Richard III: Facial reconstruction shows king's features

BBC ^ | 5 February 2013 | Staff

[Red Badger]

A facial reconstruction based on the skull of Richard III has revealed how the English king may have looked.

The king's skeleton was found under a car park in Leicester during an archaeological dig.

The reconstructed face has a slightly arched nose and prominent chin, similar to features shown in portraits of Richard III painted after his death.

Historian and author John Ashdown-Hill said seeing it was "almost like being face to face with a real person".

The development comes after archaeologists from the University of Leicester confirmed the skeleton found last year was the 15th Century king's, with DNA from the bones having matched that of descendants of the monarch's family. 'Very handsome'

Richard was killed in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, at the age of 32 and after just two years on the throne, having been challenged by the forces of Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII.

Dr Ashdown-Hill, who wrote The Last Days of Richard III, said: "The most obvious features in portraits are the shape of the nose and the chin and both of those are visible in the facial reconstruction."

Richard III Society member Philippa Langley, originator of the search, said on a Channel 4 documentary earlier: "It doesn't look like the face of a tyrant. I'm sorry but it doesn't.

"He's very handsome. It's like you could just talk to him, have a conversation with him right now."

Layers of muscle and skin were added by computer to a scan of the skull and the result was made into a three-dimensional plastic model.

[Red Badger]

He may be a descendent of his............nephews.........

[Vigilanteman]

Excellent and generally balanced, Sherman. Although I think you cut Charles I a little too much slack. He was also the guy who unleashed Archbishop Ladd to imprison, cut off the ears or even execute recalcitrant preachers of Puritanism.

The final straw which led to his execution was the discovery of a plot to bring in French armies and retake his throne by force even though Cromwell was initially quite willing to let him continue to reign as king with limited and defined powers.

BTW, Ladd's own experience with losing his office and his head via Bill of Attainder was one of the reasons we outlawed Bills of Attainder, so even the descendants of Cromwell had remorse over the way Ladd was taken down.

[MinuteGal]

I don't know when I've enjoyed a thread as much as this one.

Many thanks to the freeper history brains who have written all the engrossing narratives upthread. I devoured every word.

We never learned all this detail in school, did we....and to be filled in by our resident freeper intelligentsia is absolutely awesome and fulfilling.

Leni

[dfwgator]

We seen the last of Good King Richard
Ring out the past his name lives on
Roll out the bones and raise up your pitcher
Raise up your glass to Good King John

[Vigilanteman]

Thank you for adding those details.

Father Dudley, of course, deserved to lose his head under the standards of the time. Guildford probably did not. Lady Jane Grey most certainly did not. She was only 16 and had to be persuaded not only to marry Dudley but to accept the throne for those fateful nine days. Remember that the people involved were not seen as plotters but as top ministers and regents to the late young King Edward and, as such, the people whom the late king (and probably Henry VIII as well) would have trusted to choose his successor.

Neither Mary, as the daughter of a queen which Henry divorced and a follower of a religion which Henry expelled from England, nor Elizabeth, as the daughter of a queen which Henry executed, were seen by many as the proper successors.

The cowardly council basically left young Lady Jane Grey and Guildford to twist in the wind after pledging to support them once Mary made her triumphant entry into London and claimed the throne.

She could have listened to the cooler heads in her council who urged her to pardon Lady Jane and Guildford as it was clear they posed no opposition. Instead, she chose to behead her cousins and unleash her bloody reign of terror which brought England to the brink of extinction and caused few to mourn her passing five years later.

Thanks also to your reference to the young Robert Dudley as a favorite of Elizabeth I. The "virgin queen" may have had several other young men who regularly serviced her plus, of course, her old favorite Sir Walter Raleigh. But whether it actually crossed the line of close male friendship into sexual services remains a mystery for the ages.

I tend to think that Elizabeth I was a great English patriot who reached the conclusion that she could only begin to restore England to greatness in her lifetime by avoiding marriage to any of the factions which had contented for power before she became queen. It is a romantic notion, perhaps, but I also tend to think it to be the most likely explanation of why she never married despite having plenty of suitors from whom to choose.

[Vigilanteman]

Agreed!

Thank you all . . . even if I disagree with some of you.

[Robwin]

One minor correction: Elizabeth II is still very much alive.

Well you are certainly entitled to your opinion but I have seen rumors that what everyone thinks is Elizabeth 2 is actually an advanced robot designed and employed by those cut ups over at Buckingham Palace to make Charles believe he will never be king.

[Robwin]

One minor correction: Elizabeth II is still very much alive.

Well you are certainly entitled to your opinion but I have seen rumors that what everyone thinks is Elizabeth 2 is actually an advanced robot designed and employed by those cut ups over at Buckingham Palace to make Charles believe he will never be king.

