Richard III (No withered arm means he COULD have played the Ukulele)

UkeyDave

UkeyDave

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Nothing to do with Ukulele but this is so exciting for me because these bones were found within a mile of my birthplace and for anyone interested in English History this is a fascinating presentation of some marvellous academic work by the University of Leicester.
Here is the FULL press conference for those of you not in the UK and have therefore have not seen the full press conference.
Apologies again for posting a non-Uke link but I'm sure there will be some history buffs who will find this as fascinating as I did.
Apologies to those not interested but this is very exciting news for my City I had to share it. I hope the moderators don't decide to put me in the Tower of London.

 
Fascinating, thanks for posting!
 
It's really cool news. I'm hoping he gets a proper burial now.

It reminded my husband and me of our honeymoon trip. We were in Edinburgh and knew that John Knox was buried somewhere there. He is an important religious figure. Guess where we found his grave? In a parking lot. At least there was a small marker saying "John Knox is buried here."
 
sukie said:
It's really cool news. I'm hoping he gets a proper burial now.

It reminded my husband and me of our honeymoon trip. We were in Edinburgh and knew that John Knox was buried somewhere there. He is an important religious figure. Guess where we found his grave? In a parking lot. At least there was a small marker saying "John Knox is buried here."
Click to expand...

How ironic according to Wikipedia John Knox is buried in a Car Park adjacent to the Cathedral. King Richard was found within a stones throw of Leicester Cathedral.
 
I picked up an interest in R3 in the early 70's thanks to a book arguing his unfair treatment by history and was very interested when I read the announcement of the positive ID.

Bonus points to you for figuring a ukulele angle! "Could have" except for that pesky 15th Century/19th Century snag. How cool is it that the finding was so close to home for you?
 
Yes, I share your excitement, we watched it spellbound..... we're not that far from site of the Battle of Bosworth Field, where he was killed..... this finding really is a major historical event! But still no-one will ever know whether he really murdered the princes in the Tower...... !
 
THANK YOU! As someone fascinated by R3 and his depiction by Shakespeare, I am thrilled to have this press conference, and that you for posting it.

To make it ukulele relevant, I would like to announce a startling discovery: Shakespeare got it wrong! King Richard's last words were actually,

A uke! A uke! My kingdom for a uke!
 
Of course, he DID have a proper burial originally, since the car park is on the site of a medieval church. He was buried under the choir area, apparently. That's one of the things that tipped off the archaeologists that this skeleton was likely to be him.
 
I'm in the US and woke up just in time to catch the DNA findings and official conclusion on the livestream. This was an exciting announcement for me too. Richard III was the first Shakespeare play I read and saw performed live. It got me thinking about the real Richard III and I ended up joining the Richard III society. My membership has since lapsed, but it triggered a real interest in English history and I will always be grateful for that.

If you are in the UK, or know how to access their TV shows in other ways, I recommend the channel 4 documentary Richard III: The King in the Car Park. It is quite entertaining.

And to try to get on topic, perhaps there's music of that era we should all try to learn on uke. Or maybe a punk anthem railing against that usurping Henry Tudor. ; )
 
Chris Tarman said:
Of course, he DID have a proper burial originally, since the car park is on the site of a medieval church. He was buried under the choir area, apparently. That's one of the things that tipped off the archaeologists that this skeleton was likely to be him.
Click to expand...
Thats an interesting point. It seems he may have been buried naked (the press conference makes reference to the possibility of no shroud) and possibly with his hands tied (due to the unusual position of his body and hands crossed which was unusual - was he buried or dumped?). He was certainly in a consecrated grave but whether it was a proper burial is open to doubt. All very fascinating stuff either way.
 
Chris Tarman said:
Of course, he DID have a proper burial originally, since the car park is on the site of a medieval church. He was buried under the choir area, apparently. That's one of the things that tipped off the archaeologists that this skeleton was likely to be him.
Click to expand...

But why did he end up under a parking lot? You would think they would have protected the grave. He was the king, right? Even though perhaps unpopular. But I am understanding maybe not as horrible as once thought.
 
sukie said:
But why did he end up under a parking lot? You would think they would have protected the grave. He was the king, right? Even though perhaps unpopular. But I am understanding maybe not as horrible as once thought.
Click to expand...

Good question. Its all to do with Henry VIII and the DISSOLUTION of the monasteries see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars,_Leicester
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Monasteries
Basically they were levelled and over the Centuries built on. Hence lost.
 
sukie said:
But why did he end up under a parking lot? You would think they would have protected the grave. He was the king, right? Even though perhaps unpopular. But I am understanding maybe not as horrible as once thought.
Click to expand...

Heh, heh. It's amazing how much history ends up under parking lots...

For most of us "transplanted europeans" here in the US our "history" in terms of monumental buildings and the like goes back about 350 years (and most of the early structures were pretty temporary in nature). Even so, much of our history is buried in one way or another. I've traced my family back to the revolutionary war, and many of them were buried under what is now a big man-made lake in Eastern TN. Some of the graves were moved when the dam was built, but even in those cases many of the records were lost so no one can figure out where the bodies were reburied. And...we're talking about folks who were buried less than 100 years ago!

And, of course, every few years a native American burial ground or early slave cemetery is uncovered during construction - usually while excavating for a parking lot... :)

Still, in Europe the recorded history dwarfs ours, by far, and in general the construction of early buildings is far more permanent than ours. I've only been to England for a short trip to the village just outside of RAF Mildenhall back in the 80's, but I was really impressed by the cottages that were older than most of our "important" buildings!

John
 
sukie said:
But why did he end up under a parking lot? You would think they would have protected the grave. He was the king, right? Even though perhaps unpopular. But I am understanding maybe not as horrible as once thought.
Click to expand...
The point about the big news is that the whereabouts of Richard's grave were a mystery.... one surviving rumour from the time had even said that his body had been thrown into the river by townspeople, never to be found.... and it has taken a lot of research and a big fund-raising exercise to organise the dig under the car park to see whether he was buried there - and he was. The whole thing took 4 years + to do. The UK Channel 4 programme explains the whole fascinating story if you can get to see it.
 
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