DNA Tests Confirm Identity Of King Richard III’s Remains

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Genetic testing has confirmed that ancient bones discovered underneath a UK parking lot in 2012 belonged to medieval King Richard III, according to new research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.
According to National Geographic reporter Dan Vergano, the authors report in their study that DNA from the skeleton shows that there is a 99.9994 percent chance that the bones belonged to the former King of England. It is the first time that genetic identification of a particular individual has been completed so long after death (527 years).
Research published earlier this year indicated that Richard III, the last British monarch to die in combat, had suffered 11 wounds at the time of his death (which came in a battle against the Tudors that ended England’s War of the Roses, according to Vergano). However, he added that there were still “lingering questions about whether the skeleton” was really his.
Now, Dr. Turi King of the University of Leicester Department of Genetics and his colleagues have declared the case closed in their new paper, in which they collected DNA from living relatives of Richard III and analyzed several genetic markers, including the complete mitochondrial genomes (which are inherited through the maternal line) and Y-chromosomal markers (passed down through the paternal line) from both skeletal remains and living relatives.
Furthermore, they used genetic markers to determine the former king’s hair and eye color, concluding that he most likely had blond hair and blue eyes – closely resembling one of the earliest portraits of him that survived. Dr. King’s team, whose research is funded in part by The Wellcome Trust and the Leverhulme Trust, now plan to sequence Richard III’s complete genome in order to learn more about him.
Vergano said that the mitochondrial DNA examined in the study, which was provided by two distant relatives of Richard III’s sister, was “a near perfect match” for the maternal genes of the hunchbacked skeleton found at the Leicester car park, which had previously been the site of Greyfriars Friary. Dr King also found sequences of DNA that he said were not an exact match to anything included in registries of European genes.
As Sarah Knapton of The Telegraph explains, the researchers traced the descendants of Richard III’s great great great grandfather, Edward III, and found that Edward’s descendants did not share the same Y chromosome as Richard. The discovery indicates that Richard “may not have the royal bloodline,” and that he or other members of his family “were illegitimate” and may have had “no right to the throne.”
“The fact that we do not find a match between the living male-line relatives and the skeletal remains is not at all surprising to me,” Dr. King explained, according to Knapton. “We knew from work that I, and others, have carried out in the past that the incidence of false-paternity, where the biological father is not the supposed father, is historically in the region of 1-2 percent per generation. Even using a conservative rate, we knew there was a ~16 per cent chance of finding there would be a false-paternity in this chain.”
However, as genealogy expert Kevin Shürer told CNN.com, the findings do not indicate that the current British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has no legitimate claim to the throne. “Far from it,” he explained. “Royal succession doesn’t work like that. There is no linear succession line between Edward III and Elizabeth II. Yes, they are related, but the whole point of monarchy is that over several centuries it takes various twists and turns. Monarchy is about opportunity and chance as much as it is about bloodline.”
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