This is a new research paper about the popular perceptions of Richard III, by Olga Prokopis. It’s titled Un-disabling the King: Richard III and the ‘New Evidence’.
It investigates the popular perceptions about him, the reasons for them and whether they are true, going on to address the new, equally false narratives, but the title is somewhat misleading because she argues that modern headlines, that label Richard ‘dissolute, not disabled’, are wrong. Perhaps the headline refers to the media not recognising that Richard was disabled. She quotes research that says his scoliosis would have killed him in his forties, but I’m not sure I agree. She only cites one research paper that states this, but we know that medical professionals do not always agree. As a retired osteopath, I treated several patients with quite severe scolioses and they lived quite well with it – one didn’t even realise she had a scoliosis, so it hadn’t been treated sugically, and it was pretty severe. She was in her eighties when I first saw her so it certainly didn’t kill her.
Perhaps Richard would be called disabled today in our benefits culture, but would he have considered himself disabled? I’ll leave that for you to decide.
However, I do agree with her other points about him not being a glutton or drunkard. She analyses these claims in minute detail and cites the newspaper headlines that claimed he drank three litres of wine a day and ate swan, egret, crane, etc, without putting these into the context of normal medieval life (where wine was often watered down or alcohol used to purify water and the consumption of quite a lot of alcohol was perfectly normal).
All in all, this is a detailed and well-researched study, and I concur with most of her conclusions. As she says, the truth often gets buried by the media in favour of sensationalist headlines.
The New Murrey and Blue blog 
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