WATCH: How Richard III would really have sounded
You might be surprised by his accent
Hello Royal Clubbers, it’s Millie here, writing to you from a rather wet and miserable London. If you are similarly affected, I hope this post will brighten your day!
As you know, here at the Royal Club we don’t just love modern-day royals, we’re big fans of historical royals too (here’s last month’s The Royal Archive newsletter), and so I’m delighted to report there’s been an exciting development in our understanding of Britain’s last Plantagenet king, Richard III.
The last time we heard from Richard was in 2012 when his body was found in the distinctly unroyal setting of a Leicester car park.
This time, thanks to a facial reconstruction of the much-maligned monarch made by the Face Lab team at Liverpool John Moores University, we are hearing from Richard quite literally.
The architect of this verbal miracle is vocal coach Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, who was on a weekend away with other voice experts when she realised that the reconstruction meant it may be possible to discover not just what Richard looked like, but what he sounded like too…
This Eureka moment led her to begin a ten-year research project alongside Face Lab called ‘Voice for Richard’.
The team used speech and language therapy, dentistry, forensic psychology and archaeology to piece together an understanding of how Richard might have spoken. Combined with a voice actor, they were able to create a digital avatar, bringing a king who died over 500 years ago back to life.
Watch and listen to the recreation of King Richard III’s voice below, and then let me know what you think in the comments. Does Richard sound as you expected? I must say I was a little surprised by his accent which is many miles removed from the plummy accents we associate with The Windsors…