Breaking News!!!! Richard III's Body Found!

The ex-car park, now bearing at least some resemblance to a building again:

http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2014-archive-1/july/university-historian-gets-early-peek-of-richard-iii-visitor-centre

Fabulous news. Some great photos on the FB page too.

Not only H7 but his mother too.   

They have done a really good job of combining simplicity with elegance?

I think his High and Mighty Grace, Richard, by the Grace of God, King of England, will be very pleased. Long Live The King!!!! LL

I like it, Lily, IMO, they've done a marvellous job, especially considering there simply isn't a precedent for a project like this. One or two minor niggles - I'm none too keen on the white armour, he looks like an extra from Star Wars in the photos, but again, I suspect it probably works better in context than it does in a photo.

By putting walls and a roof back on the carpark, it gives a better 'feel' of the original burial site, and is a reminder that it was a church back then.

I'd say it's all been pulled together very well.

LL, I really hope Richard is doing a victory dance somewhere in the Great Beyond. Of all the medieval monarchs, he's the only one who has a real presence in the 21st century, he's got just about a whole town dedicated to him, and Leicester is full of people in his livery and boar banners.

Bonny, at first I too didn't like the white armor but thought that it was with reference to the white rose?

There we have it from our own Ricardian, LL.   

Gosh. That dug up grave site is awesome.

It's good, isn't it, Sabot? Although it's plain, with walls and a roof back, you can see it wasn't just any old hole in the ground.

Well that was it, wasn't it. That's where they actually found him. And it looks like it.

Re the color of armor, it was the knight's choice as to whether he stuck to the basic metal color, ie silver, or chose to have it a different shade. The best example was Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Aquitaine. eldest son of Edward lll who was known as the Black Prince because of the color of his armor. LL

Ah, right! It probably just looks odd in photos, all will become clear in 3D?

Is this the Bosworth Cross, LL?

Yes, that is the Bosworth Crucifix.   LL

https://www.le.ac.uk/lahs/downloads/03Vol78-Ashdown-Hill.pdf

I take it the one in Leicester is a replica? It's the most beautiful thing now, it must have been stunning when it was first made.

Beautiful piece. Another fascinating piece of information too. Thanks for all that.

I know very little about it, just what is in that link I posted and bits I have read.   LL

All the same, thanks, LL.   

The York loonies are on the loose again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-28559434

Richard III visitor centre: Battle over web reviews

Critical reviews of a new Richard III centre have led to its manager calling for a campaign to back the attraction.

The £4m visitor centre, which details his short reign, death and rediscovery, opened on Saturday in Leicester.

A group called Petition to bring Richard III back to Yorkshire asked supporters on Facebook to give it a one-star review.

There are more five-star reviews but the centre's boss said he wanted more from those "who have actually been".

Even before the bones, found in a Leicester car park, were identified as the king, calls were made to take them to York, where he had strong connections.

Five-star and one-star ratings dominate the page and lively debates rage between supporters and critics of the centre
A group called The Plantagenet Alliance, made up of distant relatives of Richard, succeeding in securing a judicial review of the licence to reinter the bones in Leicester.

This was rejected and the ceremony is due to take place in Spring 2015.

Petition to bring Richard III back to Yorkshire's original post - now removed - said "Please let the King Richard Visitor Centre know your thoughts by rating their 'attraction', by selecting 1 star, no write up is required".

'Humiliation and degradation'
Currently five-star reviews outnumber one-star by 64 to 54.

Patricia Rice-Jones wrote: "Does no-one in Leicester have any decency and respect for this much maligned King?"

Paula Connelly posted: "529 after his death, the humiliation and degradation of Richard III continues in Leicester."

Alan Hardcastle - whose avatar is a picture of York Minster - felt the centre was: "Just a child-friendly playground of false expectations and computerised gadgetry."

Iain Gordon, director of King Richard III Visitor Centre Trust, said: "Since the doors opened the overwhelming majority of feedback and comments we have had has been incredibly positive.

"So I think what we need is our own online campaign and encourage people who have actually been to the centre, especially from Leicester and Leicestershire, to leave us a four or five star rating based on what they have experienced."

About 1,000 people have come to the centre since it opened, with organisers hoping to attract more than 100,000 in the first year.

Petition to bring Richard III back to Yorkshire has not yet responded to requests for a comment.

I swear they're related to the hounders, that's the sort of stupid trolling they enjoy.

Oh, and on one of the Leicester pages, which are an ocean of sanity, I found out what the Star Wars armour is all about. It isn't supposed to be actual armour, it recreates the various blows that fell on Richard at the end, and white works better.

https://www.facebook.com/KRIIICentre/reviews

That's the page they've been trolling.

Stunned by so much stupidity that is out there....

