The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds

by Langley, Philippa

  Knowing that we shed DNA continually, from a distance I hurriedly place the plastic bags over the bones as best I can so as not to contaminate them, grabbing clods of the heavy earth to cover the plastic sheeting – anything to stop the rain getting in. I pick up some rocks and place them around the covering, away from the bones, but close enough to hold the plastic bags in place as a wind whips up from nowhere and thunder rumbles overhead. I’m covered in mud, soaked to the skin but the bones are now protected. I’m strangely exhilarated as I race for the nearest cover. Morris is sheltering in the covered walkway and I witter on about how Shakespeare would have loved this scene; he looks at me as if I’m barking mad.

  The storm passes and sunlight shafts down on to the car park. It is abruptly quiet and a profound feeling of complete peace washes over me. And I know then in the deepest part of me that if this is Richard he wanted to be found – was ready to be found. All at once I remember what day it is: 25 August, the anniversary of Richard’s burial in the Greyfriars, the day he was laid to rest. In the days, months and years to come it might also become known as the day he was found again.

  Day Two

  Sunday, 26 August 2012

  I awake feeling strangely disconnected. Did yesterday’s find really happen or was it all just a dream? Am I merely making something out of nothing because I need it to be something? Jumping to conclusions – ridiculous conclusions – by sheer force of will?

  Annette Carson was astonished at the discovery but far more sanguine than me, happy to accept everything with an open mind. She understands my conviction that this is Richard. Neither of us can rationally explain the discovery of remains where my instinct told me they would be; that they really may be what we have been searching for. John Ashdown-Hill returned to the car park late yesterday afternoon. He was excited about finding human remains in the area where his research concluded the choir of the Greyfriars Church should lie. He’d been dismayed by the lack of medieval archaeology in the vicinity but agreed we would soon know if the bones were important – or just old bones.

  Carson and I arrive in the car park just as the machining of Trench One is finishing. The trench is deep, exposing what could be the medieval layer at 1.5 metres beneath the modern car park. Richard Buckley tells us that there could be a robbed-out wall (an area showing the course of an ancient wall but no longer with any stone) at the southern end of Trench One – possibly medieval – with a smaller one next to it, which also looks to be very old, but doesn’t appear to have deep foundations. He explained that it’s odd to have a medieval wall without foundations, and that the gap between these two (possibly) ancient artefacts does not relate to any medieval structure he’s come across before. I peer into the trench. It looks like plain earth and rubble until Buckley tells me what to look for; a robbed-out wall will merely leave its shadow in the earth. He also points out where the smaller wall and its stone now seem to be poking through. I ask him what he thinks it is. He says it’s difficult to tell at the moment and that we need to get the team in this week to clean it up properly, thus giving us a better idea. I can’t contain myself any longer and ask if he’s heard about yesterday’s find. Buckley smiles. ‘You mean the human remains, the bones?’ I nod, adding, despite myself, ‘You do know where they were found?’ He reminds me that we have to go with the evidence, and that they probably aren’t anything significant. I ask him what we should do about the remains and he says, ‘We don’t know enough about the site – even if we’re actually in the Greyfriars precinct – so we can’t go digging up human remains every time we find them. And we may find more.’ I know that he’s right and impatience is getting the better of me.

  I’m concerned about security. We have human remains confirmed on site and are overlooked by windows on every side. If this news leaks out there are people around who might be interested in stealing a bone or two of a king. Richard Buckley says his team will be discreet, and anyway, he reckons that because the bones have been found without context, nobody will be interested. Stevie moves the excavator over to the yellow marker lines of Trench Two and, under Mathew Morris’s direction, starts ripping up more of the car park. I ask Morris about the high Heras fencing and the tarpaulin that will cover it. My mind keeps going back to the fact that the northern end of Trench One is so close to the entrance of the Social Services building and a busy thoroughfare, but I’m reassured that it will be well shielded from the public gaze. This is to protect the sensibilities of the public too, since many people find the sight of bones and human remains upsetting. And of course the remains could be those of a named individual with living relatives.

