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They've just decided Richard III won't be buried in York

208 replies

LRDtheFeministDragon · 23/05/2014 11:17

You have to look at this document:

www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/richard-3rd-judgment-.pdf

It is cracking me up, properly. There's something so funny about seeing it all set out like that.

Just seen Tom Holland on twitter suggest Fotheringhay, the church where many York royals were buried. What do you think?

OP posts:
YonicScrewdriver · 22/03/2015 22:19

It's not that the BBC couldn't be bothered; C4 got the exclusive.

sassymuffin · 22/03/2015 22:33

The BBC were originally offered the chance to apply for the rights to screen the reinterment but declined. They have also been incredibly rude about how Richard III was discovered.
The Beeb stated on their website that "archaeologists discovered his body". Phillipa Langley and other historians and members of the Richard III society requested that the BBC amend this to "archaeologists and researchers discovered his body". The BBC refused so the researchers sent them evidence of their seven years of research that took place before archaeologists became involved, again the BBC refused to amend.

VivaLeBeaver · 22/03/2015 22:37

Robin Hood's King Richard was Richard 1st.

SenecaFalls · 22/03/2015 22:40

So many of the comments about Philippa Langley make me think of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's famous observation that "Well-behaved women seldom make history."

YonicScrewdriver · 22/03/2015 22:46

John A-H said the BBC had approached him about the body in the River theory, but his research took him elsewhere.

Maybe they are bitter!

nagynolonger · 22/03/2015 22:51

Yes I know that It's a different Richard. Richard the Lion Heart was a goody too.

Don't mind the C4 coverage and not too many breaks for adverts. What were the BBC thinking off when they turned all this down.

YonicScrewdriver · 22/03/2015 22:52

Well, I assume when C4 got the king in the car park, they took an option on the rest...

TheOneWiththeNicestSmile · 22/03/2015 22:52

nagynolonger

It's Richard III, not Richard 111 - he wasn't the 111th King Richard!

(Even if the Ricardian lot do have Richard111 as their website Grin)

sassymuffin · 22/03/2015 23:00

The King in the car park programme was pitched to Channel 4 by PL and it was supposed to be a three episodes. I wonder if because it was the University of Leicester that applied and were granted the exhumation license it meant that maybe other media could of got involved in separate media coverage.

YonicScrewdriver · 22/03/2015 23:02

I doubt C4 expected such a quick result!

sassymuffin · 22/03/2015 23:03

True Yoni Smile

YonicScrewdriver · 22/03/2015 23:09

And such an awesome result - a near complete skeleton not just various finger bones to be carbon dated and DNA checked...

YonicScrewdriver · 22/03/2015 23:10

I think I'll rejoin brownies and do a RIII badge!

funnyossity · 23/03/2015 09:03

Jeanne, re the lands I did think of countering with an observation that having my life savings in the old Alliance and Leicester not meaning that Leicester has first dibs on my remains!

I still felt slightly aggrieved that he was badly treated after his death in Leicester whereas he was respected, perhaps even loved in the North.

I only caught the end of Starkey being ungracious (I heard his "fan club" comment). I hope Philippa Langley and the other Ricardians just takes it as a compliment - I think he's a bit jealous!

JeanneDeMontbaston · 23/03/2015 09:14
Grin

But yes, Starkey is just so rude. I can't watch him any more, he does bad things to my blood pressure.

funnyossity · 23/03/2015 09:23

My teenager likes watching Starkey for the controversy, he finds Clarkson funny too of course.

YonicScrewdriver · 23/03/2015 10:30

Interesting re DNA

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30281333

sassymuffin · 23/03/2015 11:12

Yoni I watched a programme last year that presented evidence that Richards brother Edward IV could have been illegitimate (it was also rumored that Richard had thought this too)
iirc parish records of Edward who was born in France show that his father may have been away fighting at the time of his conception. It was also show that when Edward was born the celebrations were kept low key which would been unusual given he was the first son and heir.
However when George was born there was much fanfare and celebration.

Interesting but we will never know for sure.

LadyGlen · 23/03/2015 14:00

sassy, I'm not sure that I really buy the theory that Richard Duke of York wasn't the father of Edward IV. Nor am I convinced that he would order a low key celebration, even if it was true, on that account.

I mean did he say to his wife something along the lines of: "Yes, I will allow this archer's son to be my heir and inherit all my estates and even possibly the crown of England. But just to show how pissed off I am about you being unfaithful and foisting a bastard on me, we're not going to town on the christening, OK"?

I think that there were political reasons as to why George's birth was celebrated in a marked manner. At that point the King was still without an heir but York now had three sons and was arguably the most important noble in the country. One might have expected him to be an important figure at court, instead he had been sidelined by being sent to Ireland. It's a possibility that the fanfare was the DoY making a statement to the King.

There were always rumours that powerful men hadn't actually fathered their children - there was a very persistent one concerning John of Gaunt, for example. It was a neat way of undermining an enemy; in the same way as women were labelled whores or witches at the drop of a hat.

In a society where land meant power and primogeniture was all, an accusation of illegitimacy was just a way of striking at a family or an individual in order to weaken them. There didn't have to be any evidence, nor even any truth in the accusation.

YonicScrewdriver · 23/03/2015 14:12

Agree, LG. Plus counting weeks, the time of ovulation, even exact records of dates and whether Cecily was with him may all be out by a few days.

LadyGlen · 23/03/2015 14:27

Exactly, Yonic.

The distance between Pontoise and Rouen isn't that great. And even if Cecily never actually left Rouen, who's to say Richard didn't go back at some point for administrative reasons?
Or even, simply, conjugal reasons. Wink

YonicScrewdriver · 23/03/2015 14:32

According to Shakespeare, Richard III was premature...

YonicScrewdriver · 24/03/2015 21:22

God Starkey is a professional wanker.

funnyossity · 24/03/2015 21:31

Is he on the TV again?

YonicScrewdriver · 24/03/2015 21:31

Love the sellotaped family tree!

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