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In Shakespeare's Richard III, the doomed young Prince, about to be sent to the Tower by Richard, his guardian, says that "Methinks the truth should live from age to age / As 'twere retailed to all posterity / Even to the general all-ending day." To which Richard, already planning his next move, mutters "So wise so young, they say, do never live long." No one denies the value of truth, not even Shakespeare's villainous Richard, and even as we struggle to find it in a world flooded with information and opinion. I can't tell you where you'll find the truth...

A Welsh courtier with the boldness to bed the queen lost his head this date in 1461 … but his career in usurpation was just getting started. The House of Tudor that would come to rule England counted Owen its sire; the four-year-old grandson he left at his death grew up to become the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII. Owen produced the root of this august line with Dowager Queen Catherine of Valois, the French princess Henry V had extracted as part of the price of peace after Agincourt. That union was supposed to join the two great realms, but...

New evidence, helping to form a 15th-century reconstruction of part of Westminster Abbey, demonstrates how a section of the building was once the focus for the royal family's devotion to the cult of a disemboweled saint and likely contained gruesome images of his martyrdom...Today, only an intricate frame remains from the lost chapel of St. Erasmus. It was demolished in 1502 and little has been known about its role historically...In the end, Elizabeth's last resting place was next to her beloved husband in Windsor in St. George's Chapel, which Edward IV had begun in 1475. Future monarchs have also been...

Wolsey was much inspired by Pietro Torrigiano's gilt tomb for Henry VII at Westminster Abbey, and the Cardinal commissioned Benedetto Da Rovezzano to work on lavish tomb in the Renaissance style, of which the Wolsey Angels were to stand proudly at the four corners. As we know, the tomb was not completed during Wolsey's life time and following his fall from grace and subsequent death King Henry VIII reappropriated the elements of the tomb that Benedetto had thus far completed, discarding the effigy of Wolsey and other items which specifically pertained to the Cardinal.Henry went on to commission Benedetto to...

IT'S REMARKABLE what five centuries can do for a guy's reputation. When Richard III, the last Plantaganet king of England, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, his corpse was stripped and hauled in disgrace through the streets of Leicester, "all besprinkled with mire and blood … a miserable spectacle," as Holinshed's Chronicle recounted. Then it was stuffed into a crude grave, naked and coffinless, while "few lamented and many rejoiced." This week, the medieval king, whose bones were found under a parking lot in 2012, will be reburied in Leicester Cathedral with full reverence and honor....

On this date in 1510, the new king Henry VIII had his dad’s most hated tax collectors beheaded on Tower Hill. When Henry Tudor conquered Bosworth Field to emerge from the War of the Roses as King Henry VII, he brought the baggage of being the son of some Welsh squire. His shaky legitimacy exposed the newborn Tudor dynasty to existential threats from every quarter; even putative allies proved liable to turn against him. Henry consequently looked for every opportunity to centralize power away from institutions that could check or threaten him and into his own hands — nowhere more...

The fascinating, fragile and ruthless reign of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. (Documentary appx 1 hr)

Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley would both earn themselves the reputation as Henry VII's hatchet men -- which is fair enough; but in addition they would be characterised by Polydore Vergil and others to characterize as extortioners... on Henry VII's death in 1509, Dudley was a fall guy for what was essentially his master's policy. He was tried in London in July 1509 and convicted of treason; the ludicrous accusation was that he planned to "hold, guide and govern the King and his Council" with a force of men. He probably did assemble a force of men given the political...

On this date in 1554, rebel leader Thomas Wyatt the Younger tied on his own blindfold and laid his head on the block, having declared that not “any other now in your durance [i.e., the Tower] was privy to my rising” That remark exculpated the Princess Elizabeth, who just days before had been ominously rowed to the Tower on suspicion of having known of or involved herself in Wyatt‘s abortive revolt. And Wyatt had had to do more than talk the talk to keep the future Queen Elizabeth I out of the executioner’s way. Sore afraid that Wyatt’s rebellion had...

