Following the evidence presented in Leicester this morning:
1. Richard III did not have a withered arm and a hunchback. Paintings of him were known to have had been amended to show these and historians have been more than willing to accept both features as true. Now that the withered arm has been showed to be a lie, and the hunchback a false conjecture at best, will the historians responsible be regarded as suspect from now on?
2. What has happened to the arrowhead in the back? This was announced early on in the project, but was not mentioned in the evidence today.
3. Dr. Appleby asked three questions of the evidence:
- Did the skeleton fit with age, sex and physical appearance?
- What was the nature of scoliosis? How it affected him in life?
- What were the wounds? Were there more?
Given that the evidence for the physical appearance of Richard III has proved less than reliable, it seems a presumptive procedure to consider identifying the remains by the historical records of "physical appearance". It begs the question, had there been no scoliosis (or had the spine not been bent due to the grave being too small) would that have meant that the remains were not those of Richard III? Whose evidence can be trusted when there have been so many lies?
Secondly, it was stated at the press conference that Richard's arms were equal. This is actually absurd since no medieval warrior had even muscle development. The fact that the bones do not reveal a difference is not evidence of equally sized arms!
Thirdly, it was stated as a fact that a man of 5 foot 8 inches was unsually tall in the Middle Ages and therefore Richard III must have been curved in order to be smaller. Richard's own brother Edward IV was 6 foot 4 inches.
It must be regretted that the Richard III Society, who have been open and enquiring for the truth for so many years, have not been given prominence in understanding and presenting the evidence. Sound historians did not need to find a body in order to discern the truth from the lies with regard to King Richard III. Tudor propaganda has still been relied on in this presentation. And, in the sensationalism of this "news-story", not enough real questions have yet been asked.
Postscript:
Apparently, there never was an arrowhead after all ...
"Buckley told journalists that the position of the hands suggested that they might have been bound together. Initially, the team reported that an arrowhead was found among the bones, but Buckley said a closer look determined that the object was a nail that was apparently mixed in with the remains."