  I find myself less interested in Trench Two, probably because I’ve convinced myself that the northern end of the site is all that matters. In Trench Two Morris is guiding the excavator over what could be an existing medieval wall and asks Stevie to skim an inch of soil off the top at one point which he does with great skill. No sooner have they done this than Turi King arrives and we take her to the site of the human remains. Morris gives her the full rundown of what has been found, then, wearing protective gloves, he gently lifts off the rocks, earth and plastic covering. As King looks down at the lower leg bones and sees how smashed up one of them is, I nervously enquire about the storm water. She explains that it’s actually tap water that’s the big problem because of the chlorine and potential DNA it contains. So I got soaked to the skin and rushed about like an idiot when I didn’t have to? She laughs, but points out that it was good to protect them anyway. Once she’s finished, Morris covers the bones with the plastic sheeting, rocks and earth again and this time he covers the good leg bone, the one that the excavator missed, with lots of earth to protect it further. King agrees that it’s best to leave the remains where they are until we know more about them, most importantly whether they are in the Greyfriars precinct because if they are not then they could belong to anyone, from anywhere. I’m surprisingly comfortable with this. I know that the bones are protected and that Turi King is happy with everything.

  And as I keep reminding myself, I don’t really know if these are the remains of King Richard III. I have to be logical and go with the evidence.

  4

  Yearning for a Noble Cause: Richard’s Early Career

  RESPONDING TO the flurry of interest in Richard III as the search for his remains got under way, Christie’s put up for auction a document of his written before he became king. It was drawn up at the Yorkshire castle of Pontefract on 22 April, and although no year was given, internal evidence suggested it was probably around 1476. It concerned a legal dispute between some tenants of another magnate, Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland. Although it was a relatively minor dispute, Richard had been petitioned to provide redress.

  It was one of the few surviving letters drawn up under his signet, and signed by Richard himself and his secretary John Kendall. The estimated price was set between £8,000 and £12,000, but in the event it went for around double the original estimate, selling at £21,250. This was a remarkable price for one medieval manuscript, and showed the strength of interest in Richard that had been aroused.

  Richard’s concern for justice and law-giving was a notable feature of his brief reign as king. Tudor histories – unable to deny this – put a different spin on it, suggesting that although Richard brought in measures to further these aims, they were a sham, the semblance of being a good ruler, to distract people from the terrible way in which he had seized the throne. Yet Richard’s belief in effective justice, and a willingness to champion the rights of the poor, had begun far earlier and can be clearly seen during the rule of his brother, Edward IV. To understand Richard as monarch, and the way he took the throne, it is vital to focus first on his early career, and, from this, get a sense of both the man and his motivation.

  Richard was born at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire on 2 October 1452. He was the youngest son of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville, and the youngest surviving of twelve children. His birth may have been diffi
cult, but there is no evidence that he was physically ill, or his life was in danger. His mother Cecily would later write of the painful after-effects of this birth, lamenting in a letter to Margaret of Anjou in the spring of 1453 of the infirmity of her ‘wretched body’, and the results of ‘sloth and discontinuance’, which in the last few months ‘hath grown and grown’. It appears that Cecily was still recovering from Richard’s birth several months later. It may well have been a traumatic and dangerous breech birth, where the mother could not be delivered ‘uncut’, as Thomas More suggested; perhaps the germ of this formed the basis of the hostile Tudor tradition.

  At the time of Richard’s birth his father, Richard, Duke of York, was in open conflict with the crown. Earlier that year, he had challenged the weak monarchy of Henry VI directly, in February 1452 marching to Dartford at the head of an armed force with a petition of grievances. This strategy backfired: York was forced to relinquish his demands, and at St Paul’s Cathedral swore a solemn oath that he would never take up arms against the king, an oath that York subsequently felt he had no choice but to break.

