Richard III & the Car Park

[Errata]

IMHO, the questions surrounding Marlowe's death should focus not so much on the mechanics of the possible murder, but on the place where it took place and the aftermath.

Phil

I don't think the mechanics are more important than the events. I think the mechanics are more important that what Marlowe did for a living. I think his epitaph should read "Here lies Christopher Marlowe: He got stabbed through the forehead." and then in tiny letters "and wrote for a living."

Faustus? Meh. Stabbed through the forehead? That's amazing!

[RivkahChaya]

My thing is, he was stabbed to death above the right eye. Right through the thickest part of the skull. That's not easy to do. Which doesn't point to a conspiracy by any means, but Jesus. Marlowe grabs a guys knife, slices open his head a bit, and in the ensuing struggle Frizer manages to wrest the knife back, and the he stabbed Marlowe in the forehead. Stabbed in the forehead. That is a thick strong bone there. How often does that happen? That's a lot more rare than writing biting commentary in three act format. Really makes you wonder what the other guy looked like.

Well, the forehead is thick, and there is a thick ring of bone around each orbit, but the skull actually thins in between the orbit and where the forehead really begins. There's a bundle of nerves that come from deep in the brain, and over the top of the head. I think one is the trigeminal nerve, but I am not a doctor, or even a person with an undergraduate degree in the sciences.

Anyway, if the knife went in sideways, it could go through the place where the bone is thin, right above the eyebrow. It would probably sever those nerves, as well as going into the frontal lobe.

Severing the nerve could have caused death. It could have paralyzed one side of the face, and disrupted breathing, at the same time causing a migraine-sized headache, and a loss of positional awareness (proprioception), so Marlowe wouldn't be able to do anything to help himself, even if he didn't immediately lose consciousness. The knife in the frontal lobe could have caused seizures, and then there could have been a series of hypoxic episodes that disrupted the heart rhythm, which couldn't recover.

It would probably happen pretty quickly, much more quickly than it would take to bleed to death from a wound like that.

[Phil H]

Kit Marlowe was indeed a great playwright.

But don't forget he was also a spy and it was as an intelligencer that he is likely to have died.

Phil

[Errata]

Kit Marlowe was indeed a great playwright.

But don't forget he was also a spy and it was as an intelligencer that he is likely to have died.

Phil

I suppose it would be unfair to remember people based on the most remarkable thing in their lives. Because for many, the most spectacular thing in their lives was the manner of their death. Like the guy who was found impaled on his Christmas tree. I still don't know how that happens.

And Kit Marlowe was not a great playwright. He was a great writer, but plays are meant to be performed, and Marlowe plays are rough (nigh impossible). Not nearly enough motion. Had they been short stories they would have been better. At least for actors.

[Mayerling]

This is my entry to the contest.

Richard Revealed

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
Pete Townshend

Where have my crown, my horse, my two feet gone?
To languish beneath a car park is not any kind of fun!
And to be from my regal birth right so foully divorced.
I am exhausted from breathing your infernal exhaust,
And I am tired from being run over by your tyres,
Worse, to be castigated down all time by a liar,
Still more—bored stiff by that boorish play
Scribbled by a two-bit player, alackaday!
Truthfully, I was a righteous, upstanding king!
I did not deserve to be condemned as a Thing,
And to be scorned as the world’s worst ogre.
Thank the Lord my days of ognominy are over.
Now the world will see me with new eyes,
No longer browbeaten, perchance even wise.

Christopher T. George

Hi Chris,

Like the Riccardian Sonnet. Do you know who won the contest?

Jeff

[Archaic]

Sing For A King

http://www.itv.com/news/central/update/2013-03-10/overwhelming-response-from-choristers-to-sing-at-richard-iiis-reinterment/

Cheers,
Archaic

[Archaic]

Richard III Society's Tomb Design Doesn't Meet Cathedral Criteria

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/Richard-III-Tomb-design-does-meet-Leicester/story-18391233-detail/story.html#axzz2NLN18BfH

Archaic

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Chris,

Like the Riccardian Sonnet. Do you know who won the contest?

Jeff

Hi Jeff

Thanks, Jeff. Yes, the results are now out. No honors for yours truly. You can read the winners at

http://www.spectator.co.uk/life/competition/8858631/ghostwritten/

On the poetry site Eratosphere it was commented that the judge didn't seem to go for either humor or rhyme.

Best regards

Chris

[Archaic]

Leicester Cathedral's Response To Proposed Tomb

The passages below are from the Leicester Cathedral website. I highlighted the section I think is most pertinent to the issue of tomb design:


Leicester Cathedral Design Briefing for Reinterment of Richard III

At 12.00 noon on Wednesday 13 March Leicester Cathedral will publish the Design Brief that will be given to the architects who have been selected to provide a scheme to reinter King Richard III in an appropriate way. The date follows a meeting on 12 March at which the Cathedral Chapter will finalise the details of the brief including the recommendations of the Fabric Advisory Committee which met recently.

The document will describe the place of the Cathedral in Leicester's history and culture. It will outline some of the issues faced by the challenge of honouring a king within a space used by many people and for a variety of services, and seek a solution to ensuring visitors will be able to see the resting place while allowing prayer and worship to continue.

