"My kingdom for a horse": King Richard III's bones discovered in England

By Jack Brummet, Shakespeare Editor

note the pronounced hunch in the spine

Researchers in England announced earlier this week that they have found skeletal remains of King Richard III under a parking lot in a Midlands city. Richard is one of the most despised of all Kings due to his short but violent reign.

Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist told reporters that tests proved “beyond reasonable doubt” that the “individual exhumed” from a makeshift grave under the parking lot was “indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England.”

A geneticist, Turi King, said in a press conference that DNA samples from living descendants of Richard III’s family matched those of the bones found beneath the parking lot.  The skeleton showed signs of scoliosis, a disease that caused Richard's hunchback. The skeleton also showed a massive blow to the head, which jibes with accounts of his death on the battlefield.  He was not on horseback, but on foot.

King Richard III apparently died on foot, which also squares with Shakespeare's account of the events ("my kingdom for a horse").

---o0o---