mayor and aldermen of London, promise and swear...that if the daughters of Elizabeth...will come to me out of the Sanctuary of Westminster and be guided, ruled, and demeaned after me, then I shall see that they shall be in surety of their lives...nor any of them imprison in the Tower of London or other prison, but that I shall put them into honest places..."

But then she left Sanctuary and was quite pally with Richard....???

[jason_c]

But then she left Sanctuary and was quite pally with Richard....???

I dont know how "pally" she was. She did negotiate a truce with Richard however. In fact we know with certainty she negotiated a truce after Richard had one of her other sons from her first marriage executed, along with other members of her family. This is a known fact. It suggests she was negotiating under duress. Plus, the truce happened only when Richards kingship was at its most secure.

As soon as Richard's throne was threatened she openly sided with Henry. Would she side with Henry had she believed him killer of the Princes? Whilst not definitive proof the evidence points to Elizabeth Woodville believing Richard murdered her sons. And I'd say she knew far more about the events of her time than we ever will.