The Return of the King.

[Deleted]

Archaeologists digging up a car park in King Richard's Road have found a tomb containing the skeleton of a man bearing terrible wounds.
I looks like King Richard III, who died "fighting manfully in the press of his enemies," in the Battle of Bosworth in 1486 is back with us
This will be a good time to restore the memory of this much-maligned monarch - the last of the brilliant Plantagenets.
The possibiities of DNA testing and a State Funeral are looking good.

[pim]

David have you read Sharon Penman's historical novel The Sunne in Splendour which gives a notional account of Richard III?

Good read!! Next time you're lazing on the beach, or on a long haul o'seas flight ...

[Deleted]

Actual portrait of Richard III.

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[jody]

Hopefully it is him. Some pictures would be great. You might have to save them seperately then repost.

[Deleted]

Pim, I haven't found Sharon Penman too good in the past.
A very interesting book is Josphine Tey's The Daughter of Time, which clearly argues against the villainy of Richard.

[Deleted]

The archaeologists have noted a spinal disorder, which may lie at the base of the "Crookback" legend. Many upper-class men might have had over-developed right shoulders from sword practice; while the lower classes would have had deformed left shoulders from pulling huge bows.
Now we know how King Richard's Road got its name.

[pim]

Shakespeare gave Richard III a bad press. It kinda colours the way history has viewed him.

Mind you Shakespeare wrote his Richard III in about 1590 which places the play in the latter years of the reign of the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth 1 whose grandfather, the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, had ended Richard IIIs reign at the Battle of Bosworth in the 1400s. The Tudors had always been perched precariously on the English throne. After all the Plantagenets were and remain to this day England's longest lasting royal dynasty. The Windsors are only now starting to run them a close second with the 300th anniversary of the accession of Geirge 1 coming up in 2014. But the Plantagenets lasted longer than 300 years and Richard III was the last of them and the Tudors that followed them always had to struggle to gain the royal legitimacy and gravitas that had come so naturally to the Plantagenets. The fact that Shakespeare portrayed Richard III as an evil murderer and as some sort of totalitarian fascist was down to the fact that the Queen at the time he wrote his play was the most brilliant of the Tudors.

Same with Shakespeare's Macbeth which is one of his darkest historical plays. It was written in the early 1600s. Elizabeth 1 had died in 1603 and the Tudors were history. The King was now a Scot, a Stuart who'd been James VI in Scotland and who was now James 1 in England. Macbeth is about a Scottish King during the Dark Ages when there really was a Scottish King called Macbeth - about 600 or 700 years before Shakespeare wrote the play. In the play, Macbeth is a noble warrior who serves his King, Duncan, faithfully and courageously and tragically comes under the spell of three witches who turn him into a murderer and a usurper. He murders his King in his sleep and seizes the throne of Scotland. The witches then reveal to Macbeth that while he is king he will have no heir and that the royal succession will pass to the descendants of his best friend Banquo, so Macbeth has Banquo murdered but B's son gets away and survives the murder attempt. Of course with Banquo we're talking about the possible ancestor of the King in Shakespeare's time, James 1. So naturally Shakespeare was always going to paint Macbeth in the blackest of colours while Banquo comes across as a noble tragic victim. It is a wonderful play and one of my favourites. But as history I've always thought it to be a bit dodgy.

So I'm pleased that Richard III might end up being rehabilitated. I'd like to see the same for the historical Macbeth.

[Deleted]

Shakespeare has a lot to answer for. But the Big Question remains:

WHO DID KILL THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER."

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[Deleted]

The two boys in the picture are King Richard's nephews King Edward V and his brother Richard Duke of York.They were lodged in the Tower of London and simply disappeared. Two skeletons were found in the 1680's, probably theirs. Nobody knows nothing.

[jody]

Was there any truth the the fact Shakespeare was a fraud?

[Deleted]

The argument continues to rage over who wrote the plays, Jody. They seem to have been written by a very well-travelled, well-educated person, which Shakespeare was (probably) not.
The theatre was not considered very respectable work, and writing plays like Richard III was very risky politically.
A likely candidate is a nobleman who (possibly) died before Macbeth was written; but the play contains references to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Pim may have more to say about this.

[jody]

One has to wonder whether he really was friends with Elizabeth 1

[Deleted]

The Queen would never be associated with something a lowlife as the theatre. Only recently have actors been objects of admiration. Tom Cruise would not have been one of the most important people on the planet then, as he is today.

[pim]

Sept 28, 2012 10:14:40 GMT 10 @david said:

The Queen would never be associated with something a lowlife as the theatre. Only recently have actors been objects of admiration. Tom Cruise would not have been one of the most important people on the planet then, as he is today.

Tom Cruise???

[Deleted]

Tom Cruise is the reason why the Roman Republic placed a ban on actors ever holding public office.

[pim]

Ahhh!

"Thomas" in Latin is "Didymus". Is that why we say "aww diddums!" Kinda goes with Didymus Crusus

[jody]

lol David you sound like my Dad.....he hates Tom Cruise with a passion.

[jody]

lol @ Darj