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

by Langley, Philippa

  Henry’s inner feelings at this critical moment can be glimpsed from his later donation of a stained-glass window to Merevale Abbey, in commemoration of the battle. The window was of St Armel, a little-known Breton saint adopted by Tudor at an earlier time of crisis, when his ship was caught in a storm and buffeted by winds off the coast of France, and seemed certain to sink. Henry had appealed to Armel, and credited his survival to the saint’s miraculous intercession. The window portrait of Armel – a fourth-century bishop – uniquely depicted him in plate armour, strongly suggesting that Tudor had prayed to him for assistance in the forthcoming battle. Henry was once more in mortal danger, and very much at the mercy of events.

  The mood in the royal camp was rather different. On the morning of 22 August Richard assembled his army and, once it was fully gathered, paraded before it, displaying to them in a procession along the battle line ‘the rich crown of England’, part of the coronation regalia – and possibly the crown of Edward the Confessor. This was a solemn ceremony that required time and careful preparation to enact. The king wished to show his men, through this ritual, that success in battle would at last firmly establish the Yorkist dynasty and mark a new beginning to his reign. This powerful statement of intent by the ruling monarch belied later Tudor claims that Richard awoke troubled and demoralized, with his men in disarray. Rather, the king was confident and ready for the fight. After the ritual was complete, he led his men out on to the Roman road, and, moving westwards, took up battle positions several miles along it, between the small villages of Fenny Drayton and Dadlington, there to await the arrival of Tudor’s army.

  Tudor’s forces had further to march, and after leaving the vicinity of Merevale Abbey they struck out over its adjoining fields. It was harvest time, and Henry later paid out compensation to the parishes of Atterton and Fenny Drayton as his troops, fanning out towards Richard’s expected position, trampled down the crops. They then formed up along the road, and pushed forward towards the village of Fenny Drayton. Beyond it lay the royal army.

  Battle began in the middle of the morning, when Richard’s guns opened up on Tudor’s approaching vanguard. It must have been a demoralizing moment for Oxford and Chandée, seeing for the first time the full size of the army deployed against them and now on the receiving end of an artillery bombardment. But in this desperate situation they responded with skill and ingenuity. To lessen the effect of Richard’s guns they resolved to close with his troops quickly, devising a flanking attack that took advantage of the protection of a nearby marsh, which enabled them, with the benefit of the strong morning sun behind them, to bring their full strength down on the wing of Richard’s vanguard. The king’s forces – commanded by the Duke of Norfolk – were taken aback by the force of this attack and, while fighting stalwartly, began to be pushed back by their assailants. Now Stanley’s troops could also be seen – drawn up some distance from the fighting – but despite the initial success of Tudor’s army Sir William made no attempt to intervene.

  It was at this opening stage of the battle that Richard III first caught sight of his Tudor challenger. Henry and his rearguard had now appeared, at a considerable distance behind the main body of his forces. In Richard’s eyes, a battle-winning opportunity was opening up before him. The two vanguards were still closely engaged, Stanley’s forces stood immobile and seemingly removed from the fighting and Tudor and his small contingent were now in view, dangerously isolated from the rest of his army. Richard quickly made his decision. He had the opportunity that he had hoped for. He would launch a massed cavalry charge at his opponent, and finish with Tudor once and for all.

  Tudor sources later derided Richard’s charge as an impulsive gamble, one that was prompted by the discovery of treachery amid his followers. They imply that – after the clash of the vanguards – the king was rapidly losing control of his army, which showed little stomach for the fight, and that his attack on Tudor was an ill-prepared and desperate act that stood no chance of success. But these accounts are unconvincing, for Richard gathered his cavalry force with calm deliberation. We have already invoked Richard’s ritual preparation for battle. A signal was given to the chosen men of his main division, the king placing a loose-fitting robe displaying the royal coat of arms over his armour. His followers mounted up. Richard then donned a battle crown, a specially made helmet with a circlet crown welded to it. His men readied themselves for the charge. Finally, the king lifted his battle-axe. The line of horsemen began to move forward, slowly at first, then with increasing momentum, swinging wide past the clashing vanguards before gathering speed to close on Henry’s position.

