To think that just because they have found the bones of Richard III, that doesn't automatically mean that he was actually A Really Bloody Nice Bloke?

[BalloonSlayer]

Constant quotes from the Richard III Society:

"We're going to completely reassess Richard III, we're going to completely look at all the sources again, and hopefully there's going to be a new beginning for Richard as well." Why? It's a skeleton? Was it holding a signed confession from Henry VII of the murder of the Princes in the Tower?

Richard III Society member Philippa Langley, originator of the search, said on a Channel 4 documentary earlier: "It doesn't look like the face of a tyrant. I'm sorry but it doesn't. WTF?

Why does this change anything at all?

Yes GetOrf you are right I guess, but Leicester???

Also, given how much they transported bones of royalty and nobles around its often a bit of a surprise when tombs are opened what is actually present and what is not...

I think Henry I is in Reading.

Are we doing historical fantasy boffs?

Richard the Lionheart. Phwoar. Or Phwoarth.

Hark at GetOrf, the history buff! Don't tell me you're not looking at Woodville thinking "slaphead", GetOrf

A question: in paintings from this era, why do all of the subjects have brown eyes?

Oh GIVE OVER, Buppers.

Richard the Lionheart? To quote Stephen Fry, he wasn't really in the vagina business.

Maybe they didn't have blue paint?

I could have turned him by displaying my wimple at him...

My favourite name in the world is Berengaria (after Richard's wife, poor cow, left half the time in italy or france or cyprus as he gallivanted around crusading.

Lol at slaphead.

I totally dig those curls

Bups perhaps they all had brown eyes, yer daft twat

What? EVERYONE painted in those times had brown eyes?! Don't be a cunt, Getorf!

That reconstructed head of Rich III looks like Nadia who won Big Brother 3.

Minus the implants.

Surely Henry VIII, who was a ginger, had blue eyes. And the golden Sunne of Yorke.

bupcakes - while I think getorf might be right, it might also be to do with pigments. Which I know fuck all about, although one of my supervisors is an art historian so she would probably like it if I did.

I think to get blue you need lapis lazuli, or azurite (which is a copper carbonate), or indigo and woad. Lapis is really expensive, and I think the others tend to fade or darken. So I wonder if the colours are 'true'.

William Marshal, now there's a knight in shining armour sigh

Nooo, I am Googling portraits from the middle ages/Tudor times etc and there is blue involved in many of them but all brown-eyed peoples.

Google doesn't know why either?!

Can you ring your mate LRD and ask her?

Have a butchers at this lot!

sorry, haven't read whole thread but WRT to the princes, not only did Richard have opportunity and motive, he had form; he and Edward IV definitely DID have Henry VI killed while he was their prisoner in the tower in an attempt to end any future Lancastrian reassertion. It doesn't prove anything at all, but does at least do away with the idea that he was not capable of murder when it was politically expedient to do so. If you want to put a positive spin on it you could argue that he took the throne and did away with the princes so that there would be a capable adult on the throne with the authority to deal with Woodville faction. As Lord Protector his ability to deal with the Woodville men, like Anthony and Earl Rivers would have been more limited, especially as Edward V loved his Woodville uncles and may well have preferred their company and advice. Given the turmoil that the country had been through, you could argue that he did it for the greater good . Underage kings are nearly ALWAYS a disaster. Some people cite the fact that Henry Tudor rewarded the acknowledged likely assassins (Forrest and Deighton) with land when he was king as proof that he was behind it, but he can be grateful for their actions without having ordered them himself. He simply did not have the opportunity - even his mother, who was in London at the time and scheming witch by all accounts, could not have pulled it off. The Tower was not a trifling prison, it was serious and its security was tight. Also in 1483 Henry Tudor was not a realistic candidate and he had very little support. The picture is different in 1485.

Shit the bed 8th row, last picture on the right, that's me not sleeping tonight...

Medieval fap!

bupcakes - she's not my mate, she's my very patient PhD supervisor to whom I've just send off some work a month late, so no, I'm not going to tell her I'm really ignorant in her subject.

I bet someone else on MN knows. Maybe they just thought it was fashionable? Loads of manuscripts always do the eyes in black even when they use blue, come to think.

This one looks blue eyed.

He looks like a bird who's swallowed a plate.

Oh ok. :(

DH is saying that maybe in those times, it was believed that brown eyes made one look more intelligent or of better stock so maybe they requested brown eyes?

It does, doens't it?

I think Elizabeth I genuinely did have brown eyes. But then IIRC that's David Starkey's description and we all know male historians called David aren't much cop.

That one looks like a medieval Christopher Walken

Elizabeth had her mother's eyes - Anne Boleyn a dark eyed six fingered sexpot.