Fifteenth Century Digital Boy

Hey, have you ever wondered what a fifteenth century child-murdering usurper sounded like? Sorry, alleged. Huh? No, alleged child-murderer, he's definitely from the fifteenth centu--oh, Richard III. Yes, the now is the winter of our discontent guy. 

Above: Richard III, seen here about to soliloquize about crimes he plans to commit.

And if that somewhere happens to be
on top of a sociopathic despot, so be it.

You might recall that Richard III's body was recently--uh--well, 2012, but again, dude's been dead since 1485, so recent is relative. Anyway, his body was recently discovered by writer and number one Richard III fan Philippa Langley five hundred and twenty-seven years after it was hastily buried under a parking lot. Or, more accurately hastily buried in a church yard that was later paved over. That might sound a little sacrilegious, but I mean, people have to park somewhere, amiright? 

Pictured: some incredibly inconvenient
and easily murderable nephews seen here
cowering in fear in the Tower of London.

Langley, feeling the King had gotten a bad rep as a result of Shakespeare's play, Richard III, and that time he murdered his nephews so he could seize--what? He definitely did. Look, I'm not an historian, but Edward IV died, and his twelve year old son became king because monarchy is objectively absurd. Since Edward was a minor, Richard appointed himself his and his younger brother's guardian, locked them both in the Tower of London, and then no one ever saw them alive again. Then, Richard had himself crowned king in their place. Pretty cut and dry, right? Yes. 

But Langley insisted that he was the victim of a smear campaign. In fact, after digging him up, she organized a state funeral.

Pictured: no, really. Like, a horse-drawn carriage, flowers, mourners.
Benedict Cumberbatch even showed up and read a poem. 

She's essentially the Nick Fury of
historical, forensic, voice reconstruction.

Weird hobby? Sure, it is. But archeology is cool, so, I'll allow it. Also, literally nobody involved asked my opinion. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that despite being dead for five centuries (and a murdering usurper), Richard III has just made the news again. This time, because someone called Yvonne Morley-Chisholm, an actor and voice-coach with similarly weird hobbies, has devised a way to recreate Richard's voice by putting a team of specialists together to try and figure out just what he might have sounded like.

Weird that a country would let an obvious
criminal assume its highest office...

Her group included specialists in various medical and forensic fields as well as history and acting. The idea being that it's not enough to approximate the sound of Richard's voice, but also the way he spoke. Like, the dialect appropriate to the region he came from as well as the era. Morley-Chisholm then sought out an actor with a similar facial proportions to the King--which I guess makes a difference--and had him study up on the accent and personal history. Then she had him record an actual speech the King once gave, and the footage was then combined with a reconstruction of his face to create a digital Richard III.

Is it weird? Absolutely. He looks like something out of Shrek, or like one of the player avatars in Civilization VI, but it sounds cool. And it's wild that this voice coach might have created a reasonably accurate recreation of a medieval person. Even if he did definitely murder children on his way to the throne.

"Now is the winter of our discontent made unnerving..."