For years, it was believed that King Richard III had dark hair and black eyes. That is how he is portrayed in his portraits, and the image certainly is consistent with that of a notorious King, rumoured to have murdered his nephews. But now, scientists say that the last of the Plantagenet rulers may, in fact, have had blonde hair and blue eyes.
The results of DNA tests carried out by Dr Turi King of the University of Leicester showed that it was likely that King Richard’s hair was blonde in childhood, and that he would have had blue eyes. As a result of these findings, a reconstruction of Richard’s head on display at the King Richard III Visitor Centre had to be updated, to accurately depict how Richard would have looked in life.
The reconstruction was updated by Professor Caroline Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University. “It was a delicate task to remove the eyes and replace with lighter ones, as they are made of glass,” she said. “The hair colour has also been updated, including eyebrows and eyelashes.”
The Director of the Visitor Centre, Iain Gordan, said: “It was fascinating to watch Caroline at work and we are really pleased that we’ve been able to complete the work and put the head back on display in time for the reinterment.”
The transformation took Professor Wilkinson over four hours to complete. The model is currently on display at the King Richard III Visitor Centre.
King Richard III was the last King of the Plantagenet dynasty. He was the younger brother of the Yorkist King Edward IV, and after his brother’s death in 1483, Richard was appointed Lord Protector for his nephew, the 12 year-old King Edward V. However, before the boy could be crowned, Richard declared their parents’ marriage invalid, thereby making King Edward and all his siblings illegitimate.
At this point, Richard seized the throne for himself and locked Edward and his younger brother, Richard – the two heirs of King Edward IV – in the Tower of London. Their eventual disappearance would give rise to the infamous mystery of the Princes in the Tower.
Richard III was killed in 1485, defeated in the Battle of Bosworth by Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian claimant who went on to rule as King Henry VII. Richard’s defeat and death effectively brought and end to the Wars of the Roses. After the battle, his lifeless body was buried at Greyfriars Church. The priory dissolved in 1538, and the location of the late King’s body went unknown.
Until, in 2012, King Richard’s skeleton was discovered buried underneath a car park in Leicester. After nearly years of scientific study, it was concluded that the bones did, in fact, belong to the late King, and now, at long last, Richard III is finally going to get the burial he deserves.
The remains of King Richard III will be reburied at Leicester Cathedral on March 26. The service will be attended by the present Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and The Countess of Wessex, along with 200 members of the public. The re-interment will be preceded by a number of events in Leicester, which begin next Sunday.
The complexion want to say nothing(mean nothing), Very long ago in one of the countries of the Maghreb, there was clear king of skin, his wife also all his children so exempted 1 of their child who was all black, king got angry and accused his wife of having deceived him(it), he locked him(it) with animals and confided(entrusted) the child has a nursemaid black who took care of him, the child increased, king aged, his put aside wife being a young person, an old woman it reinstated(re-entered) the domestics, the black child became the supreme leader(head) of his army, (left waging war has every time returns glorious) king being proud of him more than these other children offered him(her) his(her) younger daughter in marriage but the soldier refused the beautiful exceptional offer, one day the dying nursemaid who wants to see king for x reason, has
My husband had nearly white hair as a kid but it was deep auburn as he grew up. Our son’s hair did the same thing, blonde to deep auburn hair in his teens. So maybe the King really did have dark hair as a grown man.
Blond hair as a child, not a grown up (much like myself). Turi King has said in public speeches she believes his hair was brown as an adult, matching the lightest coloured portrait held by the Society of Antiquaries. I don’t know why anyone was ssurprised his eyes were blue, they always looked blue in the oldest portraits.
True. He wasn’t Hispanic, it should come at no shock that he had blue eyes and blonde hair, not the dark features you find in the Shakespearean play that painted him a villain – the incarnation of the devil who had black hair and dark eyes, a deformed back and bad intentions, all that point to a deranged tyrant. However, because I believe he was more than capable to fight (since a very young age) with his impairment (not as extravagant as the film with Lawrence Olivier), in new accounts a descent man floating between bad and good, more likely toward good (that Margaret of Anjou, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Stanley, Henry VII’s will, or even just someone in Richard III’s name though not commanded by his grace to do so, killed the two illegitimate Princes), and that this new evidence proves many things we never knew about (no doubt in anyone’s mind that Tudor castrated Richard’s good name and entire legacy), that Richard was far from the villain everyone used to unfairly depict him as. Everyone knows Henry did not raise his sword at Richard and hid behind his French mercenaries at Bosworth whilst Richard cut down and butchered, even after death. It’s VERY effective propaganda to stylise himself as the hero when, in fact, Tudor usurped the crown from Richard III. It’s not surprising.
When Michael Hicks dismissed this evidence he overlooked several things. My father had very dark hair as an adult and he was extremely fair as a child. His eyes were blue like mine. MH dismissed this as a possibility because in at least one portrait, his favourite, Richard is dark and his eyes are dark. Now yes, your eyes don’t change, but not all of his portraits show him with dark hair. The Historic Antiquities portrait is much lighter and is the earliest. He is almost a redhead. In fact his hair is the same colour as Edward iv. In another his hair is very dark but this portrait was messed with anyway. In two others his hair is different in each version of the same portrait. His whole family had fair to medium brown hair, fair being more common so why couldn’t he have fair hair as a child? His eyes are also blue green in three portraits not brown. Dr Turi King knows more about genetics than Hicks who knows absolutely nothing. He may be good at genealogy but he has a beef with the claim that the bones now in Leicester Cathedral are those of Richard iii. Hicks also has a beef with Richard iii. His last book is good up to the point he tries to prove the DNA didn’t show it was RIii.
Then he goes of into fantasy land. His arguments don’t make much sense and as he admits he knows little about DNA, what is his problem? He is a retired academic who is threatened by these discoveries being made by younger and fresher minds. It was not merely the DNA which shows it was Richard it was, the place of burial, exactly where the sources said, the manner of his burial, the pattern of his wounds, consistent with sources, consistent with battle, he had not had his face bashed in so he would be recognised on the field, the notorious return on the back of a horse, the fact the battle was close by, high status person, placed away from cult of kings, male but with gracile build, as described, the dreaded scoliosis, but not humpback, his age at death, around 32, plus the date fitted and the peak was 1480s. The DNA matched twice. Hicks says it could be any high status male killed and placed there during Wars of the Roses and the odd Beaufort is missing. Yes, but we can eliminate most of them. It is not Edward, too tall and definitely in Windsor. It is unlikely to be Clarence given the special circumstances of his death and burial. I am not sure which Beaufort is missing, but the Beaufort DNA had gaps anyway. The fact that his burial is where the sources say and other burials in his family dont have them in this Friary, but elsewhere in the city a lot earlier in the century and this is his Lancaster cousins, speaks to a violent death on a battlefield close by. Only Bosworth fits. The description of his body being thrown over a horse and taken through the crowds to Leicester and then displayed naked and knowledge of his spine seen for the first time in public, speaks to Richard iii, nobody else. The full combination of facts and evidence plus DNA all point to Richard. Henry Tudor knew he was Richard. Yes, there were other burials in the Friary but much earlier and few in the choir of the Church. Hicks does not give an alternative candidate because he cannot. We could dig up Edward iv and match his DNA but this would be contaminated and has already failed to provide a good enough sample. In the future DNA from Cecily and Richard of York may be used, but we will know little more than we do now. It most likely would only confirm it is Richard iii. I have respected Hicks as a historian but I can’t respect him on this. He sounds like a retired academic refusing to accept new evidence, not uncommon I fear in this field.