A Lack of Back-bone

At the start of Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones has surmounted spiders, poisoned darts, murder and treachery. Having finally reached the safety of his friend's sea-plane the audience is allowed a welcome slice of comedy, as our hero, freaks out, when he discovers the pilot's pet snake coiled next to him. His friend acidly remarks, "Come on, show a little back-bone, Indy!" Back-bone is the attribute noteable by its absence from those Ricardians, who have swallowed - hook, line and sinker - the infallible decrees of Leicester University, as to the identity of the remains discovered in the car park. For years those well disposed to Richard have rejected his physical descriptions given by Tudor lackeys. In this they have had support from portraits, showing evidence of tampering to give the appearance of a man with shoulders of uneven height.

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An intolerable little priest

John Rous was born around 1411 near Warwick. Having been education at Oxford he only left it in 1445 to enter the employ of the Beauchamp family. He became one of the two priests retained as Chaplain of St. Mary Magdalene at Guy's Cliff 2 miles from Warwick. Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick founded it for masses to be sung for himself, his wife, parents and friends. When Richard Neville succeeded to the earldom in 1449 by right of his wife Anne, Rous simply exchanged one patron for another. He remained totally loyal to the earls of Warwick and their descendents even after Richard Neville fell at Barnet in 1471.

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Desert Island Discs with Richard III

For those outside of the range of BBC Radio 4, I should first explain that Desert Island Discs is a long-running programme in which a guest chooses 8 favourite pieces of music, which they would choose to have with them on a desert island. A similar thing has been adapted for King Richard III, with the University of Leicester's concert of a selection of music it is supposed the King would have known. It is a curious conceit. I - for one - would not like a selection chosen for me in 500 years. Given the range of time used in the case of King Richard, the selection might be as diverse as Elvis Presley and Marilyn Manson - indicative of the time, but both irrelevant to my taste.

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Bending the Truth?

Richard S. Sylvester commenting on Thomas More's description of Richard III (see page 7 of the Yale Edition of the Complete Works, Volume 2) writes: This detail (crook-backed) is not found in Rous, the Croyland Chronicle, Fabyan or Polydore and it is certainly not noticeable in the contemporary portraits of Richard. ... If Richard had such a deformity it could not have been conspicuous. In Richard III: The Unseen Story Dr. Piers Mitchell of Cambridge University stated that the remains discovered in Leicester displayed a curve of 60 to 80 degrees - a very noticeable and very conspicuous deformity.

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Science can "prove" anything

In 1974 as a post-graduate student in Theoretical Physics I attended a course of lectures in Cambridge on The Structure and Evolution of Stars. The lecturer, Dr. Gough, good humouredly spent about 8 one hour sessions constructing a mathematical model to show how he believed stars had evolved over vast amounts of time. Such a structure was full of guesses, approximations and some tough mathematics, as are all complex theories. At last he had reduced his labours to a single number, a value which could be checked by observation on real stars in the heavens. With a sober face he announced that the two values - theory and observation - differed by a factor of 10.

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To Prove a Villain

"See, I told you that Shakespeare was right!" Over the last month this jibe had echoed down the internet from the ignorant and misinformed in a variety of ways. But the message is unmistakeable. The skeleton found in Leicester has a severe curvature of the spine - crippling in its severity and this is precisely the kind of deformity envisaged in the play of "Richard III". From this all sorts of unspoken, as yet, inferences emerge, to the effect that this twisted body housed a twisted mine and this man did unspeakable things. With almost religious fervour the haters of Richard III cling to this mantra: "Crook-back!"

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More violence and cruelty

As Thomas More's political power increased, he began to show a side of his character which had been hidden under his supposed wit and penchant for teasing. On 14th May 1529 he summoned the influential London merchant, Humphrey Monmouth, to appear before him. Privy Councillor More interrogated Monmouth thoroughly. What books and letters had he received from Europe? What support did he give to William Tyndale, who had translated the Greek New Testament into English? What books did he own? Monmouth gave More clear answers to these questions, but the heretic-hunter had Monmouth's London home searched from top to bottom, just in case. No compromising material was found, but that did not prevent More, th lawyer, from imprisoning Monmouth in the Tower of London.

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Looking for Richard Project: A Statement by David and Wendy Johnson

In February 2009 Philippa Langley launched the Looking for Richard Project. As close friends and fellow Ricardians we joined forces with Philippa to become the project’s founding members, working behind the scenes on documentation and guidance. Our principal objective was to recover King Richard’s remains and reinter them with the honour and dignity so brutally denied in 1485 following the battle of Bosworth. We now wish to correct a number of important misconceptions about the project and make clear why we are now actively supporting the campaign to inter King Richard’s mortal remains in York Minster.

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