The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds
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Michael Jones would like to express gratitude to his co-author for sharing his vision of putting Richard III back into the story of his family, the House of York, rather than casting him out from its ranks. I would like to thank fellow scholars Professor Michael Hicks, Dr Rosemary Horrox, Drs Sean Cunningham and James Ross at the National Archives, Dr Malcolm Mercer at the Tower Armouries, Professor Colin Richmond and Dr Philip Morgan at the University of Keele, Dr Rowena Archer, Cliff Davies, Diana Dunn, Keith Dockray, Margaret Condon and Anne Crawford for their support over years of working on Richard III, and particularly Professor Tony Pollard and Dr David Grummitt for the advice and help they gave as this present book got underway. To Peter and Carolyn Hammond, who for many years put the resources of the Richard III Society library at my disposal: I am appreciative of their personal kindness and hospitality.
Richard Mackinder of the Bosworth Battlefield Centre has walked the battlefield with me and discussed the latest archaeological finds there. Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, has given helpful advice on the logistics of armour and Richard’s cavalry charge. Bob Woosnam-Savage of the Royal Armouries, an expert on late medieval weaponry and wounding in battle, has provided invaluable support around interpreting the battle wounds on Richard’s remains and reconstructing the king’s final moments at Bosworth. In the case of both the archaeological finds and battlefield terrain, Richard and Bob have stressed that their conclusions at this stage can only be provisional.
Sioned Williams, Curator of Furniture at the National History Museum, Cardiff, has kindly provided information on Rhys ap Thomas’s bed lintel, and Professor Paul Moroz, Orthopedic Surgeon at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, on the likely effects of Richard’s scoliosis. Geoffrey Wheeler has provided valuable assistance with the picture research. I am also grateful to my friends and family for their support – and to my two sons Edmund and Rufus and to their mother Liz.
We both would like to thank our agent, Charlie Viney, who has encouraged us every step of the way, and Roland Philipps, Caroline Westmore, Becky Walsh and everyone at John Murray, who have given us such great support, as well as Morag Lyall, our copy-editor, and Christopher Summerville who has compiled the index. My final debt is to my supervisor, Professor Charles Ross, who first kindled my interest in Richard III. Charles’s major biography of Richard was completed whilst I was his post-graduate student and we discussed it on many occasions. His depth of scholarship and personal generosity inspired my love of medieval history – and I have thought of him often as this book was written.
Picture Credits
Bosworth Battlefield Centre
Darlow Smithson Productions Ltd
Darlow Smithson Productions Ltd
Darlow Smithson Productions Ltd
Lambeth Palace Library
Looking for Richard project 2013
National Museum of Wales
Private collection
Private collection
Private collection
Private collection
Royal Armouries, Leeds
Stratascan Ltd: (Claire Graham)
Stratascan Ltd
Dr Phil Stone, Richard III Society
University of Leicester: (Colin G. Brooks)
University of Leicester
University of Leicester
University of Leicester: (Colin G. Brooks)
University of Leicester: (Colin G. Brooks)
University of Leicester
University of Leicester Archaeological Services
Geoffrey Wheeler
Geoffrey Wheeler
Geoffrey Wheeler
Geoffrey Wheeler
Geoffrey Wheeler
Geoffrey Wheeler
Notes
Introduction: The Inspiration
The quotes about Richard come from the York City Records, 23 August 1485 and 14 October 1485.
