Richard III

[prendrelemick]

I seem to remember that William (the bastard)I, had a "Good" and a "Devil" among his ancestors. That must really mess with your head.

Two queens who must've been absolute stunners were Elizabeth Woodville as mentioned, and Anne Boleyn. Both were wooed and married by Kings against all the best advice. This makes me think that Elizabeth I must've been a looker too, as the above ladies were her Mother and Great Grandma.


I certainly haven't heard of Adeliza.

I hesitate to use the words most ugly when referring to Queens, but Anne of Cleaves and Caroline of Brunswick could be strong contenders.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

...This makes me think that Elizabeth I must've been a looker too,...

We were taught that after her death, approximately 1/2 inch of make up "shell" was removed from her face.
I believe it was 7th grade history class taught by the baseball coach.

[prendrelemick]

^Every woman needs a little help now and then.

[Zaza]

Imagine if you were going to marry a guy already known as 'the Bad' Gulp.

I think there was a someone 'the Impotent' but maybe it's a mad delusion.....

Despite her beautiful forebears, Elizabeth I certainly wasn't a beauty in her portraits.

Anne of Cleves looks not bad in the Holbein portrait, but I think he painted her full face on to improve things.

Adeliza was the second wife of Henry I, he of the 23 children. She was meant to help him have a son to replace the 'White Ship' one, but they never had children, and of course she got the blame, 'cos how could it be him when he already had the 23?. After his death, she married an English nobleman for love and they had 9 children, 'tho she didn't start till she was in her mid-thirties. So there you are - 32 children and not one together.

Charles the Rash of Burgundy - there must be loads of others.....

[tonywalt]

I don't know - Liz I, sure I would have dated her.

[prendrelemick]

Imagine if you were going to marry a guy already known as 'the Bad' Gulp.

I think there was a someone 'the Impotent' but maybe it's a mad delusion.....

Despite her beautiful forebears, Elizabeth I certainly wasn't a beauty in her portraits.

Anne of Cleves looks not bad in the Holbein portrait, but I think he painted her full face on to improve things.Adeliza was the second wife of Henry I, he of the 23 children. She was meant to help him have a son to replace the 'White Ship' one, but they never had children, and of course she got the blame, 'cos how could it be him when he already had the 23?. After his death, she married an English nobleman for love and they had 9 children, 'tho she didn't start till she was in her mid-thirties. So there you are - 32 children and not one together.

Charles the Rash of Burgundy - there must be loads of others.....

And that led to more trouble, Henry was shown the portrait of Anne and liked what he saw. He was so ardent he galloped out to meet her off the ship. However the portrait was a bit too flattering. The dissapointed Henry said the real thing had a face like a horse! Posterity doesn't tell us what she thought of him.

So our Queenly dating agency is nothing new, neither are photoshopped pictures.



I think the young Liz was bright and beautiful.

[Nick Capozzoli]

You can look at the skeleton they dug up on-line. DNA analysis was done (checking against known descendants) and it looks like
the skeleton is Richard's. The skeleton also shows a scoliotic spine, consistent with what is believed to be Richard's deformity.

Looks like he also was mutilated after death....e.g. limbs cut off. I guess that such
post-mortem treatment indicates that those who killed him were not inclined to show
much respect for his body...

So, yes, it is probably the skeleton of that King...

It will be interesting to see what they do with the skeletal remains.

[prendrelemick]

If you think about it it is obvious that he would have a "crookback" the Tudors couldn't have started a false rumour like that when there were loads of people still around who knew him.

Let's say Thomas Moore's History of Richard III was the main source for Shakespeare's play. ( I'm playing at "what if" here.) Moore wrote it less than thirty years or so after Richard died. In other words he was his contempory, and most of his readers would be too. So Moore couldn't say he was hunch-backed if he wasn't.


It may be true that no one mentioned it while he was King. But it just goes to show that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Zaza]

Thomas More also said he had a withered arm. He would have found it a bit difficult to fight in all those battles if he really had all these physical problems. Laurence Olivier gave him a limp as well.

The point of describing him in this way was that to writers of that era, outward deformity was a reflection of inner evil. At the very least, they exaggerated for their purposes. As for not being able to make it up because there were people around who still knew him, it was a new era and they could say what they liked.

More wasn't his contemporary anyway. He was about three years old when the usurpation happened.

[OrphanPip]

From what I heard about the skeleton, it seems the scoliosis would only have shown when he had his shirt off, most of the time it wouldn't have been obvious to anyone that he had any sort of physical abnormality. I think the popular explanation for the rumour was that the scoliosis was discovered after his death, and then the humpback thing became more exaggerated over time.

[Paulclem]

i wondered about his reconstructured face. It seems to be scientific, and based upon muscle depth etc etc, but i wonder if it will become discredited. It would depend upon the amount of subjective input from the craftsman/ artist. The question is, were they influenced by knowledge of his portraits?

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?hl=en...r:14,s:0,i:178

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?hl=en...,r:6,s:0,i:154

[OrphanPip]

If you want to talk about ugly monarchs, the Habsburgs probably take the cake. They were so inbred that their prognasthism (that is a severe underbite) reached such extreme levels that some of them couldn't close their mouths!

[prendrelemick]

Thomas More also said he had a withered arm. He would have found it a bit difficult to fight in all those battles if he really had all these physical problems. Laurence Olivier gave him a limp as well.

The point of describing him in this way was that to writers of that era, outward deformity was a reflection of inner evil. At the very least, they exaggerated for their purposes. As for not being able to make it up because there were people around who still knew him, it was a new era and they could say what they liked.

More wasn't his contemporary anyway. He was about three years old when the usurpation happened.

Its like saying Hitler only had one b*ll.

[prendrelemick]

If you want to talk about ugly monarchs, the Habsburgs probably take the cake. They were so inbred that their prognasthism (that is a severe underbite) reached such extreme levels that some of them couldn't close their mouths!

I know some people like that!


Whisper it quietly, but our current Queen elect Camilla is a lovely person, but not beautiful in the classic sense.

[Zaza]

I believe one of the last Hapsburgs had severe physical disabilities, due of course to all the intermarriage. The last Hapsburg monarch before the line died out was married to his niece (yuck)!

In the Middle Ages, one in four aristocratic families died out in every generation because of endogamy. Even very prolific families, such as the Nevilles, would reach a point where couples either had no children or couldn't have sons. Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, grandfather of Warwick the Kingmaker, had twenty-six children from two marriages, but Warwick himself got his title from marrying a sole heiress, and had two daughters.

Their obsession with 'keeping the blood pure' was, as we now know, a very bad idea genetically. They hardly ever married someone they weren't related to, with predictable consequences.

Katherine of Aragon's sister, Juana la Loca - ' Joanna the Mad' - highly suggestive, if unscientific.