King Richard III DNA Analysis Reveals Possibility of Infidelity Somewhere in His Lineage
ByScientists analyzing the remains of King Richard III may have found a reason for why his claim to the throne could have been questioned.
According to BBC News, authors of a study published in the journal Nature Communications found evidence of infidelity in Richard's lineage. These remains were originally found in a car park in Leicester in 2012, where Richard would have been buried after his death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.
After extracting genetic material from the remains, scientists were not able to draw a match with Richard's living relatives on the paternal side, whereas they were able to do so on the maternal side.
"Our paper covers all the genetic and genealogical analysis involved in the identification of the remains of Skeleton 1 from the Greyfriars site in Leicester and is the first to draw together all the strands of evidence to come to a conclusion about the identity of those remains," study lead author Dr. Turi King, a geneticist at the University of Leicester, said in a press release. "Even with our highly conservative analysis, the evidence is overwhelming that these are indeed the remains of King Richard III, thereby closing an over 500 year old missing person's case."
King told BBC News her team was not thrown off by the discovery given the rate of "false paternity" in that time. She also confirmed that her research leaves little doubt, if any at all, that the remains belong to Richard III.
"We may have solved one historical puzzle, but in so doing, we opened up a whole new one," stdudy co-author Kevin Schurer, a geneology specialist at Leichester, told BBC News. "Hypothetically speaking, if John of Gaunt wasn't Edward III's son, it would have meant that (his son) Henry IV had no legitimate claim to the throne, nor Henry V, nor Henry VI."