How debilitating was Richard III’s scoliosis? And what did he really look like?

Richard III had an idiopathic scoliosis with a curvature of at least 60⁰. Such a curvature may or may not have infringed upon his physical capabilities. The challenge here is that systematic analysis of the long-term effects of untreated scoli osis are nearly non-existent. The reason is that for most of the 20^th century patients with more severe scoliosis have been treated with either braces or operations. Thus the consequence of an untreated scoliosis is complicated to evaluate.

Apparently we cannot really say what the consequences for a man like Richard were. Might it have infringed upon his respiratory function while he lived? Possibly – and probable had he lived longer. With time his scoliosis would probably have increased. Did he have arthritis? Yes definitely as can be seen from the photos generously made available at the dedicated website. However, whether it caused him pain is impossible to speculate about.

At least it did not hamper him in the lifestyle expected of a king. In August 1485, just before the battle, Richard took to Bestwood, an enclosed deer park in Sherwood Forest north of Nottingham. The park comprised some 3000 acres enclosed with a 3 metre high fence with a perimeter of 14 km.

At the centre of the deer-park was a royal hunting lodge- Hundred years later when a survey tells us it was a tiled, timber-framed building with laths and plaster. At that time it seems to have contained 38 rooms plus outbuildings. The quarry here would have been red deer and fallow deer. In 1607 a survey was undertaken. At that time the deer stock at Bestwood consisted of at least 300 fallow deer and 24 red deer. Here Richard III spent some days with friends while Henry Tudor began to move up from the coast. It was from Bestwood, Richard began his last fateful journey via Nottingham Castle towards Leicester on the 19^th and arriving on the 20^th of August. Hardly a man with a debilitating backache! With no more than 44.5 km from Nottingham to Leicester it was what any fit rider might easily cover in one to two days; but not something to undertake with a severe backache. Later on, of course, we know that he did not spare himself in the battle but took fully part in it, wielding his weapons as good as any knight.

On the other hand, he probably did not look the happy part, as the recent cranio-facial reconstruction seems to purport. In fact descriptions, which exists from persons, who had actually seen him unanimously describes him as thin, lithe and gaunt. Which is also the evidence gathered from his skeleton. Croyland uses the word “attenuated countenance” –meaning he was thin and drawn but with a livid even ghastly expression on his face on the morning of the battle of Bosworth. Indicating what? Restless pain? We cannot know. But what we do know is that Richard does not in the least look like his happy and a bit plump brother in the earliest existing portrait of him painted around 1520 from a now lost original. In this portrait he looks stern, serious and drawn as might reasonably be expected from a man otherwise described as a man with a restless nature. This does not mean that he was a smile-less creature (we know from his letters he definitely had a humorous disposition).

But neither can he solely have been the happy-go-lucky type visualized for us in the recent cranio-facial reconstruction presented this week. At the presentation it was claimed that the reconstruction was based on the skull. That may be so. But some choices have been made here regarding the challenge of adding the padding, the soft tissue. Did he really have this smiling, mischievous countenance? Or did he – like his contemporaries have told us – look much more gaunt, drawn and pained? Or was that just in the end? What is the evidence here?

The official presentation of the “What the Bones Tell us”

READ MORE:

Adolescant idiopathic scoliosis: natural history and long-term treatment effects.
Marc A. Asher and Douglas C. Burton.
Scoliosisjournal 2006 Vol. 1:2 p.