General Chat

I don't think that the D.M is a very reliable source of information!!!

the Daily Mail slated Richard the other day :-( :-(

This debate seems to have ground to a halt! What a pity!

your so right Magpie :-D :-D :-D

Almost certainly. The victor always writes the story!!!

it was suggested to me

he was a victim of Tudor propaganda :-( :-(

Physically Richard was unlike either of his brothers. He wasn't very tall, was dark haired and was slight in build, 'almost like a girl', one chronicler writes. He was a brave man and courageous in battle. After becoming king he was an excellent administrator, and made changes to the legal system that favoured ordinary people. But for the mystery of the Princes, Richard would have gone down in history as a good king by mediaeval standards. It would seem inconceivable that Richard had no knowledge of the Prince's fate as even though they had been declared illegitimate, this could be reversed as was the case with their sister Elizabeth of York in order for her to be able to marry Henry V11th. The sad fact is that in that age deposed kings were quietly disposed of as were Richard 11, Edward 11, HenryV1th and Jane Grey. What makes the Princes so shocking is the fact that they were children, but in that age a country needed a strong leader - 'Woe to a country when thy king is a child,' was very relevant in the middle ages. Richard showed complete ruthlessness in dealing with the Woodvilles, who in turn would have almost certainly undermined if not actually arrested and killed him. This was the middle ages, what could he do to avoid a lifetime of insurrection? So on balance, I think he ordered the murder, all be it reluctantly. I have read Daughter of Time, but I'm not convinced!!!

Apparently Richard was quite tall for his "age" :-) at 5'8"

but if he was a blue-eyed blonde those alleles would have been trumped many times over in the ensuing generations

I have got to read The Daughter of Time again, a job for a summer day I think ... read it so long ago that it's all gone now.

In fact, I owe my best friend a 65th birthday present, and I'm sure she has exhausted every detective series under the sun from Christie to Hillerman, but I've never heard her mention Josephine Tey, so I think that will be what she gets when she comes to visit.

..or is light brown the new 'blonde'?

....and there was a 23% chance he didn't have blonde hair.
What colour hair did his parent have? Not that that makes much difference.
I had a brown haired brown eyed mother, black haired, blue eyed father. Blue eyes are recessive. 3 children had blue eyes, one had brown. 2 children had black hair, I brown, and one blonde (no, it wasn't the milkman)!!
As for left handedness - our family have debunked that statistic too!

Did they have photoshop back then? :-S

:-D :-D :-D

If he was blonde, when were the portraits of him painted?

..or are they all incredibly dirty?

I swing from hero to monster Maggie

Thank you Graham
that just might help me make my mind up :-D :-D

I see he has his own website

http://www.richardiii.net/

According to which he was blonde and had blue eyes (contrary to the usual images of him). So, if people don't even know what he looked like, how much else do we really know (or not) about him? :-S

I saw an interesting programme about him and the princes. The Tower had some nice bits in it - it had been used as a residence previously, where they were probably kept, and it was mooted that one prince died of natural causes, the other escaped.
I suppose he did what he did through necessity, and history, and Shakespeare did him no favours.

Much maligned king or monster???

YOU DECIDE ;-) ;-) ;-)