Tuesday, February 05, 2013

Great Regulars: That would be the Tudors,

who defeated Richard at Bosworth, ending the Wars of the Roses in 1485. Winner: Henry of Richmond, from the Tudor line, which gave us Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

As Venuti notes, the Tudors, having won, got to write the history, in which Richard's "moral degeneracy is attached to his physical deformity, his twisted back, his hump, his withered hand." (In reality, we now know, no withered hand. No hump.)

Robert Fallon, professor emeritus of English literature at La Salle University, says Shakespeare had no proof of Richard's appearance, so he "went on tradition and hewed to the Tudor line."

from John Timpane: The Philadelphia Inquirer: Found: Richard III. Not found: Hump

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