LEICESTER, ENGLAND—Mary Ann Lund of the University of Leicester thinks that Richard III may have kept his scoliosis hidden from public view, since no mention of it is known to have been made during his lifetime. “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,” she said in a press release. Lund suggests that tailoring kept his condition hidden from those outside the royal household until his corpse was stripped in front of witnesses after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Under the Tudor regime, the memory of Richard’s body became more misshapen, and included a withered arm and unequal limbs. “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,” she said. To read about the initial discovery of the monarch's remains, see "The Rehabilitation of Richard III."