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/programme-information/richard-iii-the-new-evidence

Richard III: The New Evidence

01 AUG 2014 FACTUAL, PRESS PACK
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In a world exclusive in February last year, Channel 4 broadcast a film that followed the extraordinary hunt for Richard III – the king discovered, against all the odds, under a car park in Leicester. But identifying the bones was only the start of the story. Since then, for the very first time, scientists have been able to subject the skeleton of an English king to intense scrutiny and analysis - allowing them to reassemble his life in fascinating detail and provide the most complete portrait of a medieval monarch to date. Channel 4 has again had exclusive access to that new scientific work and in this film, reveals a series of brand new findings that help rewrite the story of Richard’s reign.

If the first phase of scientific work was about identifying the body, this second phase has been about working out what a man with that body would have been capable of. If Richard had such an extreme spinal deformity, how could he have been the prodigious combatant that the histories claimed – a man who led a heavy cavalry charge over open ground and killed several of his enemies, before dying at the hands of Henry Tudor’s army? Using the latest scientific techniques, experts at the University of Leicester and beyond have been able to work out whether he could have used a sword, worn 30 kilos of armour, ridden a medieval warhorse and survived the exertions of battle. They’ve also pieced together his diet and revealed his lifestyle in his final years, with surprising results.

In another incredible stroke of luck they’ve been helped in their investigations by a living body double, who has come forward to help them discover the answers to some of these questions through practical experiments and reconstructions. A twenty-seven year-old British man, Dominic Smee, who suffers from the exact same form of scoliosis as Richard III and whose spine, with its 75 degree spinal curve is deemed ‘virtually identical’ by the experts, agreed to collaborate with the scientists on a series of unique tests. The unusual similarity with Richard III is even more striking given that Dominic’s mother authored a book about Richard III and he helps re-enact battles at Bosworth – the battlefield site where the king met his death.

Working together, Dominic and the team who include physiotherapists, armour and medieval combat and riding experts to discover how Richard could have walked and fought and how he could have met his death. Putting theories into practice, Dominic undergoes an intensive physical programme to see how Richard’s scoliosis would have affected his ability to wield a sword, wear armour, ride a horse and use a lance. As he replicates Richard’s charge at Bosworth in a bespoke 30 kilo suit of armour, Dominic helps shed new light on the king’s death – and answers questions that have lain buried for centuries.

So, they've got a young bloke with the same spinal problem as Richard, who looks like Richard, whose mother writes books about Richard, and who is involved with the Bosworth re-enactments?

SMEE Christina
Loyalty Binds Me
Date of Publication: 2005
Synopsis: A blacksmith’s daughter arrives to work at Middleham Castle and falls in love with Richard of Gloucester. Her devotion spans 24 years and follows Richard's fortunes from the north of England to Bosworth Field

As you can see, the book is a novel, I cannot see any reviews for it, the only mention being the one above from one of the Richard lll Bulletins of 2006.   LL

ETA She has a facebook - https://www.facebook.com/christina.smee.9

Ah, it's yet another romance. I am none too sure how this happened, LL, but somehow, to add to all the other indignities, Richard has turned into a bit of a Love God in the 21st century.     

bb1 wrote:Ah, it's yet another romance. I am none too sure how this happened, LL, but somehow, to add to all the other indignities, Richard has turned into a bit of a Love God in the 21st century.     

Oh, it happens all the time. I have a lady friend who was, for many years, involved in Star Trek fandom, where stories were written and put into fanzines and sold. You could, after just a couple of pages, see exactly which character the writer was in love with, and it was very obvious they identified themselves with the heroine (they were mainly women writers). My friend got so fed up with these silly stories she dacided to write one that followed the Star Trek premise, bash 'em, hurt 'em, but get them all back alive. That zine sold out of 500 copies in an hour at one of the conventions. No sex, no snogging, no illicent affairs, just a starship crew facing the possibility that they might never make it back to earth. I think the most ridiculous ones were those that had Kirk and Spock in a relationship! LL      

http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Date-announced-reinterment-Richard-III/story-22130552-detail/story.html

Richard III reinterment to take place on March 26, 2015
By Leicester Mercury | Posted: August 07, 2014



The reinterment of Richard III will take place on March 26, next year.

The long-awaited announcement was made at Leicester Cathedral, where the king's bones will be laid to rest, this morning in front of a crowd of journalists and broadcasters.

Dean of Leicester, the Very Rev David Monteith, also revealed that the Duke of Gloucester is to be the royal patron of the fund-raising effort launched by the diocese to cover the £2.5 million needed for the reburial and cathedral alterations.

The cathedral has raised about £1 million so far.

The Dean said: "This is a day that I've waited for for some time.

"I'm particularly thrilled and pleased that the Duke of Gloucester has agreed to be our patron."

Chairman of the Richard III Society Dr Phil Stone, who was also at the announcement, said: "I'm looking forward to seeing Richard buried with dignity, solemnity and honour.

"It's time to give him what he was denies in 1485."

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Personally, I think the idea of bringing him back from Bosworth again, this time with full pomp and ceremony, is wonderful. I do hope those Yorkie loonies don't do anything appalling.

About time! This will be worth watching.   

The loons will feel most stupid if they do something. Can you imagine the headlines?