Canon Barry Naylor, Acting Dean of the Cathedral, is delighted we can begin the process: "It's been both a delight and a challenge to be asked to receive a king into the Cathedral. Since the announcement that he had been found thousands of people have come to see the existing memorial stone and to spend time in the Cathedral, and we know this will continue once he is reinterred. It is therefore vitally important that we take note of all aspects of Cathedral life in planning where and how Richard will be reinterred."

The Revd Mandy Ford is Chair of the Cathedral Fabric Advisory Committee: "This will be the first step in a design and consultation process which leads to receive planning approval from the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England. We hope to complete this process as soon as possible within the next few months."


I can understand their concerns. Leicester cathedral is an active church, ministering to the needs of the community and providing a quiet place for prayer and contemplation. They hold church services, weddings, funerals, community activities, etc.

An ostentatious tomb that draws hordes of tourists will pose a difficulty for the life of their parish.

Best regards,
Archaic

[Phil H]

As I said in a previous post, after my visit to Leicester a few weeks ago:

If you stand in the choir of the cathedral, where the present memorial slab is placed (and that is dead centre before the high altar, in the place of honour) ANY tomb raised above the pavement level would seriously impede liturgical and other movement in that key area.

The Richard III Society really should have understood that.

The present slab is FLUSH with the surrounding floor area - and even a replacement of exactly the same dimensions, IF above the floor level would simply get in the way.

I seem to recall hypothesising that they might move the tomb to one of the more open areas away from the choir, where visitors etc would have more room. But if they want Richard to rest in the place of honour then I think the options are probably limited.

Monty might be more familiar with the place than i am and be able to comment.

Phil

[Cogidubnus]

Disneyland

Surely in this age of moneylenders and Mammon-mongers in the temple, the Church needs to realise that if they're going to get the grave, the bones, the kudos and therefore the visitors and the income, then they need to make some concessions, if not to the Ricardians who are paying for the memorial, then to the tourists who are going to presumably pay through the nose to visit...or are the church authorities going to gracefully waive admission fees?

Their greedy whingeing would be more convincing to me if they behaved in a truly dignified fashion and refused the honour of this particular burial in favour of some other body...

As if...

How much you regard this as serious or somewhat tongue in cheek is up to you of course!

All the best

Dave

[Archaic]

Solution?

I have an idea. I'm not sure how bright it is, but it would be effective, and there is certainly historical precedence for it.

Those in charge of the king's burial could take a page from the Medieval play-book (for instance, the burial of King Richard the Lionhearted) and bury Richard III's remains in multiple locations: his heart in one cathedral, his entrails in another, and the rest of his body in a third.

That would split up the crowds of tourists. And simultaneously solve the problem of whether a Catholic king should be buried in a Protestant church. It would even help with traffic problems.

All of the churches could be in the environs of Leicester, or they could be exceptionally noble and share.

Maybe York could be give a toe-joint or something as a consolation prize?

Best regards,
Archaic

[Phil H]

Maybe York could be give a toe-joint or something as a consolation prize?

Alas the feet of the King's skeleton were the bit that was missing - destroyed it is assumed in Victorian building works. So no toe-joints exist.

Dave, you wrote:

Surely in this age of moneylenders and Mammon-mongers in the temple, the Church needs to realise that if they're going to get the grave, the bones, the kudos and therefore the visitors and the income, then they need to make some concessions, if not to the Ricardians who are paying for the memorial, then to the tourists who are going to presumably pay through the nose to visit...or are the church authorities going to gracefully waive admission fees?

First, I don't think the Cathedral has ever ASKED the RIII Society for anything. It is the Society that likes to raise money for memorials, at places associated with Richard.

As I said in my post, I think it is PRATICALITY that is the issue here. Would you put a large stone construction right in the opening of your drive, or at the foot of a staircase to other floors in your house. That is, in places where it would restrict access and the easy flow of movement?

I think the Cathedral authorities are happy to have the remains and to treat them with the respect they deserve, but if their everyday services would be hindered or obstructed, that would be impossible.

I am sure that an effect compromise will be reached.

Phil

[Steve S]

As I said in a previous post, after my visit to Leicester a few weeks ago:

If you stand in the choir of the cathedral, where the present memorial slab is placed (and that is dead centre before the high altar, in the place of honour) ANY tomb raised above the pavement level would seriously impede liturgical and other movement in that key area.

The Richard III Society really should have understood that.

The present slab is FLUSH with the surrounding floor area - and even a replacement of exactly the same dimensions, IF above the floor level would simply get in the way.

I seem to recall hypothesising that they might move the tomb to one of the more open areas away from the choir, where visitors etc would have more room. But if they want Richard to rest in the place of honour then I think the options are probably limited.

Monty might be more familiar with the place than i am and be able to comment.

Phil

Personally,(And I pop in there quite often)...I would just use the memorial site with a new(still flush) slab............

[Phil H]

Steve

You clearly know the cathedral better "better than what I do".

Is your sense the same as mine, that a raised tomb/monumnent, would be an obstruction, in that position?

Phil