[Robwin]

Oh, fiddles. A 2x. Sigh!

[Sherman Logan]

His whole life Charley convinced himself that everything he did was Right, because it was his kingly Duty. He ruled by divine right, therefore by definition it was his Duty to Rule. His most loyal and competent servant, Tom Wentworth, was condemned to death by Act of Attainder. He had committed no crime, in the strict sense of the term, since he was doing the King's will and the King was above the law. But the Opposition knew that Tom had to go or he'd eventually kill them all. They played for keeps back then.

Turns out the King had to assent to Tom's execution. So Charley convinced himself it was his Duty to toss this utterly loyal servant under the bus to be beheaded. Despite his earlier solemn vow not to do so.

He later did the same with Laud, who pretty much deserved it on some scale, since he had been the primary proponent of forcing bishops on the Scots, which eventually precipitated the crash of the Stuart cart.

Charley was duplicitous, but he wasn't very good at it. He wanted to be honest and straightforward, but kept getting himself into positions where he believed he was justified to deceive those he dickered with. But he just didn't really fool anybody.

Machiavelli would have been disgusted by him. He was sort of the anti-Prince, a ruler who frittered away his authority by alienating his supporters instead of masterfully deceiving everybody till he could grab absolute power.

[Sherman Logan]

It is only fair to point out that it appears Lady Jane, while justly condemned to death for treason, was going to be spared. Until another rebellion against Queen Mary broke out, and Jane’s father and brothers joined it.

At that point she became too dangerous to keep alive and the decision was made to implement the decision of the Court. She was condemned to burning or beheading, but Mary was kind enough to choose the less horrific method.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. In one of the other stories, the skull shows that he was chopped by a sword and a battle-ax. The skeleton shows he wasn’t a hunchback but had lateral curvature of the spine

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks Red Badger, wildbill, and martin_fierro. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Tau Food]

That doesn’t do Richard justice.

[IronJack]

Does have that sort of pinched look about it, doesn’t it?

[Vigilanteman]

You've obviously got a great knowledge of English history which is why it is so fun to read your posts.

Re: Charles II: I had forgotten about poor Tom Wentworth. Entirely possible that our founding fathers could have been thinking about him more than Bishop Laud when they outlawed Bills of Attainder.

Re: Lady Jane Grey: The sloppy secondary rebellion which her father and brothers joined had zero support from her. Since she was imprisoned at the time, it is likely that she never even knew about it. Queen Mary was a bloody tyrant as her five years of misrule would clearly demonstrate. Executing her 16 year old cousin was merely a part of her opening act.

Mary's choice to impose beheading rather than burning doesn't make her any less of a murderer than Anne Boleyn's kind words for Henry VIII before her own head was taken would make him less of a bloody tyrant. What else could Anne say? She was protecting her daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I who, by the way, Mary imprisoned for a time in hopes she could find an excuse to execute her as well.

[Sherman Logan]

I agree that Lady Jane was morally, though not legally, innocent of the crime of treason. But politics was played for high stakes at the time, which is where we get the expression about treason never prospering.

At the highest level of politics, killing your opponents was quite literally self-defense, since if they came to power they would kill you. And of course, they were by the same inexorable logic impelled to kill you in similar self-defense.

This approach to politics still applies in much of the world. I think few Americans and Europeans realize what an enormous change it was when power could transfer peacefully, and defeated leaders just retire into private life.

Per Tom Wentworth: Apparently his abandonment was the only one of his crimes that Charles I was never able to fully justify to himself. Which says something marginally good about the man. I think of it as being like Tony Montana in Scarface, where his downfall is precipitated by his (minimal) residual decency.

[Red Badger]

That was Richard I, The Lionhearted........

[Sherman Logan]

Remember that the people involved were not seen as plotters but as top ministers and regents to the late young King Edward and, as such, the people whom the late king (and probably Henry VIII as well) would have trusted to choose his successor.

Neither Mary, as the daughter of a queen which Henry divorced and a follower of a religion which Henry expelled from England, nor Elizabeth, as the daughter of a queen which Henry executed, were seen by many as the proper successors.

Not the way it worked. Henry VIII had passed thru Parliament a Law of Succession, by which the Crown would descend to Edward, then Mary, then Elizabeth, unless one of them had children first.

Nobody authorized Edward's Council to override that law and decide who would succeed him. So Mary, and pretty much the entire rest of the country, just ignored them and implemented the law.

There is plenty of reason for believing many of the Council members were more interested in protecting their power and graft than in doing what was good for the country.

[Sherman Logan]

Really? I thought it was well known she and the rest of the royal family are shape-shifting lizards from Sigma Draconis.