Reviled Richard Revealed

Thank you for alliteration

Well, no one I know is talking about this, but I LOVE this:  [turn your imaginary posh British accent filter switch to ON] The remains of King Richard III of England, lost these 500 years, have been discovered and identified beyond doubt beneath a car park in Leicester, where once stood the Grey Friars' monastery.

Thank you for archaeology

Years ago, I was browsing aimlessly through our local Borders Books [it's a DSW temple to shoes now].  I didn't have a plan, I was just looking at all the pretty books.

Thank you for all the pretty books

I finally just asked myself, "What do I really want?"  And I admitted, "I really would like to find a big, fabulous novel about England's Richard III from a different perspective." [Yes, I was that specific.]  I had never read Medieval historical fiction in my life.  I don't know what came over me.  A stroke, perhaps? [A stroke of GENIUS!]  At that very moment of self-awareness, I walked straight to a shelf in the middle of the Literature section and found myself holding Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour.  So began my adventure with Edward of York and his little brother Richard as they beat all odds to reclaim the crown from the Lancasters and fail to maintain it.

Thank you for history and fiction and the excellent writers who combine them

Now, I've read all of Penman's novels, from King Stephen's and Empress Maude's civil war through the Plantagenet monarchs [She skips Henry IV and V, those Lancastrian bastards].  She didn't write them chronologically, btw, so my understanding of England's history at the time of the Wars of the Roses is a disordered jumble of flashbacks.  [It's a good thing those kings have numbers.]

Thank you for numbers both Roman and Arabic

I suppose I hoped, along with the Richard Society members, that Richard III wasn't hunchbacked and didn't have a withered arm.  This is how Shakespeare depicted him in a Tudor world and for all time.  Richard had to have the appearance of evil for Henry VII, Elizabeth's grandfather and first Tudor monarch, to appear good by comparison.  The "truth will out," as Shakespeare tells us in The Merchant of Venice.  The king's bones reveal he'd had scoliosis since puberty.  Scoliosis, NOT the physical manifestation of inner evil.  Two long, fully formed arms, but a slightly raised shoulder due to the spinal curvature.  There you are. A real person.  Real life.  And real death.  His bones also expose the mutilation suffered in death on a Medieval battlefield at the hands of enemies who reviled him.

Thank you for perspective.

So, this may be my least interesting and least popular post to date, but I'm a nerd and I don't apologize for it.  I had a little crush, there, I'll admit.  I'm glad to know what really happened to Richard III.  I'm glad someone kept looking.  His story made very interesting reading for me over the years, and his truth is a fitting close.

Thank you for Philippa Langley, the amateur leader of the search, and her passion for the truth

What am I thankful for?  It's a long list today, actually.

Thank you, God,  for Sharon Kay Penman.  Thank you for quiet hours lost in reading.  Thank you for Shakespeare, despite his imagery.  Thank you for Democracy [a brilliant notion].  Thank you for this chilly Saturday morning in bed with toast and coffee and leisure to write.  

Now, for my readers who enjoy the pictures:

 

P.S.

Concerning the Princes in the Tower:  There is no real proof Richard had his nephews and heirs to the throne murdered.  Henry Tudor needed them dead, and his own mother was a high ranking member of Richard's court who plotted ruthlessly against Richard to hasten Henry's usurpation.  Just sayin'.