Archaeologists are DNA testing some bones they've found to see if they might be the remains of Richard III. Are there any other members of the Royal Family....

[seeker]

where DNA testing might produce interesting results?

"waiting for dick" !!

Thanks for all the suggestions. Alexandrina is too close to my name but I didn't know it was Victoria's actual name. Also can't have anyone married to a George because that's DS and it would be too couple-y. I will stop clogging up the thread with baby names so more of the 1000 posts can be proper historical debate.

Oh, referring back to the birthing chair comments earlier this is an excellent little pamphlet which has a woodcut of a woman using a birthing chair attended by a midwife on the front. (hope the link works)

It's a pity that "Geeky Stuff" seems only to be for computery things, otherwise that would be a good place for threads like this and someone could just start a new thread when this one fills up.

I've been making notes of good books recommended here - I bought a kindle recently.

Does anyone have any recommendations for DVDs, either documentaries or TV/movies that are reasonably authentic?

Has anyone asked on Site Stuff that consideration be paid to a History Topic?

It could go in the category In The Club.

Barbara Erskine's "Lady of Hay" was a good read and quite good for authentic detail regarding Maud de Braose as I remember. Didn't like her later stuff so much though. Maud has become enshrined in Welsh Myth and met a horrible end at the hands of King John. Won't say how in case anyone wants to read it.

happybirthday - your mention of Lady of Hay brought back memories. I actually used the stuff about King John and Maude de Broase and her son in one of my first degree history final papers!

Loving this thread:) Don't know much about this period of history but have found this fascinating. Sad that a king lay under a car park as well as the ancient priory - await the test results with interest and hope if it is him that he enjoys a more restful place in future. Presently deciding which RIII book to order from Amazon. Thought it might be possible that the children were not murdered but moved by Richard who might have been happy for people to think that they were dead to keep them safe?

Ooh, as a piece of useful information...
Barbara Erskine also wrote Hiding From The Light. A ghost story about Matthew Hopkins and the witches. It's set around Manningtree and Mistley Heath Churchyard. Which is where I used to keep my ponies. It was no joke goin to look at them on a stormy haloween night in the pitch black, I can tell you!

Sorry, as you were!

Oh, and didn't anyone like my theory about the princes? I've been thinking about that all day! when I should have been working

Margaret Beaufort killed 'em. She was a right Meadow Lady!

Oh, and I love Caroline. We've had at least one Queen Caroline.

I aren't convinced, Saggy, I'm afraid. Only other two late medieval usurpations (1327 and 1399) the usurped kings both wound up dead within a year (as far as we know). And in one case the beneficiary (albeit a child controlled by his mother at the time) was the usurped king's own son, so it's not impossible that these things happened within families.

I do think it's quite possible that someone else, eg Buckingham gave the order though, if it's Richard you particularly want to exculpate. I just doubt they survived 1483.

Clarence's son was barred by attainder, and it would have taken an act of parliament to reverse I think, but yes, could have been done.

I think you have to see it in terms of pragmatic calculation about the stability of the polity (possibly to an extent driven by panic), and that probably would exclude allowing another minor, particularly one, as you say, "simple-minded", to succeed.

But if you accept that Richard was pragmatic in excluding Edward of Warwick from the succession, then I think you have to at least allow for the possibility that either he or his followers might have been "pragmatic" in other ways . Like I say, the extinguishing of rivals and/or predecessors was not unknown in the medieval succession, even within families.

Incidentally, it's not clear to me that Richard's loyalty to Edward was anything other than pragmatic either. He didn't join the 1469 or 1470 rebellions, but then he wasn't being offered what Clarence was AFAIK. In fact, given that Edward found it extremely difficult to provide for both of them in terms of land, heiresses etc in the 1460s as they both came of age, the logical thing for Richard to do was simply to make sure he was on the opposite side to Clarence, whatever that was. Edward was really scratching around in the 1460s trying to provide for them both and failing because he had so many supporters to reward, and that's part of the reason why Clarence rebelled. If Richard stuck with Edward he was automatically booting himself up the list for preferment if Edward prevailed - and that's exactly what happened. Clarence backed the losing horse both times, tried it again later and paid the price.

Medieval noble families are very odd things. I just don't know enough about family relationships and social history, I was more high politics. But to me that family - with all its internal schisms, brother against brother, its rumours flying around for years about illegitimacy etc (Edward's as well as the princes') - looks dysfunctional even by the odd standards of the day. If a noble family in a particular locality had behaved like the Yorks did there would have been chaos in the region. One way or another they weren't normal, is my hunch. I don't know exactly what that implies for the princes, but I don't think we can take any normal relationships for granted.

What's the betting that the other artefact with the car park body is a boar badge?

Interesting to read a bit higher up about the Blue Boar - there is a cluster of "Blue" pub names in Grantham, but I think they were named much later than the times of Richard III and were associated with the Manners family (who must have an affinity with pubs, as the Marquis of Granby is one of theirs). Their seat is in Leicestershire - are they connected?

Of course, we don't know how Edward (who was 13, after all, more than old enough to have an opinion!) felt about his uncle either. Maybe he made it pretty clear that Richard wouldn't get the same preferment under his rule as he had formerly. There were plenty of Woodvilles around to take on Richard's various roles.

Ooh, just been catching up! What a lovely load of historical fictionr recs. May I add Rosemary Sutcliffe, 'Knight's Fee'? It's earlier than this, and not about famous people, but so beautifully written and has a gorgeous atmospheric reference to a plot to kill William Rufus.

signy - hello! I am also holding out for a medieval liturgy.

mad - what about Henry VI? Does that not count as usurpation too (from one POV)?

scae - ooh, you're making me feel at home. I live out just on the very edge of the Danelaw, between Leicester and Nottingham. I used to drive home through the Vale of Belvoir and past places like this.

I can't think who the Manners family are but I can do some digging.

LRD Ha, good point, yes it does! Talk about not seeing the wood for the trees.

So 1461 Henry flees to France, which I presume means he was out of reach without creating a diplomatic incident. After 1470-71 rebellion, Edward realises leaving him alive was an error and Henry is in the Tower and dead as a doornail within months.

So in fact that was a pretty salutary lesson Richard had about the dangers of leaving former kings alive, at the time of his own political coming-of-age.

There's nothing quite like drowning in Malmsey, is there!