Looks more like a young Bono.
Posted on 02/25/2013 9:06:05 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Looks like Laurence Olivier to me.
“Why, I can smile and murder whiles I smile,
And cry ‘content’ to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face for all occasions”
Shakespeare’s Richard III
Wish they'd taken the hat off the reconstruction, because you can't really see the forehead or skull shape (bet they don't match up & that's why).
One minor correction: Elizabeth II is still very much alive.
“Make me immortal with a....” Yuck! Never mind. That’s Christopher Marlowe anyway.
The resemblance is amazing to be so close after so many generations.
Puritanism is/was the opposite of a good thing. Cromwell was a tyrant. And the Pilgrims were not Puritans.
I stand corrected. Liz the 1st was the last of the Tudor clan. Liz the 2nd is a Windsor.
You are right about the Plantagenets. I discovered I was a descendant of Thomas Dudley, the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, who in turn was a descendant of Henry II, a Plantagenet king. Secretary of State John Kerry is also a descendant of Thomas Dudley, a relation I am not exactly proud to admit.
And you are right about the Tudors, easily the most bloody dynasty ever to rule England, although they did succeed in making Great Beitain a dominant European colonial and super power of that age.
He was in his treatment of the Irish and Roman Catholics. He was not in doing some of the things which needed to be done like executing the tyrant King Charles I.
And the Pilgrims were not Puritans.
Yes they were albeit not in the same sense as later Puritans who behaved like tyrants when they gained power.
Few are the examples of history of people who did not turn into tyrants when they gained power.
George Washington is perhaps the best example. So were the first five presidents who followed him. That is why our constitution was designed with checks and balances to limit the acquisition of power. It is still a new and revolutionary concept far superior to the alternatives proposed by the libtards who would, at best, take us back to the days of feudalism and, at worst, into absolute tyranny.
When Elizabeth I was crowned, England was a nation of a mere 2.5 million who had lost all their overseas possessions under the incompetent rule of her father and her sister Mary. It is estimated that 72,000 English were executed under the reign of Henry VIII, roughly 3% of the entire population, mostly for political and petty crimes.
I would suspect that your same Dudley line is a branch of the same family who was terminated with the brutal execution of Lady Jane Grey and her husband by orders of Mary I.
In 20-20 hindsight, it is easy to see why the American Revolution was inevitable with bad blood between the ruling class and those they ruled dating back nearly three centuries before the revolution in the old country.
You are thinking of Guildford Dudley, the husband of Lady Jane Grey. He was beheaded at the age of 19 along with his young wife and his father John Dudley. John was a top minister in the Protestant government of Edward VI. After the young king died, his older sister, the Catholic Mary, was next in line to throne. John Dudley was a fervent Protestant who detested Catholicism. The last thing he wanted another Catholic monarch. He conspired to have Lady Jane Grey, a Protestant granddaughter of one of Henry VIII’s sister marry his son, Guildford and have Lady Jane assume the throne. As Princess Mary was next in line to the throne, and Edward VI’s sister, such a plot had no chance, was quickly put down. After a short reign of just nine days, Mary I put down the plot and became queen. Both Dudleys were executed along with Lady Jane Grey. I am descended from Thomas Dudley, one of their cousins, who became the first of governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony. His daughter, Anne, married another governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, Simon Bradstreet. Anne Dudley Bradstreet has the distinction of being the American poetess. Both John Kerry and I are descended from the Dudley-Winthrop family. John Dudley had a second son, Robert Dudley, who was famous as one of the “Virgin” Queen’s (Elizabeth I) favorites.
Read Josephine Tey’s “A Daughter of Time” for another side on
Richard III’s story...I think that’s the title...great book!
Please tell, by what standard can Charles be measured a tyrant but by which Cromwell cannot?
Please tell, by what standard can Charles be measured a tyrant but by which Cromwell cannot?
The resemblance is so alike that it really looks just like a portrait of the living descendent. It makes one wonder how much “science” went into the recnstruction.
What a weird doubling of the post!
As Cromwell killed a good many of my ancestors and only by the skin of there teeth did any escape his protestant wrath—I have no love of this Dictator. The castle my people built how has an Englishman living it. Sometimes I have half a mind to evict him. No Richard III has a steely face—I bet he could have been a right basta*d when he had to be. He could kill and not lose any sleep over it. But most of the kings were like that and I believe—still are.
I’ll take a crack at it.
The logical drive of ideology for Charles and his supporters was towards absolute monarchy like that in France and Spain. This was actually considered modern and the wave of the future at the time. Englishmen whining about their “rights” was antiquated and behind the times. Very old fashioned.
When Cromwell and his guys not only overthrew the king but chopped his lying head off, they demonstrated in the most literal sense possible that the People, or some group of them, or their delegates, rule in England, not a Monarch by the Grace of God. Parliament was always supreme after that. And that tradition of rejection of absolutism is that from which America sprang. There is a line of descent from Cromwell to Washington and Jefferson. Not from Charles to the Founders.
Actually, I think neither Charles nor Cromwell was much of a tyrant at heart. Charles just wanted others to respect and obey him as was his right as King. The trouble was that the political world was changing and Charles refused to adapt. He was a remarkably decent man in his private life, but was not competent to ride the wave of a political tsunami.
(It’s interesting that some of the most decent monarchs - as men - had the greatest tragedies befall them: Nicholas II, Charles I, George V and Louis XVI. Meanwhile lots of ahole kings who deserved horrible fates lived and died in enjoyment of their pleasures.)
When things started going badly for Charles he comprehensively and repeatedly demonstrated that he simply could NOT be trusted to keep his word. Not because he was a lying deceiving SOB, but because he quite honestly viewed it as his Duty to break his word when it would help to reinstate his proper position in the realm. Since none of his more effective opponents could trust him to keep his word, they had no real alternative but to take him out of the picture, since if he came back to power and did not keep his word with regard to amnesty and such, they would all be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Cromwell also desmonstrated little of the hunger for absolute power shown by Napoleon, Hitler and other tyrants. He crushed revolts and struggled to establish a legitimate basis for power other than the King. He failed, of course, and reverted to military despotism as a last resort. But he was remarkably mild as tyrants go, repeatedly trying to work with the leading men of the realm to establish a new and better system of governance instead of just imposing his will.
Looks more like a young Bono.
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