  Tudor was taken completely by surprise by this bold attack, and pandemonium broke out among his retinue when Richard’s force was suddenly sighted. It was now too late for the challenger to flee, and an account by one of the French mercenaries in Henry’s army related how Tudor instead decided to dismount and was then hidden among the men of his personal bodyguard, to present a less visible target. ‘He wanted to be on foot – in the midst of us,’ the soldier said candidly. But once again, at a moment of crisis Henry was blessed by good fortune. A small body of French pikemen was standing nearby, placed there by Oxford – in reserve – as an additional precaution. There were few of them, but they were well-trained, and, following a desperate appeal for help, these men quickly dropped back and enclosed Henry in a mass of bristling weaponry.

  The pike was an eighteen-foot-long wooden stave with a steel head. It was formidable in tight, unbroken formation. These troops had been a special parting gift to Tudor from the French king. And, luckily for Henry, they were trained in a recently adopted Swiss technique to counter a cavalry charge, in which a front rank would kneel with their weapons sloping up, the second standing behind them with their pikes angled, the third with their weapons held at waist level. It had been found that a mounted attack would be considerably slowed by such a formation. But this was only a small force; the majority of the pikemen had been deployed with the Earl of Oxford in the vanguard of Tudor’s army. King Richard still had the chance to fight his way to victory.

  The majority of Tudor’s forces were still on horseback and Richard and his followers ploughed straight through them. There must have been a terrible collision between the king’s mounted troops and Tudor’s retinue, the clattering shock of impact followed by sheer chaos as riders crashed into each other, and those behind into their fellows. Tudor stood dismounted, protected by his French soldiers, as the king drove his way towards his standard.

  King Richard was close to victory. But the phalanx of pike-men formed around Henry had bought him precious time. Richard was fighting with extraordinary determination, but he was also cut off, far from the main part of his army, his picked body of horsemen isolated and vulnerable. Sir William Stanley, watching proceedings from higher ground nearby, was being offered a most tempting target. As Richard sought out his opponent, one of Henry’s mercenaries recollected the king crying out in rage and frustration, cursing the body of pikemen: ‘These French traitors are today the cause of our realm’s ruin.’ This has the ring of a genuine memory from someone close enough to hear. Although it is impossible to know the exact sequence, it seems likely that Stanley now decided to commit his forces against the king. The battle was nearing its awful climax.

  Richard now faced a crisis. Most sources agree that the king’s supporters urged him to flee at some stage of the fighting, and this appears to be the likeliest moment. Richard was told to quit the battlefield and save his life. Richard spurned the opportunity. His reply was grimly defiant. He would finish the matter, and kill Tudor, or die in the attempt.

  This was a heroic way to fight. All contemporaries, even the most critical, now spoke with admiration of Richard’s courage, that he ‘bore himself like a gallant knight’ and he ‘fought manfully to the very end’. There was a sense of awe as he and his men now hurled themselves into the thickest press of their opponents. But Stanley’s men were approaching; there was so little tim
e. The king’s men seemed to have joined in a body around his banner and smashed their way through Tudor’s forces towards the slender pike wall that offered Henry his last protection. The rival standards were only yards apart as this ferocious surge carried Richard towards his challenger.

  At this critical point in the battle, Richard reached Tudor’s standard, cutting it down and killing the standard-bearer, Sir William Brandon. He was now tantalizingly close to Henry himself. Tudor – still dismounted – made no attempt to engage his opponent, and it was left to others to try to fend off Richard’s attack. A flux of horsemen was now swirling around Henry’s pike position. A strong knight, Sir John Cheney, rode in front of them, blocking Richard’s way, and further protecting his master. The king flung him aside. Tudor would have been only a few feet from him, but Richard no longer had time to cut his way through the screen of pikemen and strike him down. Stanley’s men had arrived and as they pitched in to assist Tudor’s beleaguered force it was now Richard’s followers who were being overwhelmed. In the battle’s terrible climax the royal standard-bearer was brought to his knees, his legs cut from underneath him.

