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?

Ooh, I'm so excited by this, despite being late to the party.

As I understand it, scoliosis is actually pretty common (it's kyphosis that isn't - if I've spelt that right). Most people develop a bit as they get older, in modern society, because we sit for too long and with bad posture. Carrying things that are too heavy wouldn't help, either. So I think it wouldn't be surprising if he did have it, and yet it wasn't much mentioned - I mean, you're not going to go up to the king and say 'ooh, mate, bit deformed aren't you?'

He was a very pious man, though. Something I find slightly creepy is that he had a Book of Hours (and legend has it he was praying with it before the battle), and after he died Margaret Beaufort nicked it. She's always seen as this really pious, devout woman but I think she must have been a battleaxe! She didn't even bother to cross out his name properly, so it must have been like a trophy.

I love all the rumours/conspiracy theories about who the body might be, whether it's him. I grew up near Leicester, it'd be good to think he was there!

hear hear Leonie!

love that this debate is on here all the other history teachers at my school are modernists, I'm the only medieval nerd buff!

Saggy that was the clearest explanation of a very complicated lineage I've ever heard, thank you!

We were even further back in high school history, learning about Skara Brae! I've history as part of my degree yet never chose any modules that would have covered whom descended from whom. Deliberately steered away from English history as sick of going over Tudors. There is so much more to learn, the war of the Roses is utterly compelling.

So Lady Jane Grey must have been a Plantagenet? Hence her beheading?

Jane grey was descended from Henry VIII sister Mary. G GD of Henry VII. She had a Tudor claim to the throne. She was beheaded because she was used as a figure head by opponents of Mary Tudor.

just come straight from the thread on slugs and poo(lol) to this thread,fascinating, my head hurts, but isn't mumsnet wunnerful?!!!

All the 'legitimate claim' stuff unravels pretty fast when you go back far enough. Mary and Elizabeth I had competing claims, but Henry legitimized both of them in the end; the Tudor claim is shaky, but then the Yorkist claim is also based on illegitimate children subsequently legitimized.

Lady Jane Grey had a tutor (Roger Ascham) who used to pick her up and carry her around in his arms when she was a child. I like to think he was her father-substitute because her parents were pretty horrific.

But if they're in the line of succession, they're legitimate. You can't inherit the throne otherwise. IIRC. Not a Tudors person.

It is different, I know - it's awkward to know how you would legitimize someone at that point, because prior to the split with Rome, the only way to do it was by papal decree. So Henry was writing a new rule book, and pretty much whatever he said, went.

I have mild scoliosis. It's painful sometimes but mostly not an issue.

This is now going waaaay off topic (but maybe it's ok?). There's mahooosive amounts of conspiracy theory about Richard II, that he wasn't dead, or that he was going to return, or that his ghost would come back to haunt Henry IV. It's thought it was Thomas Swynford (Katharine's son from her first marriage) who killed Richard.

Oddly enough, there's a story with a cryptic plot about a deposed king who mysteriously returns to re-claim his throne which became very popular around the time Richard disappeared, and it was also being copied around the time Richard III was defeated at Bosworth field ... the manuscript that dates from this time is written in a dialect that you can localize to the area around Market Bosworth itself. So I would like to think someone was telling stories about a king returning from the dead to reclaim his thone. And if this body is Richard III, I suppose in a way it's true!

This is such an interesting thread, we only did a basic out line of Henry V111 at school so this is fascinating for me.

Only on MN can you get threads about bumsex, bestiality and Richard III!

Ahh, ok. Thanks LaQ.

kweggie, agress the wonder of mumsnet - amazing variety of interesting topics - this is one I'd never have expected and has given me a lovely warm glow.. For those interested in medieval history, please read Barbara Tuchman's 'The Distant Mirror (re the 14 century,so a bit earlier) - she beigns the people to life - masses of scholarship, easily digestible.

The announcement about the possible scoliotic condition of the spinal bones implies in the public mind both visible deformity and incapacity, but Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, to name but two athletes, both have scoliosis, as does Sarah Michelle Gellar, and numerous others. I am unimpressed by the way that because there is an indication of this condition in the bones, it appears to verify the Tudor "visibly physically deformed" description. And considering we have just finished the Paralympics, we should be less than happy with the descriptors being used.

The Telegraph state it was severe scolosis. DNA to take 12 weeks.