Re: MR: Was Richard maligned?

[Dick Eney <dickeney@access.digex.net>]

Poster: Dick Eney <dickeney@access.digex.net>


On Tue, 1 Oct 1996, Corun MacAnndra wrote:
> 
> Alfredo wrote:
> >
> >Or am I mistaken about needing two hands to fight
> >on horseback?
> 
> In the main (no pun intended...really Achbar), you are mistaken about
> needing two hands to ride a horse. This was proven by the ancient Scythians,
> precursors to the Mongols and the many other nomadic tribes of Eurasia. It
> takes two hands to draw and fire a bow, and if you're doing this from the
> back of a moving horse, you control the horse with your legs. The Mongols
> were quite adept at doing this. In fact, they still are, as are the Cossacks
> (no relation to the Kazaks, another nomadic tribe related to the Mongols,
> Buryats, Kalmuks, etc.) and the Native American tribes who did not have
> horses until the Spaniards came to this continent.
> 
A good point, though as Richard would have fought with lance and shield
he'd still need two good arms.  Pictures alleged to be him (and why would
anybody lie about it?) show him a smallish, well-knit chap, no Conanesque
Edward IV but still physically equal to fighting as a Heavy.  And he seems
to have nothing more grotesque about his spine than a somewhat bookish
stoop.

> As for Richard III being maligned, you should check out the Richard III
> Society. They have a web site that is quite interesting. Historians have for
> years wondered if the allegations of Richards deformities were true, as well
> as his alleged murdering of the Princes in the Tower. The URL for the
> Richard III Society web page is;
> 
>         www.webcom.com/blanchrd/index.html
> 
This is a little harder to wave off.  Apparently the first announcement of
the princes' death was an oh-by-the-way by Richard during another speech.
"Who knows not that the noble Duke is dead?" as Shakespeare had it in a
similar situation.  They were in Richard's custody and he tried to
introduce the fact of their death into the record in a way that mde
questioning difficult; of course, if he'd had as good a legal staff as OJ
Simpson, he might have gotten off even with a Tudor jury.

|---------Master Vuong Manh, C.P., Storvik, Atlantia---------|
|Now, let's stop and think: how would Bugs Bunny handle this?|
|----------------(dickeney@access.digex.net)-----------------|


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