...One of the most disputed stories of extreme age belongs to a 17th century man named Thomas Parr, who claimed to be 152 years old at the time of his death... Most of what historians know about the life of Tom Parr comes from John Taylor’s pamphlet, published the year of Parr’s death, “The old, old, very old man or the age and very long life of Thomas Parr.” Parr lived most of his life as a farm laborer in the county of Shropshire, and married his first wife when he was 80 years old... Parr, at some point, started...

I’m Michael Voris coming to you from London, England. This country is planted thick with churches and convents and monasteries and practically all of them are stolen property. Buildings that originally were built by Catholic religious orders and everyday Catholics over the course of centuries were ripped off from the Catholic Church in a handful of years because Henry VIII couldn’t control his sexual desires. So part of the fabric of English Catholicism is this undercurrent of having been victimized by the Protestant, usurping monarchy and greedy noblemen. It’s woven into the very life and language of some faithful English...

As muddy holes go, they don't get much more romantic. Beneath four feet of heavy south London clay, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of Henry VII's lost chapel at Greenwich. The site is where he and a host of his Tudor successors - Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I - worshipped.   Click to enlarge The existence of the chapel, part of the Royal Palace of Placentia, a Tudor favourite but pulled down in the 17th century to be replaced by Greenwich Hospital - now the Old Naval College - has long been known from paintings and records.But until...

Thanks to the careful work of archaeologists, we learned more in the past year about Stonehenge's hidden monuments, Richard III's gruesome death and King Tut's mummified erection. From the discovery of an ancient tomb in Greece to the first evidence of Neanderthal art, here are 10 of Live Science's favorite archaeology stories of 2014. 1. An Alexander the Great-era tomb at Amphipolis [snip] 2. Stonehenge's secret monuments [snip] 3. A shipwreck under the World Trade Center [snip] 4. Richard III's twisted spine, kingly diet and family tree [snip] 5. A teenager in a "black hole" [snip] 6. Syria by satellite...

Richard III's last moments were likely quick but terrifying, according to a new study of the death wounds of the last king of England to die in battle. The last king of the Plantagenet dynasty faced his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field on Aug. 22, 1485, only two years after ascending the throne. The battle was the deciding clash in the long-running Wars of the Roses, and ended with the establishment of Henry Tudor as the new English monarch. But Richard III's last moments were the stuff of legend alone, as the king's body was lost until September...

Not only was Richard III one of England’s most despised monarchs, but it now turns out the hunchback king was probably infected with parasitic worms that grew up to a foot in length. Researchers who dug up Richard III’s skeleton underneath a parking lot in Leicester last year now report they discovered numerous roundworm eggs in the soil around his pelvis, where his intestines would have been. They compared that to soil samples taken close to Richard’s skull and surrounding his grave. There were no eggs near the skull and only traces of eggs in the soil near the grave....

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...

The background Archeologists from Leicester University have uncovered an intact skeleton which they believe is that of Richard III, the king whose reputation as a ruthless hunchback comes from William Shakespeare’s play. The skeleton has a deformed spine, and is at the site of Grey Friars church, where Richard was thought to have been buried after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, where he was defeated by Henry Tudor. His grave is now underneath a council car park in Leicester. DNA tests will reveal whether he’s really the king or not – it’s an adult male, with spinal abnormalities that...

Archeologists at the University of Leicester in central England say they have discovered a human skeleton with battle wounds and a curved spine that could be the remains of King Richard III.

Archaeologists may have solved the puzzle of where the English king Richard III, immortalized by Shakespeare in his play is buried as they have started digging a car park in Leicester for his lost remains. The University of Leicester, Leicester City Council and the Richard III Society have joined forces to search for the grave of Richard III, thought to be under a parking lot for city council offices. The team will use ground-penetrating radar to search for the ideal spots to dig. "This archaeological work offers a golden opportunity to learn more about medieval Leicester as well as about...

(Reuters) - Archaeologists searching for the body of England's King Richard III under a city centre parking lot said on Wednesday they had found remains which could be those of the monarch depicted by Shakespeare as an evil, deformed, child-murdering monster.