Richard III and DNA testing

[Maggie.]

Read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. It will give you quite a bit of information about contemporary writers and what they had to say....and what they didn't say, including accusations against Richard. It's a good read, good detective story.

Cheers,
China

I mentioned that book earlier, China - it's a marvellous detective story and a real eye opener regarding what was actually said and done at the time.

[chinakay]

So you did...and yes, it is

Yeah, maybe they'll fly me to London for a DNA swab and tea with the Queen. At long last

[chinakay]

My cat wears a crown because he's a King, Lyds

[groom]

Are our royal family actually related at all to Richard 3rd? If they are why didn't they take a DNA sample from one of them?

[Maggie.]

This might explain it:-

http://www.le.ac.uk/richardiii/science/extractionofdna.html

Seems the link is through the mitochondrial DNA passed mother to daughter until it got to the Canadian man. You'd think our Royals were related in some distant way but perhaps not in the right way.  Didn't Prince Philip donate a sample to help with the identification of the Romanov remains? Presumably in that case the link was much stronger, and certainly more recent.

[youngtug]

Not sure but I don't think that the  Plantagenet line had any connection to the Sax-Coburg and Gotha line

[Greensleeves]

Apparently it was the Richard III Society who pushed for the archaeological dig of the car park to take place but at the time they felt it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.  However,  the skeleton of Richard III was found in the first trench excavated.

Interesting that the evidence appears to show that the body had been more or less dumped in a grave too small for it, and that there was no coffin.  This seems at variance with the version cited by Ruskie earlier.

[Maggie.]

I don't know whether scoliosis of the spine is hereditary or not but the youngest daughter of Prince Andrew suffered from it. It was corrected by surgery a few years ago. Mind you - it's rather a long gap between sufferers 

[Erato]

"Two members of the university chaplaincy’s staff, one of them in the black-and-red robes of a Roman Catholic priest, sat beside the remains as reporters filed by, adding to the air of solemnity and reverence."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/world/europe/richard-the-third-bones.html?_r=0

It seems a bit over the top.  Human remains are removed from archaeological sites every day of the week without such pious hoopla.  I've seen quite a few myself.  True they probably weren't kings and they definitely weren't Christians but they were treated as human beings deserving of respect.  Still, there was never any requirement to remain silent in their presence or to station clergymen around the work table where they were laid out.