Richard III - No hunchback

The archaeologists of Leicester University have now revealed some more details about their finds beneath the Leicester car park.  The remains they have uncovered are of a man who has clearly died in battle. He has an arrow in his back and a severe head wound.  Given the position of the burial in prime position in front of the altar of the friary church and the documentary evidence suggesting this is the burial site of Richard III, they are pretty confident that they have found the grave of the king who died in battle at Bosworth Field, a short distance from Leicester, although they are awaiting the result of confirmation via tests on DNA of one of his maternal ancestors. 

From my point of view an interesting detail is that the skeleton indicates that the man suffered from advanced scoliosis, a severe curvature of the spine which would have made one shoulder appear higher than the other, which contemporary accounts indicate was a feature of Richard III, but he does not have a hunchback.  My identification of Richard with the portrait of St Ivo must therefore be wrong - one cannot argue with archaeology - and my portrait of the King in Master Merryman is therefore out on this one detail (not significant for the plot it must be said). However I am not too downcast because I think I am right in other respects.

 

Some people now think it's a bit infradig for an English King, the last of the Plantagenets, to be buried underneath a car park, although it wasn't a car park at the time.  It is interesting to note that his body was not flung in a ditch, or the river, as previously claimed, but decently if quietly interred in a nearby friary, a respectful and prudent move on the part of Henry VII since he wished to marry his niece who might have taken umbrage at the desecration of her uncle's body.  The plan is to re-inter the remains in Leicester Cathedral although since Richard was a passionate Yorkshireman hailing from Middleham perhaps he would prefer one of the beautiful Yorkshire cathedrals like York or Ripon but I dare say Leicester, which does not have a great many claims to fame, would like to hang on to him as a tourist attraction.

Richard III - Portrait of a King

Archaeologists have announced that they believe they may have found the remains of the 15th century King, Richard III, beneath a car-park in Leicester which was once the site of a mediaeval friary.  Documentary evidence suggested that the King's remains were laid to rest within the friary church and they identified the foundations of the church beneath the modern car-park. 

This is of great interest to me because I portrayed the King as a character in Master Merryman so I am looking forward to hearing what identifying characteristics they have found.  I used two portraits for my characterisation of the king, the well-known portrait of him as King, but also a portrait I came across in the National Gallery which purports to be of St Ivo but which I thought might be really of Richard when Duke of Gloucester as a young man in his late twenties. 

The portrait, which is an extremely good one and would therefore have been very expensive, shows a dark-haired man of about that age with similar features to those in the portrait of the older King.  He is very well but plainly dressed in a high status tunic edged with fur.  It was illegal in the Low Countries for anyone but an aristocrat to wear fur.  Shakespeare tells us - gleaning his information from older people of his day who might have seen the King in his lifetime - that Richard dressed well but plainly. He was not given to the extravagant fashions of the day. 

Most significant however is the fact that the man in the picture has clearly got a hunched back.  It is very pronounced and although the sitter makes an attempt to lessen its impact somewhat by throwing his hat over his shoulder to cover it, he makes no attempt to disguise it - indeed he is leaning forward so that the painter has to include it in the portrait.  Yet if he were sitting up - as Richard is in the King portrait - you would not notice it at all.  The painting of 'St Ivo' is dated around 1475 two years after Richard had spent some time in exile in Flanders with his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, who might well have commissioned such a portrait of her youngest brother.  The quality of the painting is such that it must have been a very high status purchaser.  The sketches for the painting could easily have been done in 1473 and the portrait finished later. 

The million dollar question is did Richard really have a hunchback - a question that a study of his remains will surely answer.  If he didn't, of course I'm wrong, so I'm waiting with bated breath for the results of the dig.

Books around the world

Further news on ever expanding markets.  I have just heard that Kindle editions of my books will soon be available from the Kindle Store in India. The books available will be:

For readers aged 10 - 15
The Ghostrider - an adventure story of highwaymen and bodysnatchers
The Serpent's Cove - an historical adventure involving Cornish smugglers and  the Regency theatre
Master Merryman - an historical adventure of swashbuckling hero, English playwright Henry Medwall set in the late 15th century

For grown-ups
The Lady in Grey - a biographical novel based on the life story of French novelist Guy de Maupassant
The Devil and the Bag of Nails - a comic novella set in the early eighteenth century

Educational
The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone - a modern English translation of the 5th century book that is at the heart of Malory's Mort D'Arthur with explanatory notes
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: the Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester - a biography of the 17th century playwright and his fight for representative government

Books finding new markets

All my books are now being distributed by Amazon Europe as well as amazon.com and amazon.co.uk.  List available to date

The Ghostrider
The Lady in Grey
The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone
The Serpent's Cove
Master Merryman
The Devil and the Bag of Nails

Life, Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness:the Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (biography) is currently still only available in a Kindle Edition - I am a bit slow on getting this one ready for a paperback edition, apologies to anyone still waiting.

Columbanus: Poet, Preacher, Statesman, Saint (biography) is available in paperback from Imprint Academic and all good bookstores.

That's your lot for now!  As regular readers of this blog will know I am currently working on a history of post-roman Britain which is proving very surprising.

