An analysis of the skeleton of King Richard III revealed he did not have a hunchback as described by English playwright William Shakespeare.
Scientists were able to create a replica of the 15th century king's spine based on bones from his real skeleton that were discovered in 2012, the Associated Press reported.
Scientists concluded that the king, immortalized as a villain in Shakespeare's play "Richard III," suffered from a severe form of scoliosis. But he was not a "hunchbacked toad" like Shakespeare wrote some 400 years ago.
"Richard had a very squishy spine but it wouldn't have stuck out that obviously," lead researcher Piers Mitchell, of the University of Cambridge, told the AP. "Unless you were pretty close to him, it's unlikely you would have noticed anything very wrong with him."
But the king's body did have some peculiarities.
The king would have been a few inches taller were it not for the scoliosis he developed as a teenager, researchers found. His head and neck were straight and his spine would have bent sideways- but he was not a hunchback, Mitchell told the AP.
The king's right shoulder was also higher than his left, and his torso was short compared to the length of his limbs.
"With some padded shoulders or if the height of his trousers was adjusted, a sympathetic tailor could have hidden Richard's twisted back," Mitchell told the AP.
King Richard III was killed during the battle of Bosworth in Leicestershire in 1485. It wasn't until 2012 when his remains were found buried underneath a parking lot in the city of Leicester, England.
If Richard III was alive today, he probably would have had surgery to correct his crooked spine. One current British royal, Princess Eugenie, who is seventh in line to the throne, had titanium rods inserted into her spine in 2002 to straighten her curved back, according to the AP.
