The heights of the two younger York brothers has always been a mystery. Richard III had always been regarded as the smallest brother, both in height and build, and then Dr John Ashdown-Hill put forward his belief that the middle brother, George, Duke of Clarence, was the shortest brother. Read on….
Why?
There is no indication whatsoever how tall Richard, Duke of York was. There’s only a mention of Cecily Neville being short (by Hall).
Margaret of York was known to be tall, about 6′, which is about as impressive height for a woman as Edward’s was for a man. Why isn’t anyone saying that she was not Richard’s daughter?
The Plantagenets in general had lot of tall people. Richard the Lionheart, Edward the Longshanks, Edward II, Richard II and his half-brother John Holland (incidentally, suspected to be Rchard, Duke of York’s biological grandfather – which is at least a more credible rumor than the incredibly unlikely Cecily/Archer story) were all at least 6′ tall.
It’s funny that, on the other hand, Charles I and his wife are known to have both been very short (Charles was probably the shortest adult male monarch of England ever), but there are no rumors that Charles II (6’2″) wasn’t his biological son. Maybe in that case people realize that traits sometimes skip a generation.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did the chronicler say anything about the heights, actual or relative, of the two boys, or about their appearance at all? He might have been judging by factors other than appearance – maturity of behavior, for instance. Were the ‘modern’ boys in the graph actual individuals, or statistical averages? And while we can calculate average heights in the 15th century (a little less than now), the range of height was pretty much the same.
I don’t think this is overwhelmingly convincing. Boys grow at different rates and often have growth spurts. For example, my husband, whom I met when we were both fifteen was several inches shorter than me then, but when I met him again about a year later he was about two inches taller than me, so he must have grown about 5 inches in a year. Others grow at a steadier rate. As for the illustrations, who knows how accurate they were?
[…] Well, OK, I admit it, the picture right above is NOT Edmund. It’s just an image of a young knight, which is what Edmund was at the time of his death. The trouble is, what did Edmund of Rutland actually look like? Another giant like his elder brother Edward IV? Or…smaller and more delicate, like his younger brothers, George of Clarence and Richard III? Well, certainly as Richard III was, and it is now suggested that George was the same. (To read more about this, click here.) […]
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