The New Murrey and Blue blog

Here we are again, deciding what Richard III’s voice was like. Well, the last time I read about this he was pinned to the West Midlands, presumably because of his early years at Ludlow. Now, according to this link, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13893517/Richard-III-accent-Yorkshire-posh-voice.html, he’s Yorkshire. There’s rather a difference between the two, think you’ll agree.

But Yorkshire was where Richard spent a great deal of his childhood and adult life, so I suppose it’s a good bet. But how on earth can examining his skull lead to this conclusion? Beats me. Logic, yes. Bone bumps and troughs….hmm. Surely accents are an acquired skill, we aren’t born with them. When I was a child brought up in South Wales I had a Glamorgan accent. We moved to Northern Ireland and I came back sounding pure County Fermanagh. When I lived in Nottingham I too “Hey-upped”! (It’s certainly not a greeting restricted to Yorkshire) But all I could do when I was born was gurgle (and make other less endearing noises).

This new theory is “….to be revealed at an event in York in November….” That’s all it says in the Daily Mail article. But if you go here you’ll find that the event is A Voice for Richard, see here https://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/show/a-voice-for-king-richard-iii/ and here https://avoiceforrichard.co.uk/. It is to be on Sunday, 17th November 2024 at York Theatre Royal. There is to be a livestream too. And so….we wait.

Let’s face it, we can guess and guess until the cows come home, we’ll never actually know unless we somehow manage to whisk back in time and come face to face with him. I’ve been trying to do that for decades without success! And far wiser souls than mine have failed as well. So it has to remain guesswork

See these links for other articles about Richard’s accent: https://murreyandblue.org/2017/11/26/would-we-understand-richard-if-we-were-whisked-back-in-time/ and https://murreyandblue.org/2017/02/19/what-did-richard-iii-sound-like/ and https://murreyandblue.org/2020/12/11/what-were-our-medieval-kings-voices-like/.