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

by Langley, Philippa

  I’m thrown. Is this relevant now? But I tell him as lightheartedly as I can about my goose-bumps that day and the letter ‘R’, and the feeling that I was walking on Richard’s grave.

  At the trench, the cameras roll as Jo Appleby bends down and removes a light covering of earth from the chest cavity and upper vertebrae. The spine has the most excruciating ‘S’ shape. Whoever this was, she states, the spinal column has a really abnormal curvature. This skeleton has a hunchback.

  The word hits me like a sucker-punch. No, I can’t take it in. Are they saying this is Richard? I look again at the acute ‘S’ shape of the spine. If this is Richard, how can he have worn armour with a hump in his back? Appleby says she wouldn’t try but confirms that the arms are normal, there was no ‘withered arm’. Farnaby says he could have been a hunchback but still been the nice guy. But it doesn’t add up. How could he fight with his head tilted downward? How could he see? The faces of Dr Tobias Capwell, Dominic Sewell and the other combat and weaponry experts I’d spoken to whirl before me. Personal descriptions of Richard come to mind; written by people who met him, none mentioned any acute abnormality.

  There’s more. Appleby explains there is a wound at the top of the skull and damage to the base inflicted at or around the time of death. She lifts the skull that she has released from the earth and turns it round. There’s an indent on the inside with two small flaps of bone hanging from it. Directly above this, on the outside top of the skull, there is a small square puncture wound like that inflicted by a poleaxe. Appleby turns the skull over. At the back is a massive cleave wound, suggesting a blow that would have taken off most of the back of the head. This is not a friar dedicated to peace. This is a man who could have died in battle. I’m reeling.

  Replacing the skull, she demonstrates how the remains looked in situ when she first uncovered them. I can see how high the skull is in the earth. The neck has been forced up so that the head is sticking out, jerking forward and downward onto the chest. The evidence is there, staring me in the face. I’m trying to discern the man from the bones, but can see nothing. Appleby lifts the skull again showing the massive cleave wound and the face. Suddenly there is hair, blood and humanity.

  I flop down on to the spoil heap behind me. Farnaby puts his arm around me and asks if I’m all right. I feel as if I’ve been hit by a train. The others want me to be excited because it looks as though we may have found Richard but all I can hear is the pounding in my ears and the awful word ‘hunchback’ in my brain. Appleby is talking about the Paralympics, the men and women who overcome disabilities to become superhuman heroes. This was Richard, who became a warrior king in spite of everything. She’s trying to help me comprehend what I’m seeing.

  But that’s not why I’m in turmoil. The hunchback stigma, if confirmed, will allow modern historians with their reputations tied to Tudor propaganda to claim that their chosen sources have been validated. Any hope of revealing the man behind the myths will be lost and the cardboard cut-out caricature held up as incontestable.

  Filming stops. Everyone is elated. I catch their excitement and smile, but it’s a mechanical smile. They think it may be Richard whereas I know it’s Richard. The joviality of the Time Tomb Team helps me cope but I just want to be alone.

  I head to Trench Three where Jon Coward is working by himself. He’s excited about the trench, since they may be able to confirm exactly where they are in terms of the east end of the church, and therefore the burial in Trench One could be in the choir. I ask him if he has heard about the discoveries at the exhumation yet. He looks blank. When I tell him I can almost see his mind whirling. If the remains are indeed in the choir of the church then the likelihood of them being King Richard is even greater. I return to Trench One, where John Ashdown-Hill has arrived and is standing by the remains. We hug. He is white and in shock; strange that this should be our reaction. He too comprehends what this will mean for Richard’s reputation.

  The exhumation work resumes. Jo Appleby bags up each bone and Mathew Morris brings another brown cardboard finds box. I find myself thinking how sad it is. Appleby hands up a clear plastic finds bag containing a small piece of rusted metal, possibly iron, approximately two to three centimetres long, which looks as if it has a sharp point. It was found in the upper back between the second and third thoracic vertebrae, but not lodged in the bone. Turning it over, I ask if it could be the tip of a weapon that snapped off in the mêlée after it was thrust into his flesh – a pike maybe. Appleby doesn’t know.

