Shakespeare’s The tragedy of Richard III The film begins with the eponymous character uttering the famous line, “This is the winter of discontent.” It ends with the Battle of Bosworth Field, at which point his villainous plans are ruined and his desertion by Lord Stanley appears to have sealed his fate. “Horses, horses, horses my kingdom,” he cried, coining another expression used four centuries later by the Earl of Richmond, who later became King Henry VII. Although Shakespeare himself was writing more than 100 years after the historical events he dramatized, little was written about the aftermath of the events of Richard’s death. The most fascinating mystery of Richard was in any case solved only in our time.
You can read more about the long-unknown whereabouts of Richard III in the following articles: Primal Space video above. According to the record, the narrator says, “He was buried unceremoniously under Greyfriars Church in Leicester, and a monument was eventually erected over his grave.” Forty years later, when Henry VIII ordered the closure of such places of worship, Greyfriars was among those demolished.
Everyone eventually came to believe that during this destruction Richard’s body had been exhumed and thrown off Bow Bridge. It was not until the early 2000s that the search for his body began in earnest, led by the Richard III Society. Deciding that the Bowbridge story was a hoax, Society members were forced to locate the former location of the long-confused Greyfriars Church.
One of them, Philippa Langley, had a hunch to start looking under Leicester’s car park. Budget constraints forced her team to attempt to dig just three trenches in the spaces most likely to cross the church grounds. “Amazingly, just six hours after the first day, they encountered a skeleton with a damaged skull and a curved spine.” It is true that Richard was called a “hunchback” during his lifetime, but as of the 21st century, the case has been solved only with DNA evidence. Obtaining it required carbon-dating the skeleton and finding several unbroken female lineages (the only means of transmitting mitochondrial DNA) from his sister to living testable individuals. Sure enough, it turns out that Richard was not only buried under the parking lot, but also near the stenciled letter “R”. This was the kind of coincidence that even Bard himself might have avoided.
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Based in Seoul, Colin Mbemust write and broadcastIt’s about cities, languages ​​and cultures. he is the author of the newsletter books about cities books as well Home page (I won’t summarize Korea) and korean newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter. @Colinbemust.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