  As a baby and small child Richard would not have been aware of these concerns, although he may have felt the tension that affected his mother Cecily, who keenly followed her husband’s political fortunes. Cecily complained to Margaret of Anjou in 1453 that her husband’s fall from favour had caused her to be ‘replete with such immeasurable sorrow and heaviness as I doubt not will of the continuance thereof diminish and abridge my days, as it does my worldly joy and comfort’. Cecily dreaded this period of political exile, entreating Margaret that York should no longer be ‘estranged from the grace and benevolent favour … of the king our sovereign lord’. These were heartfelt sentiments, and as Richard grew up he certainly would have heard much more about this exile from court, and reflected upon it.

  When Richard was born, Richard, Duke of York was the wealthiest magnate in the realm. He had a distinguished record of service to England’s ruling dynasty, the House of Lancaster, which he had represented as king’s lieutenant, first in France and then in Ireland. He had a keen commitment to good government, and the provision of justice, and was also strongly influenced, as a warrior, by the code of chivalry, in which he took a scrupulous interest. Many of these traits would be passed on to his youngest son, who also bore his name, and consciously adopted by him as a way of commemorating his father and his legacy.

  However, in the 1450s Richard, Duke of York had moved from being a loyal servant of the Lancastrian King Henry VI to a political opponent. At first he had insisted that his grievances were not with the king himself, but with the ministers around him, particularly Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. There is no reason to doubt this statement. York resented Somerset’s dominance over the king, and had good reason for doing so. Somerset had presided over the disastrous loss of Normandy in 1449–50, the duchy that had been triumphantly conquered by Henry V in the years following Agincourt, and regained by the French some thirty years later in a swift campaign that met only token opposition from the English forces stationed there. York believed Somerset’s regime was corrupt and found his conduct cowardly. The military collapse in Normandy was a shameful episode, and York’s indictment of it fully justified.

  York was outraged at the hold Somerset retained over Henry VI, even in the aftermath of this debacle. He deeply distrusted his rival, believing Somerset sought to undermine his position within the realm. York was acutely conscious of the nobility of his lineage, and his descent from the royal blood of Edward III, which in the absence of any offspring of Henry VI gave him the right to be heir presumptive to the crown, a right he believed that Somerset was denying him. York was also aware that if descent through the female line was given precedence, his claim to the throne was superior to that of Henry VI himself.

  Manuscripts circulating within York’s family circle emphasized the duke’s distinguished pedigree, and likened him to the Roman general Stilicho, a courageous and worthy warrior undermined by an effete and corrupt court party. These were themes that left a deep impression on his youngest son. York’s vendetta against Somerset was virulent; it culminated in the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, when Somerset, accompanying the royal army of Henry VI, was sought out and killed, thereby ending the battle.

  York had by now allied himself with a branch of the powerful Neville family, led by the Earl of Salisbury and his son, the Earl of Warwick. Tension with the government of Henry VI and his strong-willed queen, Margaret of Anjou, had become more and more pronounced in the latter part of the decade, and in October 1459 York, Salisbury and Warwick had once more taken up arms – this time against the king directly. But on 12 October at Ludford Bridge, near York’s castle of Ludlow on the Welsh Marches, the Yorkist army dispersed in chaos. That night York and his confederates held a desperate council of war. Fearing the vengeance of the Lancastrians, it was agreed that part of the family should go into exile. The decision was made in terrible haste. York and his second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland would go to Ireland; his oldest son, Edward, Earl of March, would join the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick and attempt to reach Calais. York’s youngest sons, George and Richard, were left behind with their mother Cecily.

