I had a hunch that it was him.

Poor old Richard III. Bill Shakespeare did give him a bad press with all that … “Now is the winter of our discontent” stuff … and now the poor bugger’s remains have been dug up in a car park in Leicester. Some reports say that he had a parking ticket slapped on him, as he may have lost his ‘blue badge’ disabled driver’s permit (along with part of his skull) in a field at Bosworth.

According to the ‘bard’, old Dick Plantagenet was a malevolent, deformed, villainous schemer. So, in fact, he had most of the ’qualities’ (Well, perhaps not ‘deformed’) of those who have governed our country until this day.

Thomas More describes Richard as .. ”little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed and hard-favoured of visage.”.. and not satisfied with that Shakespeare added a hunch, a limp and a withered arm ! (I told you that he had a ‘blue badge’): and as if that wasn’t bad enough, when his skeleton was unearthed they couldn’t find his feet.

It has been reported that the bones found show evidence of some ten wounds being inflicted on the body including a wound in the buttocks, so I have to ask, could those words shouted at Bosworth Field have been misheard amongst the noise of battle, and then been misreported ? .. not being .. “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse !” .. but, instead .. “My arse, my arse, I’ve been …

… stabbed in the arse !”