  The king fought on, engaging another of Henry’s followers, Sir Rhys ap Thomas, in fierce mounted combat. But he was being pushed further and further away from Tudor by the sheer press of numbers. On the edge of some nearby marshland, several hundred yards from Henry Tudor’s position, Richard turned to rally his troops. In the desperate mêlée his horse lost his footing and plunged into the marsh. The king was thrown to the ground. He gathered himself, but he was now surrounded by his enemies.

  It is here that the dramatic discovery of the king’s body opens a compelling window on the last few minutes of the battle. The pattern of injuries found on Richard’s recently discovered skull powerfully recreates the last agonizing moments of the king’s life. (For details see Chapter 9.) His foes closed in on him. Two wounds to the chin show his helmet straps were cut off by his opponents and his helmet then flung away. Richard fought on, but a rain of blows was now falling upon his unprotected head. The king was struck repeatedly: a puncture mark from the head of a sharp-bladed weapon – probably a dagger – forced him to his knees. And then, the fatal strike from a halberd, slicing off the bone and cutting through to the skull. With Richard finally on the ground, a sword was thrust through his head.

  Richard’s remains confirm the account of the Burgundian Jean Molinet – who almost certainly gleaned his information from French mercenaries in Tudor’s army – that the king was killed by a Welsh halberdier after his horse lost its footing and plunged into a nearby marsh. A later, seventeenth-century life of Sir Rhys ap Thomas also alluded to the family tradition that Rhys and Richard engaged in fierce mounted combat, forcing the king further and further away from Tudor; and a Welsh praise poem by Guto’r Glyn described the deadly blow that ‘shaved his head’. But the most striking evidence is found in the beautifully carved bed lintel Rhys ap Thomas later commissioned in Henry VII’s reign. It showed Bosworth’s culmination, with Rhys and Richard clashing on horseback and captured the moment when the king’s mount lost its footing – rearing up, with a horseshoe coming off its hoof. Between the two combatants a foot soldier had been placed, carrying a halberd – symbolically depicting the blow that killed Richard.

  However, Molinet also related that at the very end Richard sought to flee the battlefield. If this had been true, the Tudors would have made much of it. A Spanish account of the battle, written by Diego de Valera, conveyed something very different: that Richard had been offered a fresh horse by his followers and told to make good his escape, but had resolutely refused to do so. ‘God forbid that I retreat one step,’ Richard had exclaimed. ‘I will either win the battle as a king – or die as one.’ Polydore Vergil also caught the king’s defiant response, ‘that this day he would either make an end of war or of life’, adding reluctantly ‘such was the great fierceness and force of his mind.’

  It is here that even sources highly critical of Richard provide a firm rebuttal. Polydore Vergil described how the king fought and died in ‘the thickest press of his enemies’; John Rous said simply, ‘he bore himself as a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until his last breath.’ And the Croyland Chronicler – an implacable enemy of the king – was moved to offer this remarkable tribute: ‘For in the thick of the fight, and not in an act of flight, King Richard fell in the field, struck by many mortal wounds – as a bold and most valiant prince.’

  The fight was over – Bosworth was now a Tudor victory. ‘We were in part the reason the battle was won,’ the French mercenary acknowledged. Moments later, a relieved Henry was greeted by his battlefield saviour, Sir William Stanley. Richard’s cut-away helmet had been recovered from under a thorn bush, and its circlet crown was hacked off in an impromptu ceremony and presented to the victor. But Henry’s exhilaration at surviving these last frenzied moments of combat quickly turned to spite. He ordered that his rival’s body be stripped of its armour and clothing, trussed up with the hands tied together and then flung naked over a horse. Richard, who had so valued the power of dignified ritual in life, was to be granted little of it in death.

