Richard III

At least he got a parking space.

Apparently, they are announcing whether it is him at the beginning of Feb. He's better be buried in Leicester or the elected Mayor is going to look really silly (as if he didn't already!!) because he is reorganising the City Centre to cope with the influx of visitors It's a very inauspicious looking carpark [we went to look] but quite exciting really.

There has been a lot of interest on Facebook about this. At the moment they are talking about February for the results although it's debatable whether there will be a conclusive result with the DNA. Apparently the government has agreed that if the remains are Richard's they can be re buried in Leicester. A group on Facebook "Richard III must be returned to Yorkshire" is campaigning to have him buried in York Minster, which is arguably what he would have wanted. They have a petition going but it needs an awful lot more signatures. An extra complication is that of course he was a Catholic, so where does that leave the burial?

I was just amazed that they actually found a body at all. So much has happened since 1485 after all! Even if it turns out not to be Richard it is still an achievement to have found the church and some of the people buried there.

I have posted on another thread about this. Somewhere in space and time.

[going to bed]

sorry (I had the wrong thread)

Please start talking again.

Hello

Yes, we did have another thread on this when they were about to dig the site up - there are quite a few déja vu threads about at the moment....

The facebook discussion sounds good. Will try to find it Deeda.

Hello Nanado.

On facebook it is "Richard lll is innocent." Ignore Shakespeare and all his Tudor propagada. By the standards of the times in which he lived Richard was was one of the good guys.

I always ignore Shakespeare.

Deedaa I think the final decision on where he is to be reburied will be announced this week. Apparently, Mansfield (I think) has put in a bid for the body as they are halfway between York and Leicester. Richard has always enjoyed huge popularity in Leicester so moving him to York could easily cause another Civil War

I think it would be dreadful to move him from Leicester after so long. Just reinter him in the Cathedral. Its seems the city of Leicester were very loyal to him and his memory.

I think this may be an overstatement of what you can do with DNA if, as the BBC suggests they are going to compare the DNA from the skeleton with DNA of someone alive today who is apparently descended from R3s sister...
Population of UK in 1400s is subject to much debate but let us say, for arguments sake, that there we're 500,000 people alive then that have living descendants today.
Work it back the other way and work out how many ggggggggGMs and GDs you had in 1500.
Around a million I reckon.
You see my problem. Most of us with UK ancestry are probably descended from most of those alive in R3s days. So Mr so and so who has busily traced his ancestry back to very important people in the 15th C has any more of R3's DNA than you or me.
So methinks those involve doth delude themselves. There is a mini industry springing up trading in this kind of nonsense, talking about people being descended from biblical figures etc. and being able to prove it with DNA.
The only way they could prove it was r3 would be to dig up a very close relative .
There is no proof that r3 had scoliosis. He was a very able knight so it seems rather unlikely. It was a bit like being a serious athlete riding into battle with all that kit and then using it for hours on end.
I recently enjoyed reading a number of historical novels about r3 and his relatives, all of which had their own analyses.

Mitochondrial dna

Jess
All the observations made at the exhumation match the contemporary accounts of his death and burial.

The body was found in a high status part of the Greyfriars church. Where records say it was buried.

Severe head injuries were observed, It appears the top of his skull was nearly sliced off! That was in contemporary records which I had heard long before this excavation was considered.

Then there was the observed scoliosis. That fitted many contemporary descripions of him as having one shoulder higher than the other. The later propaganda made that into the hunchback myth. I really feel that this circumstantial evidence is pretty convincing.

If the mitochondrial DNA results show positive results can there seriously be any doubt? I do agree that DNA and family history does not sound reliable.
But in this situtaion there would be four points of strong positive evidence.

Yes well what about mitochondrial DNA - apart from the numbers consideration, all the normal aristocracy were heavily interbred. Everyone married cousins so they must have shared a lot of their DNA. We all of us must have mitochondrial DNA from a large number of those alive 600 years ago.
Is there any evidence that he was given a "decent burial" after Bosworth?
And given the awfulness of battle in those days, sliced off skulls must have been common.
Here is a blog that I found interesting on those who claim they can use DNA to make very specific links to ancestors.
www.dcscience.net/?p=5718

They used it for the Russian royal family.
I believe it is reliable.

But the Russians have lots of living cousins etc to get decent samples. The queen for instance.
I suppose the point I am trying to make is that this kind of science can never give you anything other than a probability that the body is related to a living person and that probability can never be anything close to 100% over so many centuries. And all it can say is something like:
"There is a xx% probability that this body is related to this living person." Not "this body is a particular historical figure". So even if the body is an ancestor of the person who believes they have traced their ancestry directly to r3, the body is not necessarily the person they hope them to be. Could be great great x 20 uncle Edgar de Coverley instead - a different ancestor altogether. Because the person alive today had thousands and thousands of ancestors at that time.
Even with a paternity test you cannot be 100% certain that DNA profile proves paternity.
Start digging up a few authentic dead kings I say and that will give them the answer.
.

I think the main problem will be how degraded the DNA is. My daughter has colleagues who work with ancient DNA and she assures me it's not as easy as they make it look on TV. It would be very interesting to look at Edward IV's DNA with the theory about him being illegitimate and of course the bones which may be the princes. I suppose they would really need some of Henry VIII's DNA to prove a link with the princes as that could be traced back to Henry's grandmother. Don't really see anyone exhuming Henry though.

I should think E1V was almost certainly illegitimate if you look at the dates.
Mitochondrial DNA does not apparently degrade so easily, I understand.

jessM
Oh sir roger do not !

Deedaa the bones thought to be the princes are not very likely to have any DNA which matches Henry Vlll. that is going in the wrong direction! Anyway the Tudor kings where quite a few cousins apart from the Plantagenets.

From what understand is that the mitochondrial DNA goes reliably down the female line, not the male line. But exists in the males. See below this explains it better. Elizabeth Woodville the princes mother had a mother who came from Luxembourg, .so I suspect that would be harder to trace through the maternal DNA in their supposed remains.
For better information than me please see. http://www.exploredna.co.uk/mitochondrial-dna-analysis.html

I am now getting interested in this DNA stuff and want to find out more! In a way that is written for a lay person.
But I am going to finish my porridge and go for a walk in the sunshine before it goes.