re: #249 Scottish Dragon

Yeah there were a lot of folks who thought Shakespeare made him disabled as a visual cue for his villainy. In the White Queen TV series, Richard III is portrayed as entirely sound in body. It was a hell of a shock when he was exhumed from beneath a parking lot alley.

IIRC (dubious), physicians’ analyses of Richard III’s skeleton indicated that even though he had pronounced scoliosis, it was a lateral kind that would not have prevented him from riding a horse - or fighting on one - and might not have been that noticeable in a casual meeting.
Though of course, as one of his (and History’s) Designated Villains, Shakespeare had to characterize “Crookback Dick” as being as deformed as possible…