Chapter 1: The Road to the Dig
For Richard’s burial in the Greyfriars Priory in Leicester see Peter Hammond, ‘The Burial Place of Richard III’, in Richard III. Crown and People, Richard III Society, 1985, p. 31 (also Ricardian, IV, 59 (December 1977), pp. 30–31). For Richard’s tomb, see Rhoda Edwards, ‘King Richard’s Tomb at Leicester’, in Richard III. Crown and People, pp. 29–30 (also Ricardian, III, 50 (September 1975), pp. 8–9). For John Speed’s report on the site of King Richard’s grave, see John Speed, History of Great Britain, 1611, p. 725. For Wren’s account of the memorial pillar in Herrick’s garden in Leicester see Parentalia, or Memoires, of the Family of the Wrens (London, 1750), p. 144. See Ashdown-Hill, Last Days of Richard III, pp. 114–23, for full details on the discovery of Richard III’s mtDNA sequence. Ashdown-Hill’s discovery was made in 2005 and published in John Ashdown-Hill: ‘Finding the DNA of Richard III’, Medelai Gazette, August 2005. Ashdown-Hill also published full details of Richard III’s mtDNA sequence for HVR1 and HVR2 (subsequently confirmed in the Leicester bones, 2013) in ‘Margaret of York’s Dance of Death: The DNA Evidence’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 111, 2007, pp. 193–207. The site of the lost Greyfriars Church was believed to be close to Grey Friars Street in the north-east of the Greyfriars precinct. See Ken Wright, The Field of Bosworth, 2002, pp. 142–3, 146. David Baldwin, ‘Is there a King under this bridge?’ Leicester Mercury, October 8 2002. For the assertion that Richard may have first been buried in the Church of the Annunciation in the Newarke in Leicester, see Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, ‘The Making of a Minor London Chronicle in the Household of Sir Thomas Frowyk (died 1485)’, Ricardian, X, 126, (September 1994), pp. 86–103. For John Ashdown-Hill’s new evidence to confirm the Greyfriars burial see his ‘The Epitaph of Richard III’, Ricardian, 18 (2008), pp. 31–45. Also see Ashdown-Hill, Last Days of Richard III, Appendix 4, pp. 134, 168. For Ashdown-Hill’s conclusion that Richard’s body was still at the Greyfriars site see his Last Days of Richard III, pp. 106–9. For the law on burials, see the Burials Act 1857, section 25. The heraldic emblem of a boar has long antecedents, at least back to Roman times. It signified a fighter. Live wild boar do not seek out humans but when hunted, as they were in medieval days, will turn and fight. Richard’s best known motto was ‘loyaulte me lie’ – loyalty binds me. The former grammar school was owned by William Davis Ltd, Loughborough, who very kindly gave permission to carry out the GPR survey (2011) and archaeological investigation (2012). Thanks to Adrian McInnes, Technical Director, and Paul Watkins, Project Co-ordinator. Thanks to Dr Raymond Bord, David Fiddimore, Dr David and Wendy Johnson, Gerry Martin, Fiona Nicolson, Dr Phil Stone, Jack Thomson for funding the GPR survey. The Mira Scanner for the GPR survey was provided by LTU. Englezo’s search had been successful; eight pits containing the mass grave of two hundred and fifty British and Australian servicemen from the Great War were discovered. The servicemen were reburied with honour in a new cemetery opened in France by the Prince of Wales. Using DNA profiling and forensic analysis, by 2010–11 over ninety of these remains had been successfully identified.
Chapter 2: The Great Debate
On Richard’s use of cavalry against Tudor, I am indebted to Richard Mackinder of the Bosworth Battlefield Centre and Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection. My survey is derived primarily from the introduction to Charles Ross’s Richard III, Keith Dockray’s Richard III and David Hipshon’s Richard III. For a chivalric reading of the Richard’s final battle see Jones, Bosworth 1485, and Tim Thornton, ‘The Battle of Sandeford: Henry Tudor’s Understanding of the Meaning of Bosworth Field’, Historical Research, 78 (2005). Such was the power of Tudor and Shakespearean propaganda that when a copy of the Act of Attainder against Clarence was found in the Tower archives in the late eighteenth century, the manuscript annotation of the discovery suggested that rather than being drawn up by Edward IV, ‘this instrument was formed by Richard duke of Gloucester’: University of Nottingham Archives: Me 2L2/12.
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Chapter 3: So It Begins
Edward of Middleham’s investiture as Prince of Wales in York from Berdern College Statute Book p. 48. Translated by Peter Hammond and Anne Sutton. I have taken Richard’s interment in the Greyfriars Church in Leicester as being 25 August 1485 based on the accounts of Polydore Vergil and Diego de Valera and the will of William Catesby, dated 25 August 1485. The Exhumation Licence from the Ministry of Justice also applied this instruction to shield human remains from the public gaze for the protection of the public.