  It’s getting late and the site slowly clears. Richard Buckley is back, amazed by the news of the discovery. He doesn’t normally swear, he says, but he did on this occasion. Ashdown-Hill has a modern copy of Richard’s royal banner, and I’d like to place it over the finds box for its departure from the site. We won’t be doing this again, and I want to mark the event, to pay him what respect we can. Richard Buckley agrees, and leaves.

  Morris and Appleby bag the final remains, and I see the skull up close for the first time. The face is short with well-defined features, the skull itself almost delicate in appearance, not the heavy-browed Neanderthal type you sometimes see. Only the skull seems to have the creamy yellow appearance, whereas the bones are mostly dark with the clay soil clinging to them. The bones are being put into the bags still dirty to protect them as some are quite fragile. They’ll be cleaned in the lab for analysis. I reflect on how Richard was found. We so often see human remains with the awful gaping mouth of death, but not this time; Richard’s skull, with its acute angle, looks as though he had just nodded off to sleep in the grave, his head fallen forward on to his chest.

  It’s nearly 7 p.m. and Richard is out of the ground. I ask Jo Appleby if she would like the honour of carrying the box with the royal banner covering it to the van, but she declines. She’s not comfortable as we don’t know for certain that it’s Richard. It doesn’t feel right for me to do it, so then who? Suddenly it dawns on me: John Ashdown-Hill; without his research we wouldn’t be here. I hold the cardboard box, as he places the banner over it, he takes the box and carries it as we walk to Mathew Morris’s van. Ashdown-Hill places the box inside then Morris closes the door.

  It’s a peaceful moment and I feel enormous relief that it’s all over. Then all at once Jo Appleby is angrily telling us that what we’re doing isn’t right, that everyone should be treated the same. On top of everything else, it’s the last straw and I’m furious. She’s forgotten, or doesn’t know, the struggle I’ve had to find this man. I tell her so in no uncertain terms, but feel guilty about it. As a scientist, she is dedicated to evidence and while I agree that in death we are all equal, at that moment, at the end of my journey, with the agony of discovery, I feel emotional. Then I calm down because Jo Appleby is right: he hasn’t been identified yet.

  As Morris closes the site, I look at where Richard had lain. Two yellow field markers are all that remain, the western one marking the position of his head, the eastern the extent of his leg bones. Gazing at these two simple markers I should be happy, or perhaps sad, but I just feel numb.

  But we weren’t quite at the end of the journey. The next morning I tell Sarah Levitt at LCC the news. She blanches and informs Sir Peter Soulsby, Leicester’s mayor, who utters one word: ‘Bugger.’ Phil Stone, chairman of the Richard III Society, gasps, as does the private secretary to the Duke of Gloucester.

  I give the news to Annette Carson, back at home in Norfolk, and she drops everything to arrive the next day. By this time one of the cameramen reveals that he too suffers from curvature of the spine. That evening, after a long day’s filming with a heavy camera, he’s in considerable pain.

  At my reunion with Annette the mood is subdued. Neither of us has any doubt that the man in the grave is someone we have sought to understand most of our adult lives. Annette shares with me an indefinable sense of the weight of history, and a potent awareness of many people’s expectations.

  On Saturday, 8 September, there is a public open day at the dig. LCC gi
ves me the honour of leading the first and final tours, and Michael Ibsen, seventeenth-generation nephew of Richard III, is on my first one. It’s a difficult day. Many of the public who come are emotional at the possibility of finding Richard’s remains but we’re not allowed to say anything about the discovery in order to give the university time to corroborate the find.

  We’re into the third, extra, week of the dig. The university is due to hold a news conference on Wednesday, 12 September and intend to run with the hunchback findings. I fight hard against this with Richard Taylor, their Director of Corporate Affairs, until the initial analysis comes through. This reveals that although the skeleton had a curved spine, it was not what is sometimes inappropriately termed ‘hunchbacked’; it didn’t have kyphosis. It looks as if Richard III had severe scoliosis, which is a condition, not a disability, and doesn’t rule out an active lifestyle. He could fight, it seems, as the records said he did, but his right shoulder may have been higher than the left.