  Examination of Richard’s bones shows that one of Tudor’s followers now stabbed the dead king in the buttocks, in an act of ritual humiliation. Henry wished to prove to all and sundry that his opponent was dead, and at the same time – still shocked and frightened by how close Richard had come to winning – he vindictively encouraged his men to disparage his corpse. Richard’s naked and disfigured body was then carried to Leicester and publicly displayed for two days in such shocking fashion. Afterwards the new king began his victorious progress to London, and, as his men departed, the corpse – unwashed with the hands still tied – was hurriedly interred in the Church of the Greyfriars, without coffin or shroud. No ritual respect was to be offered to the fallen leader; his body was forced into a crudely excavated hole beneath the choir. And when the gap was too short, and the remains did not easily fit it, the corpse was left hunched in the grave. The hasty burial complete, Henry’s followers rushed off to join their master. The Tudor dynasty had begun.

  11

  The Man Behind the Myth

  MY PROJECT, TO find Richard III and his grave, seems complete. A battery of experts have subjected the skeleton found in Leicester City Council’s Social Services car park to a bewildering array of scientific tests and concluded, beyond reasonable doubt, that these are the remains of Richard III. But this is not the end of his story, or the reason my search for Richard began.

  The Looking for Richard project had four clearly defined phases: research and development, archaeology, identification, reburial. The reburial was planned from the outset and was the reason the project had been created. Why was this? Richard III was deeply religious, with a keen sense of justice. These two strands of his character are powerfully woven around his reverence for the dead and provision for their spiritual welfare. For Richard, burial and reburial held a deep significance. At Towton he had ensured that the dead of that conflict, on both sides, were afforded proper burial, founding a chantry chapel to commemorate the slain. And although Richard executed William, Lord Hastings, he subsequently gave him a tomb in the royal mausoleum at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, beside Edward IV – as Hastings had requested in his will.

  The reburial of his father, Richard, Duke of York, strongly demonstrated Richard’s own spirituality. In July 1476 Richard undertook the role of principal mourner for the translation of his father’s remains from Pontefract to Fotheringhay. The poignant event took nine days. Richard oversaw the exhumation, and at each stop along the way, as the coffins rested in a chosen church for the night, took part in the masses said for the souls of his father and older brother Edmund. At Fotheringhay Church – the mausoleum of the House of York – the family laid its loved ones to rest. The ritual allowed a full and final commemoration of the Duke of York’s achievements.

  The similarity between the lives of the
Duke of York and his youngest son, who carried his name and strongly resembled him, was striking. Both men mounted cavalry charges to take the fight to their enemy – at the battles of Wakefield and Bosworth – and both would be cut down in the fierce hand-to-hand combat that followed. The bodies of both men would then be mutilated and denied proper burial by their enemies.

  With the discovery of his remains, we now know something of the treatment meted out to Richard III at his own burial. It would take Henry VII ten years before he honoured him with a tomb, and in so doing publicly recognized the former king. At the time it may have been politically expedient to do so. A pretender, ‘Perkin Warbeck’, claimed to be the younger son of Edward IV (one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’) and rightful King of England. By modestly commemorating his predecessor, Henry may have hoped to finally draw a line under the Yorkist dynasty.

  But Henry VII’s gesture only went so far. Moving the remains of a former king to a more distinguished resting place was a way of fully making peace with the past. In 1413, as a mark of reconciliation, the young Lancastrian King Henry V moved the remains of Richard II (the monarch deposed and almost certainly murdered on the orders of his father, Henry IV) from King’s Langley to Westminster Abbey. Henry V hoped through this very public act to atone for this sin and to heal the divisions of civil war that had plagued his father’s reign. Richard himself undertook a similar symbolic reburial. As king, he had exhumed the remains of the saintly Henry VI from Chertsey Abbey and reburied him with honour in the royal mausoleum at St George’s Chapel. According to John Rous, ‘the king’s body was taken out of his grave in Chertsey in August 1484 and honourably received in the new collegiate church at Windsor, where it was again buried with the greatest solemnity to the south of the high altar.’ The treasurer’s accounts of the College of St George provide a window on this event, recording money paid ‘for the removal of King Henry VI from Chertsey’.