Chapter 4: Yearning for a Noble Cause: Richard’s Early Career
The document is Christie’s Lot 47/Sale 5960. For the chivalric dimension to York’s clash with Henry VI’s government see Michael Jones, ‘Somerset, York and the Wars of the Roses’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989) and Mercer, Medieval Gentry. York’s solemn oath at St Paul’s Cathedral in March 1452 is recorded in Durham Cathedral Muniments, Register IV, f.92v. The significance of Richard’s experience at Ludlow in 1459 has rightly been emphasized in Wilkinson, Richard. On York claiming the throne see Michael Jones, ‘Edward IV, the Earl of Warwick and the Yorkist Claim to the Throne’, Historical Research, 70 (1997). Keith Dockray and Richard Knowles, ‘The Battle of Wakefield’, Ricardian, 9 (1992) give us the best account of the terrible death suffered by Richard, Duke of York, Richard’s father. For the suspicion of Warkworth’s Chronicle that Richard had executed Thomas Fauconberg after he had received a royal pardon see Richard Britnell, ‘Richard Duke of Gloucester and the Death of Thomas Fauconberg’, Ricardian, X (1995). For a different view, of Richard executing Lancastrians in the aftermath of Tewkesbury on the authority and orders of the king, see The National Archives (TNA), SC1/44/61 (4 July 1471). Richard’s expansion of retaining, in the aftermath of the settlement of the dispute between him and Clarence, is well described in Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, and Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. Richard’s letter to William FitzWilliam is in Sheffield City Archives, WWM/D/98. Richard, Duke of York’s astonishing feat of arms on 20 July 1441 is recorded on Guillaume du Chastel’s tomb in the Abbey of Saint-Denis. The commission for the monument is from Honoré Champion, Prigent de Coëtivy, Amiral et Bibliophile (Paris, 1906). For the importance this would hold for his son Richard see Richard Firth Green, ‘An Epitaph for the Duke of York’, Studies in Bibliography, 41 (1988). On Richard’s literary interests see Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books. For Richard and his brother Clarence acting in common cause against Edward IV’s foreign policy, and its perceived manipulation by the Woodvilles, see Michael Jones, ‘1477 – The Expedition that Never Was: Chivalric Expectation in Late Medieval England’, Ricardian, XII (2001). The important new evidence of Richard mass-recruiting retainers within weeks of Clarence’s arrest is recorded in Durham Cathedral Muniments, Halmote Court Rolls, 1476–7 (which I owe to Professor Pollard). Chunxiao Wei, ‘Richard Duke of Gloucester’s Petition, 1478, and the Fate of Clarence’, Notes and Queries, 58 (2011) reminds us that Richard receiving a share of Clarence’s lands does not mean he was complicit in his death. On Richard’s arbitration awards see Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. Richard and his brother Edward sometimes clashed over Richard’s aggressive stance over Scotland, particularly in 1474–5: Peter Booth, ‘Richard Duke of Gloucester and the West March towards Scotland, 1470–83’, Northern History, XXXVI (2000). But his resumption of aggressive raiding tactics late in the reign was highly praised and his conduct of the 1482 campaign a triumph. For an important reappraisal of the latter: Jackson Armstrong, ‘Local Society and the Defence of the Frontier in Fifteenth-Century Scotland: The War Measures of 1482’, Florilegium, 25 (2008).
Chapter 5: The Discovery of the Church and the Location of the Nave
Thanks to Peter O’Donoghue, York Herald at the College of Arms, London, for supplying the artwork for Richard III’s banner and standard. In 2000, Ken Wallace discovered the Hallaton Treasure in Leicestershire, the largest hoard of Iron Age coins.
