King Richard III hid his bent spine: study

King Richard III may have kept his bent spine a secret right up until his death in 1485, according to a new study.
The mortal remains of Richard III were reinterred last month, more than two years after archaeologists discovered his skeleton in a car park in 2012.
The body of a medieval monarch was always under scrutiny, and Richard III's was no exception.
In death, however, his body became subject to new forms of examination and interpretation: stripped naked after the Battle of Bosworth, his corpse was carried to Leicester and exhibited before being buried.
The discovery of his skeleton, which had severe scoliosis has prompted further consideration of undepicted scenes from his life, researchers said.

No mention of Richard's distinctive physique survives from during his lifetime, perhaps out of respect to a reigning monarch, or perhaps because he hid it so well, they said.

Dr Mary Ann Lund, from the University of Leicester's School of English, argues that as with all monarchs Richard's body image in life was carefully controlled and he probably kept any signs of his scoliosis hidden outside of the royal household - up until his death.
"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," Lund said.

"Tailoring probably kept the signs of his scoliosis hidden to spectators outside the royal household of attendants, servants and medical staff who dressed, bathed and tended to the monarch's body," said Lund.
The stripping of Richard's corpse at Bosworth in 1485 made his physical shape noticeable to many hundreds of witnesses, perhaps for the first time.
Lund noted the treatment of Richard's dead body after the Battle of Bosworth is related to his later historical and literary reputation as 'Crookback Richard'.
Richard's body came to be notorious for its misshapen appearance during the Tudor period, although until the discovery of his body it was never clear whether this was pure fabrication to render accounts of his character and actions all the more extreme.

In Richard's case, this purported link between physique and character was frequently underlined, and as the Tudor regime became established, his image became more distorted - he gained a withered arm and unequal limbs, none of which were evident on the skeleton - to fit his blackened reputation.
Shakespeare's history plays make much of Richard's physique - portraying his character as deformed and explicitly hunchbacked.
The study was published in the journal Medical Humanities.