Did Richard III hide his deformed spine in life? Last Plantagenet king kept scoliosis secret until his death, historian claims
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He has been painted by history as a wicked hunchback, but Richard III kept the disease that curved his spine secret through out his life, a historian has claimed.
The last Plantagenet king of England was described by William Shakespeare as a 'poisonous bunch-back'd toad' in his play depicting the monarch.
But research on the king's skeleton discovered under a council car park in Leicester revealed that this may have been an exaggeration of a spine deformity known as scoliosis.
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Richard III's skeleton found under a car park in Leicester was found to a distinctive scoliosisof the spine
Now a new academic paper claims that even this condition, which caused one of his shoulders to be slightly higher than the other, was probably not known about until after his death.
Dr Mary Ann Lund, from the University of Leicester's school of English, said tailoring and specially fitted armour probably helped to disguise the curve in his spine.
She said: 'It is highly likely that Richard took care to control his public image.
'The body of the king was part of the propaganda of power, and even when it was revealed in order to be anointed as part of his coronation ceremony it was simultaneously concealed from the congregation.
'Tailoring probably kept the signs of his scoliosis hidden to spectators outside the royal household of attendants, servants and medical staff who dressed, bathed and tended to the monarch's body.'
Writing in the journal Medical Humanities, Dr Lund argues that like other monarchs Richard III's body image would have been carefully controlled.
It was only after his death at the battle of Bosworth in 1485 that his physical shape was made public when his corpse was stripped and displayed.
Dr Lund said that it was this treatment that later led to his reputation as a hunchback - something that was later picked up by Shakespeare.
She said were no surviving descriptions of Richard III's distinctive physique from during his lifetime.
Instead she says that his appearance became increasingly distorted through out the Tudor period.
Dr Lund said: 'Stage history has reincarnated Richard as monster, villain and clown, but recent events have helped us to re-evaluate these physically defined depictions and strip back the cultural accretions that have surrounded his body.
This reconstruction of Richard III, based on his skull, has revealed what the king looked like 500 years ago
Scientists studying the skull of Richard III (above) found he had suffered several brutal blows before he died
Scientists used 3D scanning to reconstruct how Richard III's (right) skeleton may have been deformed (left)
'The care he in all probability received for his scoliosis from his surgically trained physician was large in scale: traction and manual manipulation needed specially designed equipment, space and assistants.
'Yet, it may have been only a relatively small group of people in Richard's trusted circle who knew of his condition. The absence of contemporary testimony does not prove this, however.
'What is certain is that, after his death, the exposure of Richard's body went beyond the two days of its exhibition in Leicester.
'That moment after Bosworth inaugurated a longer and more brutalising process, in which an ever-more twisted physique was revealed to the public eye, his own body becoming deployed as a major tactic in the rhetorical strategy against him.
The skeleton of Richard III, with the curve in his spine clearly visible, was found under a car park in Leicester
'When Shakespeare's Richard boasts of his shape-changing potential, he registers too the bending course of history and myth making.'
Analysis of Richard III's skeleton, which was discovered buried in a shallow grave at the site of Grey Friars Abbey in Leicester in 2012, showed that many depictions of the king's appearance had been exaggerated.
A 3D reconstruction of his spine showed that it had 65 to 85 degrees of scoliosis - a sideways bend of his spine to the right.
The condition would have developed in his early teens, but was far from being a hunchback.
The scientists at the University of Leicester who examined the skeleton said there was also little evidence that the king would have walked with a limp.
However, there are some that point to the alleged murder of Richard III's nephews Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury - the so called Princes in the Tower - as evidence of the king's character.
They say this act of infanticide is what earned the Plantagenet king his blackened reputation rather than his physical appearance.
THE BLOW THAT KILLED KING RICHARD III AT BATTLE OF BOSWORTH
The blow that killed King Richard III in battle was so powerful that it went up through the base of his brain and left an indentation on the inside of his skull, scientists studying his remains have revealed.
Forensic pathologists at University of Leicester, discovered two wounds at the base of the king's skull along with a large indentation inside the cranium.
The findings suggest that a weapon such as a sword or a spike had been thrust upwards through the base of the king's neck so hard that it had gone straight through his brain to the other side of his skull.
Genetic analysis of the battle scarred skeleton, discovered under a council car park in Leicester three years ago, has confirmed that it did belong to Richard III.
Scientists studying the remains believe the king was surrounded by a mob of enemy soldiers and hacked to death after he had lost his helmet.
Using modern medical scanners, they established that the English monarch suffered 11 devastating injuries at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.
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