Royal bones and bottles of wine

Les analyses des ossements de Richard III, découverts en 2012, révèlent que le dernier monarque Plantagenet d'Angleterre aimait bien boire.

While Angers medias didn't pay much attention to the 2012 discovery of Richard III's remains, the latest
Plantagenet king of England died in 1485, their English counterparts have had exactly the opposite behaviour. Hundreds of articles have been dedicated on the other side of the channel to the informations got after the analysis of the royal bones. Numerous English (and American) newspapers and tv channels reported the taste of Richard III for luxury goods and, as a descendant of the Angers culture,... wine.

"The pressures of ruling a country must be difficult - so it's perhaps no surprise that King Richard III turned to alcohol to drown his sorrows", writes The Telegraph adding that "he drank a bottle of wine a day". Moreover, "the monarch enjoyed a decadent menu including swans, heron, egret and freshwater fish such as pike, all washed down with up to three litres of alcohol a day. Nevetheless high alcohol consumption was hoever not unusual in the 15th century when beer and wine were safer to drink than water. Such drinks also tended to be weaker than today".

That alcoholic penchant was, according to the scientific studies, more visible in the end of Richard III whose reign only last two years (1483-1485). King Roi René d'Anjou, a contemporay of Richard III, would have probably approved.