More news on the Quest

Those of you who have read my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone will know that I have identified the king Evelake mentioned in The Quest for the Holy Grail as an English rendition of the Welsh name Afallach which I translate as Mistletoe (literally the lash of the apple-tree) - the symbol of the Celtic God Lud.  Today I found another mention of him in an ancient life of the Celtic saint Carantoc or Carannog (associated with Cornwall and Crantock but Welsh-born in Ceredigion).  The life contains an encounter between Carantoc and King Arthur which is almost certainly an old Druid myth relating to the God rather than the King although it is possible that the reference of a grant of land to Carantoc's church does refer to the real King.  But what caught my eye was the genealogy listed for the saint  in which he is listed as  the son of Ceredig the King of Ceredigion who is son of Cunedda, son of Ederyn, son of Padarn peis Rudawg, son of Tegid, son of Kain, son of Gwrgain, son of Doli, son of Gwrdoli, son of Dwfri, son of Gwrddofri, son of Amguoloid, son of Enwerydd, son of Onwedd, son of Dwfr, son of Brithgwern son of Owain, son of Afallach, son of Canalech, son of Beli and his mother was Anna who they say was a cousin [kinswoman/descendant] of the Virgin Mary.

The first section is the real genealogy and ancestry of Carantoc but in the section in bold italics we are into the realms of a mythical/religious past.  I had Owain down as a son of Bran (a water god) because that is how he is referred to in The Quest for the Holy Grail but here he is identified as the son of Lud/Afallach who is a sun/sky god. I have no idea who Canalech is, I have never come across this name before but Beli is one of the Trinity of Gods (jointly with his wife Don) and is the God who is the owner of the Sword of Truth, the judge of sinners.  What is also interesting from the point of view of my thesis that the Christian and Druid churches merged in the mid-fifth century is the fact that Carantoc's genealogy links him mythically not only with the Druid gods but also with the Christian church through his supposed descent through his mother from the Virgin Mary.  This clearly indicates the dual nature of the early Celtic Church so its quite an exciting discovery.

Grail Quest - another twist in the trail

In my book The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone I put forward the theory that the Christian version of the book was perhaps written by St Dyfrig but I now think I may have been mistaken.  In my last blog I mentioned the fact that the role of 'Keeper of the Book' was hereditary and in assuming that for monks this meant it passed from spiritual father to spiritual son I traced it back through Saints Illtud and Cadoc to Dyfrig.  However further research has revealed that Cadoc and Illtud were not of the School of Dyfrig as I had assumed.  Cadoc was tutored from the age of seven by Tathan (St Athan), an Irish contemporary of Dyfrig and so was of his school at St Athans, Glamorgan or Swent near Chepstow.  Illtud was trained by Cadoc and so is a scholar of his school at Llancarfan.  Applying the hereditary principle therefore it would seem that the originator of the Christian version of The Sword in the Stone was Tathan rather than Dyfrig.  He is also of the right age and location to fit the profile of the Christian writer. Having said that since there is no firm evidence to link the book to either of them directly any identification must remain speculative.

Quest for the Holy Grail

Regular readers of this column will know that I have embarked on my own Quest to find out who wrote The Quest for the Holy Grail.  I have have come up with three pieces of useful evidence which don't quite crack the case but get us closer to the answer and may help some of the other Grail-seekers out there.

The protector of the Book of Armagh was known as the Maor na Canoine or The Keeper of the Book. I mention in The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone that Saints Illtud and Cadoc are described as The Keepers of the Grail.  It follows then that I am correct in assuming that this means not the keepers of the cup but the keepers of the book which tells the story of Grail Quest.  The position in Ireland was hereditary so it also follows that they inherited the book rather than wrote it themselves taking the provenance back a generation so I am still reasonably convinced that the original Christian author was Dyfrig or one of his school.

A further piece of evidence to back up my claim that the book tells the story of a merger between the Christian and Druid churches in the mid fifth century comes from the Iolo manuscript which tells us that Illtud's foundation at Llantwit Major was divided into nine cells or colleges.  One of these was named after St David who must be a late arrival as he was a pupil of Illtud's school (their most illustrious so not surprising he had a college named after him).  However the other eight are quite illuminating.  Four are named after the four Christian Gospel writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John but the other four have Welsh names - Arthur, Morgan, Eugain and Amwn.  These four I surmise are the four principal Druid authorities - the original writers of The Wonderful History of the Sword in the Stone which is in four parts.  The first part tells us the origins of The Sword of Truth and The Ship of Faith and the very early history of Britain.  The second tells us the story of Balin and Balan.  The third section is the familiar story of The Sword in the Stone and the last is the story The Quest for the Holy Grail.   The names Arthur and Morgan are of course also the names of Celtic deities but in this case, given the symmetry of the names, I think these are writers named after the gods rather than referring to the deities themselves.  Both names have always been very popular in Wales. 

The names indicate a fifty-fifty division between the two churches suggesting a merger rather than a takeover or wholesale conversion.

My final clue - not really evidence as it relies on a tradition rather than a document - is that there is a story that Merlin was born near Carmarthen in 480 AD.  This seems a remarkably precise and rather late date for the arrival of the Celtic God but it does fit the timeline for the production of the book or perhaps a copy of it.  The principal saint who lived near Carmarthen is St Teilo who was one of Dyfrig's scholars trained by him at Henllan which puts him in the frame.

There still remains the question of which Christian writer did the rewrite to produce the text we have now but it does give us a very good provenance for the book.  I think we can say with some confidence where it originated and name at least some of the people who had a hand in it.