The Long Lost Bones of Richard III
The most talked about member of the monarchy this year is not anyone living. It is the monarch Richard III whose long lost bones were discovered beneath a parking lot in Leicester in January 2013. This was an exciting find because anthropologists and historians have been searching for the villified King’s remains for decades.
By February 4th, 2013 scientists had announced that they had identified beyond all reasonable doubt: the skeletal remains of Richard III. The identity of the monarch who died in the area during the Battle of Hastings over 540 years ago was confirmed in several ways including DNA testing.
People all over the world were amazed when Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester and Kevin Schurer, a genealogist at the school pored over records to find two of the King’s living descendants. One was a gentleman living in Toronto, Ontario Canada and the other was a furniture maker living in London. King to DNA samples from these individuals and then compared them to the DNA found in the skeleton. The result was a match that confirmed that the remains found in the parking lot were the remains of the long vilified Monarch.
Richard III was not a lucky man while he was King. He suffered from a back deformity due to scoliosis and died at age 32 of injuries he sustained during the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485. The skull that was found showed two gruesome head injuries that the King likely suffered during his last moments. It is likely he was killed by a blow to the head from a halbred which is an ancient medieval weapon consisting of an axe blade topped with a spike. After he died there is also evidence that he was stripped and thrown over a horse. The skeleton was also “slight in body” as matches descriptions from the time he ruled.
Richard III was not a savory character in history. In Shakespeare’s play he is characterized by Shakespeare as being a cruel despot who claws his way to the throne by murdering his wife, older brother and two young nephews only to suffer death at the hands of the handsome young Tudor hero named Henry VII.
Interestingly enough scientist have been able to use the remains to create a bust of what Richard III would have looked like when alive complete with a large chin, arched nose and delicate lips. Unlike the deformed person described in Shakespeare’s play the bust is quite elegant. His full name was “His Grace Richard Plantagenet, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland.”