  This was a dangerous and quite terrifying moment. Cecily, her daughter Margaret and her sons George and Richard were now at the mercy of the Lancastrian army. And those troops were rapidly approaching. As one chronicler put it: ‘King Harry rode into Ludlow, and spoiled [pillaged] the town and castle, where he found the duchess of York and her two young sons, then children.’ Richard, who had just turned seven, was now to see the family home wrecked by marauding soldiers. But another account suggested the situation was more desperate than this: ‘The town of Ludlow,’ the chronicler related, ‘then belonging to the duke of York, was robbed to the bare walls and the noble duchess of York unmanly and cruelly was entreted [dealt with] and spoiled [robbed or raped].’

  This was a most startling allegation. The source, known as A Short English Chronicle, was favourable to the Yorkists, but also well-informed and reliable. The charge was quite specific, and was likely to have been accurate. If so, Cecily certainly suffered physical violence and probably sexual violence as well. The young Richard, witnessing this appalling attack on his mother, and only too aware that his father and elder brothers had left him, must have feared for his life.

  In fact, Cecily and her young children were made prisoners of war. They were taken to the Lancastrian parliament that met at Coventry, where York was charged with high treason and his lands confiscated. Cecily pleaded for mercy from Henry VI, and received a royal pardon, and she and her children were now placed in the custody of Cecily’s sister Anne, Duchess of Buckingham in Tonbridge Castle in Kent. The fortunes of the House of York had reached a nadir. But in the summer of 1460 the Earls of Salisbury, Warwick and March returned from Calais at the head of an army, defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Northampton, and captured Henry VI. Margaret of Anjou fled with her son Edward, eventually reaching the safety of Harlech, and taking ship to Scotland.

  Cecily and her young children now moved to London, where they stayed in a fine Southwark house that had belonged to the old warrior Sir John Fastolf. And it was here that they heard the news that York had returned from Ireland and landed at Chester. Cecily immediately hastened to meet him, leaving the children in London, and a letter of 12 October 1460 provided an appealing vignette: ‘And she [Cecily] has left here both her sons, and her daughter, and the Lord of March [Edward] cometh every day to see them.’ It is touching that Edward – ten years older than Richard, who had just celebrated his eighth birthday – had made time, with all the pressing political and military concerns, to visit his younger siblings so regularly. Perhaps, after what they had been through, he wanted to reassure them about the future.

  When York returned from Ireland the dynastic stakes had been raised, for he now championed the superiority of his own lineage over that of the ruling Lancastrian dynasty. York emphasized
that his pedigree ran from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the second surviving son of Edward III, whereas the Lancastrians were descended from John of Gaunt, Edward’s third son. These facts were already well known, and had been when York remained a loyal subject to Henry VI. Political circumstances were now forcing his hand.

  The issue of inheritance to the crown was complex. Lionel had only left a daughter, Philippa, who had married Edmund Mortimer, and it was the granddaughter of this union, Anne Mortimer, York’s mother, who brought the claim into his family. For it to be effective, inheritance through the female line would have to be given precedence, and this was something the judges and lords of the realm were most reluctant to do. Also, as they and many others were well aware, York and his family had for a long time accepted Henry VI as rightful king, and given their oaths of allegiance to him.

  In the event, a compromise was reached. York was able to secure an agreement from parliament at the end of October 1460 known as the Act of Accord, which now nominated him as Henry VI’s heir, at the expense of Henry’s own son, Edward, Prince of Wales (born in 1453). The king was a Yorkist captive and may well have been coerced into agreeing to this. From a Lancastrian point of view, York was unprincipled and ruthless; by attempting to claim the throne for himself he had reneged on his earlier oaths of allegiance to Henry VI. But this was not a course of action York had embarked upon lightly.

  York was a principled man and he was only too conscious of oaths of loyalty and valued them highly. His belief in his own rightful claim had been forged in an atmosphere of escalating threat and menace, and seemed to have been a genuine response to his continued ostracism from court and government. York had been conspicuously loyal to Henry VI as the king’s lieutenant in France and Ireland. He now feared for his political future and indeed his own life.