Chapter 6: Seizing the Throne
For the general outline of events see Charles Ross, Richard III; Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower; Cunningham, Richard III; and Hicks, The Prince in the Tower. John Gigur’s comments are from Colin Richmond, ‘A Letter of 19 April 1483 from John Gigur to William Wainfleet’, Historical Research, 65 (1992). For Richard, Duke of York’s use of a reduced retinue of 300 men in 1450 see the letter of Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, recently discovered in Surrey County Record Office, LM/ COR/1/19, and discussed in Ralph Griffiths, ‘Richard, Duke of York, and the Crisis of Henry VI’s Household in 1450–51: Some Further Evidence’, Journal of Medieval History, 38 (2012). A fresh insight into the politics of this period is offered in Carson, Richard III. For Richard’s genuine fear of witchcraft see John Leland, ‘Witchcraft and the Woodvilles: A Standard Medieval Smear?’ in Reputation and Representation in Fifteenth-Century Europe, ed. Douglas Biggs, Sharon Michalove and Albert Compton Reeves (Leiden, 2004); for his reaction to the sexual immorality of Edward IV’s court: David Santiuste, ‘“Puttyng Downe and Rebuking of Vices”: Richard III and the Proclamation for the Reform of Morals’, in Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook, ed. April Harper and Caroline Proctor (London, 2008). Cecily Neville’s well-deserved reputation for piety in her later life does not preclude the possibility of an indiscretion in her youth. The issue of an adultery hearing is echoed in the one book of Cecily’s she dispensed with before her death: Mary Dzon, ‘Cecily Neville and the Apocryphal Infantia Salvatoris in the Middle Ages’, Medieval Studies, 71 (2009); and for the papal indulgence found in her coffin: Sofija Matich and Jennifer Alexander, ‘Creating and Recreating the Yorkist Tombs in Fotheringhay Church (Northamptonshire)’, Church Monuments, XXVI (2011).
Chapter 7: The Discovery of the Skeletal Remains
At the time of writing, the unidentified female remains discovered in the charnel in Trench Three would, after investigation, be reinterred in a nearby church in Leicester. For the physical description of Richard see Chapter 8. Information on the former grammar school building in Leicester from Leon Hunt, Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment for Land at Greyfriars, St Martins (NGR: SK 585 043), ULAS, 12 April 2013, commissioned by Philippa Langley for the Looking for Richard project. The 10,000-square-foot neo-gothic building was built as Alderman Newton’s School in 1864 and extended in 1887 and 1897. In 1979 the buildings became Leicester Grammar School. See also I.A.W. Place, The History of Alderman Newton’s Boys School, 1836–1914, University of Leicester (1960). In December 2012 Leicester City Council announced its purchase of the former grammar school for £850,000: Leicester Mercury, Monday, 3 December 2012. It seems that the sarcophagus found in Trench Three had been located on the Ground Penetrating Radar Survey. Its shape is clearly marked in the central area of the former grammar school car park: Robbie Austrums, Geophysical Survey Report, Greyfriars Church, Leicester, for Philippa Langley, Stratascan, September 2011. On 1 April 2013 it was announced that a four-week dig would take place at the Greyfriars site, Leicester in July 2013. The dig will now be part of the city council’s continuing work on the new Richard III Visitor Centre that is due to open in spring 2014 in the former grammar school building. The work is to be undertaken by Richard Buckley and the team at ULAS who hope to uncover much more about the Greyfriars Church and its buildings.
Chapter 8: Richard as King
For Richard, Howard and Berkeley see Hicks, The Prince in the Tower. On the coronation: Sutton and Hammond, Coronation of Richard III. The witness list is Berkeley Castle Muniments (BCM)/A/5/5/2. On Richard’s kingship see Charles Ross, Richard III; Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower; Hicks, Richard III; Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service. On the fate of the princes I have followed Charles Ross, Richard III and Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower. For more recent sources see John Ashdown-Hill, ‘The Death of Edward V – New Evidence from Colchester’, Essex Archaeology and History, 35 (2004), and Nigel Saul, The Three Richards
(London, 2006), citing Bodleian Ashmole 1448, a source written in the immediate aftermath of Bosworth, with Henry Tudor still referred to as ‘earl of Richmond’: ‘Richard … removed them from the light of the world … vilely and murderously.’ Some believed they had already been killed before Richard took the throne; others, shortly afterwards: Philip Morgan, ‘The Death of Edward V and the Rebellion of 1483’, Historical Research, 68 (1995). On the legal rights of Elizabeth of York’s three surviving younger sisters in the Tudor period, which inhibited Henry VII from thoroughly investigating the princes’ survival, see T.B. Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’, in The Tudor Nobility, ed. George Barnard (Manchester, 1992). On Richard’s increasing identification with his father: Shropshire Record Office, 3365/67/60, a memorandum of the king’s instructions for setting up a perpetual chantry at Wem (10 September 1484). Ashdown-Hill, Last Days of Richard III, is valuable on Richard’s marriage negotiations with the House of Portugal. Richard’s gathering of artillery is from Ross, Richard III; information on the Milanese armour has kindly been provided by Tobias Capwell.