  So why was there confusion at the graveside regarding the position of the skull on the chest? It seems the grave was cut too short, forcing the head upward and forward as the body was lowered in feet first. Was the burial carried out in a hurry? It is, of course, speculation at this stage, but I try to contain my joy. What we can now see fits with the contemporary descriptions we have of Richard. We may be able to uncover the real man after all.

  At the 12 September press conference, the university confirms the discovery of the two sets of human remains, one female, the other male, revealing important information about the male skeleton: the remains appear to be that of an adult male located in the choir of the church where it was reported that Richard III had been buried. On initial examination, the skeleton seemed to have suffered significant peri-mortem trauma to the skull which appears consistent with, although not certainly caused by, an injury received in battle. A barbed iron arrowhead was found between vertebrae of the skeleton’s upper back. It is also revealed that the skeleton had acute spinal abnormalities, confirming severe scoliosis – a form of spinal curvature. This would have made the right shoulder visibly higher than the left, consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance. Finally, the skeleton did not show signs of kyphosis – a different form of curvature. The man did not have the feature sometimes inappropriately known as a hunchback and did not have a withered arm.

  By now Ken Wallace, the metal detector expert, has discovered numerous artefacts including Lombardic-style copper alloy letters in Trench Three, and a ‘D’ in Trench One, which could be from tomb inscriptions. Sadly, they do not spell ‘Richard’ and date from the late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries. Wallace has also found a medieval silver halfpenny in Trench Three, and in Trench Two pointed archaeologist Kim Sidwell to another beneath the ground. Sidwell then carefully unearthed a medieval silver halfpenny bearing the head of Edward IV, which the archaeologists believe dates it to around 1468–9. In Trench Three, Leon Hunt and Jon Coward have also discovered the most beautiful inlaid medieval floor tile in almost pristine condition. Its design is similar to the half tile found by Hunt earlier, but this, they believe, is a heraldic eagle from the arms of Richard of Cornwall as King of the Romans and dates from around 1277.

  Measurements from the site have enabled Richard Buckley and his team to plot the locations of the Greyfriars Priory Church and buildings as archaeologist Andy McLeish, with much experience in urban archaeology, completes the drawings. It seems that the medieval window tracery, circa 1400, might have been unearthed at the time the Victorian grammar school was built, since the tracery’s similarity to the medieval gothic-style windows of the school’s chapel is startling. It appears likely that the tracery inspired the Victorian builders to replicate it and it now represents a very visible modern connection to Leicester’s medieval past. Buckley has suggested that the friary may have been built of grey sandstone, with slate roof tiling (also discovered) and decorated with glazed ridge tiles. But there was another intriguing discovery: he and his team could detect stains of red-brick dust on the fifteenth-century masonry fragments. It would need further analysis but this could suggest that the east end of the church was built, or faced in, brick and if so, Buckley confirmed, the Greyfriars Church would be one of the earliest medieval brick buildings in Leicester.

  In the final week the gravesite is painstakingly examined by Tony Gnanaratnam. He finds church floors in the sides of Trench One that match those in Trench Three and he exposes the north wall of the church at the very northern end of Trench One. Richard Buckley and his team believe that the burial in Trench One might have taken place in the south-west corner of the choir, with the grave positioned against the southern stall. We also discover that Vickie Score at ULAS has been busy baking. In the gazebo, Richard Buckley is presented with perfect miniature cake hard hats. Roaring with laughter, he munches into them.

  The dig closes on Friday, 14 September and I’m finally able to go home. Trench Three has revealed several grave cuts and a large lead-lined stone sarcophagus. Leon Hunt says it might not be hermetically sealed as he can see a small gap in the top. I wonder if this could be the grave of Sheriff Moton (later known as Mutton), or one of the important provincial ministers of the Greyfriars order (William of Nottingham and Peter Swynfeld). Richard Buckley would like to investigate further and has proposed a new dig so perhaps one day we will find out. The site and graves will be protected with a geo-permeable membrane before being filled in, with the exception of the area that contained Richard’s remains. This will be left open for posterity. LCC is planning a new Richard III Visitor Centre in the former grammar school where a ‘Sold’ sign will appear shortly. A new chapter in the story of the Greyfriars of Leicester is about to begin.

