[IronwoodFarm]

Hard to say how the reformation would have played out if the Plantagenets had won Bosworth field. Given that many of the German princes embraced Protestantism for political reasons, there's no saying that it might have appealed to the English ruler at the time. Certainly the Scots embraced it under a different set of circumstances.

Many years ago, I was trained to be a medieval historian and I specialized in the 100 Years War. Kings and lords of all type were expected on the battlefield. This is why John the Blind of Bohemia hooked his horse up between two knights when he rode to his death at Crecy. Baldwin the Leper King of Jerusalem routinely went into battle on a litter. No surprise that Richard III was at Bosworth Field. He was a seasoned fighter. I think he might have won had the Stanleys not deserted.

[vineyridge]

This is totally untrue from the biographies (several) that I have read. If you would, please cite your sources for the statement about contemporary sources--ie during his reign. If you're talking about the Croyland Chronicle, it was written by a deeply committed Lancastrian. You should read it. Remember that Bishop Morton, a man who turned his coat several times, and ended up as Henry VII's chancellor, was Bishop of Ely and in charge of Croyland (and Sir Thomas More later) before he left for France and the Tudors after supporting Buckingham's rebellion. The princes in the tower were not twins at all; the older was at least two years older than his sibling. As to Mancini's report to the French, it's rather odd that the princes were known to have still been alive in September 1483 and he left England in July 1483. Any rumors that they were dead that he reported having heard preceded their disappearance.

Just for the record, Henry VII is said to have claimed the throne by conquest, not by inheritance. His only royal blood came through a bastard daughter of John of Gaunt; his Welsh Tudor blood came through Henry V's widow who married a sergeant at arms after the King died. That made her children by him half siblings to Henry VII. One wonders what would have happened had not Richard III trusted Henry Buckingham.

Here's an interesting link with a video showing the excavation and very clear shots of a fantastic curvature of the spine - amazing someone could go around with that deeply S spine. Anyway, nice summation of the find and excavation

http://www.le.ac.uk/richardiii/

As for him being a loser, I think most of his ugliness he managed to show before Tudor came along to dispossess him of the throne. There is alot of contemporary writing of him before he lost the battle with Henry which casts doubt on him being any kind of a good human, but that's my opinion. I don't agree with the Richard III society people.

[MHM]

Boy, the British monarchy today seems to have it easy by comparison. They just have to be (the one person on the planet) born to the right parents in the right order, then just stay alive and wait their turn.

[rmh_rider]

When I read they had found something I read alot about him, and of course that leads to many other ancestors.

I can't wait to find out.

Somebody please post the results when / if they find out.

How could a church like that cave in be buried or whatever, and nobody know it was there, even after all this time, and then put a parking lot there? Somebody had to have know there was a building there, and graves, etc, but what then somehow it became a pasture, and then somebody wanted to put paving over it?

Plant daffodils, then 100's of years later SOMEBODY will know somebody lived there. My husband and I say that some little old lady made some little old man plant those bulbs there. Those bulbs live longer than we do. We see many here in our area. Many are planted in some sort of a pattern, like a bed, but yet only a grassy pasture or forest is there now. hmmm.

[rmh_rider]

Ok, I read the cnn article, so it is him. wow. just wow. What technology we have today.

[Alagirl]

When I read they had found something I read alot about him, and of course that leads to many other ancestors.

I can't wait to find out.

Somebody please post the results when / if they find out.

How could a church like that cave in be buried or whatever, and nobody know it was there, even after all this time, and then put a parking lot there? Somebody had to have know there was a building there, and graves, etc, but what then somehow it became a pasture, and then somebody wanted to put paving over it?

Plant daffodils, then 100's of years later SOMEBODY will know somebody lived there. My husband and I say that some little old lady made some little old man plant those bulbs there. Those bulbs live longer than we do. We see many here in our area. Many are planted in some sort of a pattern, like a bed, but yet only a grassy pasture or forest is there now. hmmm.

well, in Europe it's not like in the US...some places everybody knows something is under there....but as long as you don't dig for foundations you shush and put the fence post a feet or to to the left or right, otherwise you have archeologists hold up the show for month on end.

Also, considering the times, it could very well have been raised with full knowledge, and eventually the exact location got lost. So you can find under certain circumstances traces of old buildings from the air that nobody recalls.



Some people in Yorkshire would love for him to be buried there. Middleham, his homestead, but York I think would be a close second. Although I think the decision has been made he will put to rest in Leicester...

[rmh_rider]

Thanks for the info Alagirl.

[sprite]

Another fascinating account of Richard, his brother King Edward, and the Wars of the Roses, is Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour. Excellent, excellent read.

[Anne FS]

Boy, the British monarchy today seems to have it easy by comparison. They just have to be (the one person on the planet) born to the right parents in the right order, then just stay alive and wait their turn.

True. Although the "staying alive" part, even with good genes and perfect medical care, is not exactly simple with the Brits lately, considering that Prince Charles is already 64 and Prince William in his 30s...so they have to stay alive a LONG TIME (lol).

King Richard III had been King and was dead at 32.

[Janet]

.

How could a church like that cave in be buried or whatever, and nobody know it was there, even after all this time, and then put a parking lot there? Somebody had to have know there was a building there, and graves, etc, but what then somehow it became a pasture, and then somebody wanted to put paving over it?

Henry VIII, when he split with Rome, ordered the dissolution of the monestaries. The buidings were torn down to provide building materials, and the land was sold to the highest bidder.

They knew roughly where the priory lands were, but not specifically where the church was.

[nhwr]

He was not so ugly as Shakespeare would have you believe.

