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They know where Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville are buried....why can't they do DNA testing on the remains found in the 1600s under the Tower staircase & prove once & for all if it's them?  |
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Plus all the Tudors....sibling, niece, or nephew DNA ought to be reasonably good! |
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I have read that QE2 won't allow the DNA testing. Who actually has "custody" of the remains found under the staircase? Could they do a sort of "carbon dating" of the remains to determine what time period they are from? Modern 'CSI' type testing is so much more sophisticated that the methods used back in the 1930's when there were tested. Also, I believe that those tests began with the presupposition that they were the princes. After all, weren't there bones of a child discovered in the Tower Yard in 1977? I believe that they tested to belong to the Iron Age. |
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QE2 must be the one incharge of having something like DNA done on any remains found, basically on "her" property like the Tower.....I wish they could do DNA on Henry VIII and solve this wondering about what he actually had, medical wise and what he actually died from......Guess someone has to be dead several thousand years (King Tut) before it is acceptable to perform test on their remains....  |
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<ignores Mark's flagrant anti-Ricardianism LOL> I recall reading somewhere (was it in Costain, dear old storyteller of Plantagenets that he was) that when the bones were looked at in the 1930s, they were determined to be the approximate size of boys aged about 13 & 10, but that was going by modern height charts. 15th century people were, on average, not as tall. Also, some children may grow slower or faster than others, so it's more difficult to arrive at an age approximation for the bones of a child than it is for an adult. I think there's a variable of 4 years in either direction when looking at the remains of a child in that age range. If truly the bones of the princes, they could well have lived into the reign of Henry VII. |
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The testing would make a fascinating study and later, I'm sure, a slew of books which would increase the recent lagging tourism industry to London. But in a sense I can understand QE2's feeling of unease should Richard III be shown to be such a monster for fact. (Or that would be the common conjecture to the princes being named and found to be murdered - for a certain.) I am thinking in particular of the Ladi Di conjecture. Perhaps the next sovereign will allow it? |
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Has anyone here ever read Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey? I never would have heard of it, except that someone offered it up in a bookring at Bookcrossing.com. I'm reading it now.
I've always pretty much stuck with the Tudors, so this was my very first exposure to Richard III. The book was written in 1951, and is about a detective who is stuck in bed with a broken back. This is pre-television, so to keep him occupied a friend brings in some portraits - he specializes in "reading faces" - and he's completely unbelieving when he "reads" one portrait as being of a consciencious, ulcer-prone, perfectionist judge, only to learn that it's Richard III. He can't see "monster" anywhere in his face, and refuses to believe he murdered those children.
So he starts looking into things, and learns that no contemporary accounts of Richard mention the deaths of the two princes, even when Richard was brought up with charges for something else by his enemies. The first mention of them is during the reign of Henry VII. So the detective begins to question historical accounts, repeatedly bringing up examples of how entire groups of people can absolutely know the truth about something, but still permit false legends to take hold about it anyway. He speculates that this could have been what happened with Richard.
I haven't finished it yet, but read somewhere that this novel was probably the first time anyone questioned historical accounts of the disappearance of the princes.
If you've read it, do you know how accurate the author is in her facts? I'm nearly done, so if everything she wrote can be soundly refuted, it won't spoil the story for me! |
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| | From:  MarkGB5 | Sent: 7/9/2006 9:52 PM |
Whilst most of the accounts of Richard's supposed guilt date from the early years of Henry VII's reign there are a few from the period 1483-85 that name Richard as the murderer of his nephews. The most famous of these dates from January 1484 when Guillaume de Rochefort, the Chancellor of France reported to the Estates General that the children of the late King Edward had been murdered by their uncle and the Crown transferred to him by the will of the people. Now as then he was regarded as a murderer. |
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Love The Daughter of Time, tis one of the very first pro-Ricardian books I ever read. I think Tey has a valid point regarding what you think of when you look at RIIIs portrait. I believe FA reviewed that over in our Brilliant Books section a long while back  |
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