  Back at the laboratories in the university, work is only just beginning.

  8

  Richard as King

  ON 26 JUNE 1483, the first day of his reign, Richard III seated himself on the marble throne of the Court of the King’s Bench in Westminster and summoned the judges from all the various courts. The king made clear his wish ‘that they justly and duly administer the law without delay or favour’, emphasizing that they do so, ‘to any person, as well as to poor as to rich’. Richard’s concern for justice had been a feature of his rule of the north in his brother’s reign, and now it would become the signature of his own kingship. Richard would return to the Court of the King’s Bench on a number of occasions during his reign, personally observing important trials and discussing legal issues with the judges concerned. He demonstrated an unusual interest in the law for an English sovereign, and his enquiries were informed ones, showing that he had more than a layman’s legal knowledge. Richard would introduce important changes to the legal system, and his first and only parliament would pass major reforming legislation.

  It remained to be seen whether these aspirations of good kingship would offset the controversial manner by which Richard had seized the throne. On 28 June 1483, two days into his reign, Richard III granted the dukedom of Norfolk to his loyal supporter John, Lord Howard. The introduction to the grant was both unusual and striking, showing – if we accept its rhetoric at face value – that Richard saw himself as being appointed by God as the man most suitable to be king: ‘We, who under his providential design rule and govern his people,’ the king began, ‘endeavour by his grace to conform our will and acts to his will … to illumine [honour] those noble and distinguished men who are most worthy of public weal [esteem]…’

  The wording, which echoed the preamble to Richard’s foundation of a religious community at Middleham five years earlier, with its sense of destiny and spiritual protection, showed that Richard had moved beyond seeing his brother Edward IV’s marriage pre-contract as an impediment to his nephew’s claim to the throne. He now believed himself engaged on a divinely ordained mission of reform, one that would restore morality to a corrupt courtly way of life through a reinvigorated royal legislature.

  Late medieval monarchy was a mixtur
e of self-belief and pragmatism. John, Lord Howard had proven abilities, and was being promoted because he was a close ally of Richard and vital to the strength of his regime. And yet Richard was also righting an injustice. In November 1481 Howard ought to have received a half share of the lucrative inheritance of John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, on the death of his daughter and heiress Anne. However, Edward IV, strongly influenced by his queen, ignored both Howard’s rights and his proven record of loyalty to the House of York, and instead granted the lands to his younger son, Richard. This decision alienated Howard from the Woodvilles. Thomas More commented dismissively of Richard’s patronage that ‘by great gifts he won himself unsteadfast friendships’, but this royal grant won Howard’s unswerving loyalty. Howard vigorously suppressed the Kentish section of the revolt against Richard in October 1483, and fought and died in the king’s service at Bosworth.

  Another victim of Edward IV’s grant of the Mowbray lands to his son in 1481 was William, Lord Berkeley, and on the same day that Richard created Howard Duke of Norfolk he also elevated Berkeley to the earldom of Nottingham. The witness list to this creation suggested that an influential group of noblemen – including the Dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, the Earls of Arundel, Lincoln and Northumberland and Lords Dudley and Stanley – had become disenchanted with the Woodville family and were, as a result, prepared to support Richard’s accession as king. Richard also had the backing of Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Kempe, Bishop of London, and Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who had revealed to Richard the existence of Edward IV’s pre-contract of marriage earlier that month.

  Even Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, was at this stage willing to support Richard. On 5 July, on the eve of the coronation, she and her husband Lord Stanley sought an interview with the king at the Palace of Westminster at which Richard’s chief justice William Hussey was also present. The possible return of her son Henry to the Yorkist court was under discussion and Margaret was also concerned about money – the substantial ransom that was owed her family by the French House of Orléans. Richard gave his full backing to her efforts to recoup this sum; Margaret, always the pragmatist, agreed in return to play a prominent part at Richard’s coronation.