Have a look.
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-richard...led-years.html

[Belair]

Another fascinating account of Richard, his brother King Edward, and the Wars of the Roses, is Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour. Excellent, excellent read.

I'll have to second this. Loved her books, though if I remember correctly, this one took a bit longer to get through than some of the others.

[DMK]

Well, back in the day that's how you got to be (and stay) King: you literally had to whap the other guy over the head before he whapped you.

If you weren't strong enough or brave enough to go out there and do it yourself, how could you expect your liege lords to support you? And unless you proved your own toughness, what was to prevent them from doing the whapping on your own head?

Too true. One the most important lessons for historians is to not judge actions of the past through the prism of today. They couldn't just have a good healthy spat on the interweb tubz to hash things out.

This is a bit long, but I am always in awe of the depth of British history. Here's a somewhat pedantic listing of who owned what and when... And meanwhile our own history was being forged. Kind of humbling, really.

Previously at this address
The Franciscan Friars (Orders of Friars Minor, often called the Grey Friars from the colour of their garments) came to England in 1224, around a year before the death of St Francis of Assisi, their founder. Friars differ from monks in that they are not a secluded community but work among the local people, on whose charity they are dependant. The nave of the friary church would have been accessible to the public, while the rest of the buildings were private. Medieval Leicester supported two other friaries, one Dominican and one Augustinian.

The Priory of the Grey Friars in Leicester is said to have been founded in 1255 by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester from 1238 to 1265. Following the Dissolution, the site of the Greyfriars was sold in 1536 to John Bellowe and John Broxholme –16th century property speculators from Lincolnshire who bought up numerous similar sites across the England, including Leicester’s Augustinian Friary – and the buildings were finally demolished in 1538 with some of the timber and stone used to repair St Martin’s church.

1587 – Raleigh sends 150 colonists to Roanoke

The land was bought by Sir Robert Catlyn, Chief Justice to Elizabeth I (and a distant ancestor of Princess Diana) who then sold it to Robert Herrick.
Robert Herrick (also spelled Heyrick, 1540-1618), from a family of successful ironmongers, followed in his father’s footsteps as Mayor of Leicester, holding the position in 1584, 1593 and 1605. He was also a Justice of the Peace and at various times the town’s Chamberlain, Coroner and MP. The Mayoral Roll records: “For some years prior to his death, he resided in a mansion house within the precincts and grounds of the dissolved Grey Friars monastery, nearly opposite St Martin's church.”
Herrick built a house on the eastern part of the grounds, visited in 1612 by a young man named Christopher Wren, who was tutor to Herrick’s nephew at Oxford. (This was not the famous architect but his father, later Dean of Windsor.) Wren wrote in his diary that Herrick showed him a stone pillar with an inscription ‘here lies the body of Richard III, some time King of England’. This was the last recorded location of Richard’s body.

1620 Plymouth Colony established

Herrick’s daughter Frances married Thomas Noble and one of their descendants (also Thomas Noble, c.1656-1730, later the town’s MP) bought the Greyfriars land in 1711. His son, yet another Thomas, divided the site into two in 1740 with the appropriately named New Street, along which houses were built, with numerous burials discovered during the building work. Herrick’s house and garden passed in 1743 to Roger Ruding of Westcotes, in 1752 to hosier Richard Garle, and in 1759 to banker William Bentley who built a fine house with the address ‘17 Friar Lane’.

1776 – Upstart Americans sign a peace of paper

1861 – Upstart Americans get into a family squabble

Part of the land at 17 Friar Lane was sold in 1863 to the Alderman Newton’s Boys’ School who built a schoolhouse (extending the property in 1887 and 1897) and the remainder, with Bentley’s house, was bought by the Leicester Corporation in 1866 who considered the site as a possible location for Leicester’s new Town Hall (replacing the ancient Guildhall). Leicestershire County Council acquired the land in 1920 and in 1936 constructed smart offices which were used until 1965, when the new County Hall was opened. Since then, the building has been used by Leicester City Council, with the unbuilt land serving as a car park for Council staff.

Most of the history of this country was written between "A banker built a fine house" and it "became a boys school" followed by a "town hall".

You think you are a newbie in this nation business, there's you clue.

[caffeinated]

He was not so ugly as Shakespeare would have you believe.

Have a look.
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-richard...led-years.html

So cool. The second I saw the skull I was wondering about reconstructing his face... so neat to see it!

[RoyalTRider]

I understand that the arrangements have been made to re-inter him at Leicester, but I so wish Richard of York could be returned home to the northern region he loved and those who mourned him as a king after his death. I wish that I was a UK resident and sign the petition, even though I doubt it will change anything.

[Anne FS]

He was not so ugly as Shakespeare would have you believe.

Have a look.
http://phys.org/news/2013-02-richard...led-years.html

Shakespeare's ugliness was in large part to bodily physical deformities, not facial. The old equation of ugly = evil. Wasn't it Shakespeare who referred to Richard III as a hunchback, when contemporary accounts indicated nothing of the sort? There's a big difference between having scoliosis or a hunchback.

Also, the reconstructed face took a lot from the painting in the National Portrait Gallery: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/se...ng-Richard-III

[Janet]

Also, the reconstructed face took a lot from the painting in the National Portrait Gallery: http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/se...ng-Richard-III

According to the press statement, they deliberately did the facial reconstruction WITHOUT looking at any of the portraits - until the point that they added skin tone, hair, and hat.

[Alagirl]

I understand that the arrangements have been made to re-inter him at Leicester, but I so wish Richard of York could be returned home to the northern region he loved and those who mourned him as a king after his death. I wish that I was a UK resident and sign the petition, even though I doubt it will change anything.

shucks, write a letter anyhow. The Yorkshire people will appreciate it!