Richard III, The King in the Car Park
The recent media coverage confirming that the bones found under a car park in Leicester do indeed belong to England's most infamous and reviled Plantagenet king, Richard III, have put me in something of a Medieval mood that I'm dying to share.
Thanks to the wonderful The History Blog and The Richard III Society, I was able to learn some truths about Richard that go beyond Shakespeare and the image of the hunched-backed villain with a limp and withered arm, as played on film by Sir Lawrence Olivier and in the theater by numerous others.
Forensic research and DNA testing are
both remarkable ways of connecting the past with the present. In this case, the
Channel Four documentary, The
King in the Car Park, traced the whole process of validating the
find.
This included taking a swab from a
living descendant (a Canadian-born cabinet-maker from London!) and reconstructing
the face from detailed scans of the skull by Caroline Wilkinson, professor of
craniofacial identification.
The skin color and texture, eyes and
hair were then added by Janice Aitken. This research adds up to the following,
it's definitely Richard, who was a young handsome man (32 when he died), slight
in build with a severe scoliosis of the spine but no hunchback and no withered
arm either.
Richard was a married man. His wife, Lady Anne Neville, (11 June 1456 – 16 March 1485), was an English noblewoman and a great beauty.
Lady Anne's father arranged a marriage
to Edward, the son of King Henry VI of Lancaster, but Edward died suddenly and
then she married his brother Richard. When Richard seized the crown in
June 1483, Anne became Queen.
Five months before Richard was killed
at Bosworth Field, Anne died on 16 March 1485, probably of tuberculosis.
On the day that Queen Anne died, there
was an eclipse, which some took to be an omen of Richard's fall from heavenly
grace. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, in an unmarked grave. Richard is
said to have wept at her funeral.
There was no memorial to her until
1960, when a bronze tablet was erected on a wall near her grave by the Richard
III Society. It's inscription says,
ANNE NEVILLE 1456-1485 QUEEN OF ENGLAND YOUNGER DAUGHTER OF RICHARD EARL OF WARWICK CALLED THE KINGMAKER WIFE TO THE LAST PLANTAGENET KING RICHARD III.
“In person she was seemly, amiable and
beauteous…And according to the interpretation of her name Anne full gracious”
REQUIESCAT IN PACE.
In the Middle Ages, British and European women of high birth covered their heads, much as many Muslim women do today, signifying their modesty.
In this portrait of Anne Neville, she's
wearing the fashionable horned headdress. The following is from Rosalie
Gilbert's blog
A Dictionary of English Costume by
Cunnington and Beard describes the horned headdress as being that which is worn
with wide templers which are wired up to resemble horns from which a pendant
veil curtained the back of the head. English headwear researcher, Katrina
Wood has this to say:
This style of headdress was worn for
many years by the middle classes and was Burgundian-French in origin. The cones
or horns which projected out at roughly a 45 degree angle were called
templettes or templars and over the course of the next few hundred years varied
in shape and size according to fashion. The hair was completely concealed as
decorum dictated. Starched white veils would then be attached to the headpiece
using pins.
The late 15th century saw the return of
the horned headdress for the upper classes. The primary difference between this
and other previous styles of truncated head-dress, is the lack of a padded roll
previously seen in earlier versions and the style of gown it was worn
with. Interesting that the horns went out of fashion, and then came back
in.
I found some wonderful collectable art dolls of Lady Anne Neville and Richard III by Debbie Ritter for sale on Etsy.com '
Finally, from the History Blog, these
panels depict how Richard lost the Battle of Bosworth, died and ended up
beneath the car park in Leicester!
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