GOOD old Richard III. At least that, I think, is how we are supposed to see him now.

News this week that old Dick’s bones had been dug up from beneath a car park in Leicester has led to a campaign to reappraise Shakespeare’s hunchbacked villain. He was, his supporters say, not so bad after all.

OK, the Princes in the Tower did disappear on his watch. But any number of people could have been responsible. Which is true, but any number of people did not inherit the crown.

It is also true that his successor and the victor at the Battle of Bosworth that saw Richard lose his crown and his life (the last English king to do so in battle, although George II was the last monarch to actually fight) Henry VII was not such a nice guy either.

The founder of the Tudor line and dad of Henry VIII was pretty ruthless, had lots of heads chopped off and generally acted like a Mafia Don – which of course he was, as was Richard.

Which is the point. There is little use us looking back at the history of the end of the Middle Ages with modern eyes.

England then was ruled by warring families and who sat atop the heap was the chap who won the last battle.

For Richard and Henry then think Saddam Hussein and President Bashar of Syria.

Indeed, I expect the Royal Shakespeare Company is already planning its next production of Richard III to cash in on the find, no doubt to be set in the palace of Colonel Gaddafi.

“A camel, a camel. My kingdom for a camel.”