Chapter 9: The Identification of the Remains
Mathematics students at the University of Leicester calculated that the archaeologists had a less than 1 per cent chance of finding the grave, with chances of discovery on the very first day at just 0.0554 per cent, or odds of 1,785 to 1 against: University of Leicester, Press Office, 11 March 2013. The dental analysis was of particular interest as we have the dental record of some of Richard’s relations: Anne Mowbray, Eleanor Talbot and the bones in the urn in Westminster Abbey, reputed to be those of Richard’s nephews, the Princes in the Tower. Later, I approached other scoliosis specialists who confirmed that severe scoliosis, particularly in later life, is painful. And the Scoliosis Association in the UK confirmed that the word ‘hunchback’ is very distressing and no longer used. The skeleton is missing the left fibula (lower leg bone). Apart from a few small hand bones (twelve missing out of a total of fifty-four, which is a good recovery rate), the feet and a few teeth, the remains were complete: University of Leicester, March 2013. A rondel dagger is a modern term for a type of dagger with a circular, round cross-guard towards the blade, which could be single or multi-edged, and often a pommel of similar form. The rondel dagger was used by knights between the fourteenth and early sixteenth centuries and was so named because of the distinctive shape of its grip. After this examination of the bones, a third wound on the face was discovered: a tiny nick in the mandible also on the right and an inch or so above the other, making a total of nine identified wounds on the skull, with the possibility of more to be confirmed. At the time of writing it was unclear whether this new wound could support the theory that King Richard’s helmet was cut off him. The lack of trauma to the face further strengthened my conviction that Henry Tudor did not leave Richard’s body on the battlefield as it was his prize. At the time of writing, Jo Appleby confirmed that the soil analysis beneath the body for parasitic sample, the isotopic report and the dental analysis are not yet available, but should be included in the archaeological report some time towards the end of 2013. The facial reconstruction process has been blind-tested at the University of Dundee using living people, CT scans and photography, and the accuracy tested using recognition levels and anthropometry (scientific study of the measurements and proportions of the human body). The second living relative of Richard III who gave a sample of their DNA for the tests wishes to remain anonymous.
Chapter 10: Bosworth
An excellent survey on the sources is provided in Bennett, Battle of Bosworth. For a recent archival discovery about the battle see John Alban, ‘The Will of Thomas Longe of Ashwellthorpe, 1485. A Yorkist Soldier at Bosworth’, Ricardian XXII (2012). For Nottingham’s intelligence gathering before and during Bosworth, see Penelope Lawton, ‘Riding Forth to Aspye for the Town’, Ricardian Bulletin (September 2012). My ideas on Richard’s personal duel with Henry Tudor owe much to conversations with Cliff Davies and are also developed in Michael Jones, ‘The Myth of 1485: Did France Really Put Henry Tudor on the Throne?’, in The English Experience in France 1450–1558: War, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, ed. David Grummitt (Aldershot, 2002). The French mercenary’s account, written at Leicester on 23 August 1485, is from Jones, Bosworth 1485, and my views on the battle have been modified by the important archaeological finds summarized in Glenn Foard, ‘Bosworth Uncovered’, in BBC History Magazine, 11 (2010). On Richard’s courage, and his final moments in battle, the provisional ideas of Bob Woosnam-Savage are from ‘The Violent Death of the King in the Car Park’, a talk given at the Royal Armouries, Leeds, on 27 March 2013. For another who may have struck Richard in those final, terrible moments: Raymond Skinner, ‘Thomas Woodshawe, “Grassiour” and Regicide’, Ricardian, IX (1993). Rhys ap Thomas’s duel with Richard is recounted in the seventeenth-century family history: Ralph Griffiths, Sir Rhys ap Thomas and His Family: A Study in the Wars of the Roses and Early Tudor Politics (Cardiff, 1993). The history attributed Richard’s death to Rhys himself, but it was one of his followers who almost certainly killed him. For the praise poem: Edward Rees, A Life of Guto’r Glyn (Aberwystwyth, 2008). Information on the Rhys ap Thomas bed has been kindly provided by Sioned Williams, Curator of Furniture at the National History Museum, Cardiff.
Chapter 11: The Man Behind the Myth
For the story of Thomas Redeheid see Paul Murray Kendall, Richard III (London, 1973) p. 136. For Richard’s sense of humour: from Leicester Castle, on 18 August 1483, Richard sent an important letter to the French king, Louis XI. The letter was carried by Richard’s groom of the stable: ‘I pray that by my servant, this bearer, a groom of my stable, you will let me know in writing your full intention…’ Kendall, Richard III, pp. 255–6. For the letter to Chancellor Russell see Kendall, Richard III, p. 324. Kendall remarks on the generosity of the letter. For the full text of the poem see Andrew Breeze, ‘A Welsh Poem of 1485 on Richard III’, Ricardian, XVIII (2008), pp. 46–53. For analysis indicating the Tudor instigation behind it, see Annette Carson, ‘Dafydd Llwyd’s Poem’, Ricardian Bulletin, autumn 2008, pp. 35–49.
Chapter 12: The Man and his Times
William Bracher, yeoman of the crown, owed his promotion to royal service through informing Richard of the uprising in the West Country in 1483: Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1476–85, pp. 373, 390 (grants of lands and offices in Devon, Somerset and Dorset for ‘good service against the rebels’). Catesby’s role as agent of Richard III in Brittany was crucial in precipitating Henry Tudor’s flight from the duchy at the end of September 1484: Cliff Davies, ‘Richard III, Brittany and Henry Tudor’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 37 (1993). For the revealing wording of Richard’s grant of an annuity to Saxton Church on 19 February 1484: Tim Sutherland and Armin Schmidt, ‘Towton 1461: An Integrated Approach to Battlefield Archaeology’, Landscapes, 4 (2003). For Thomas Gregory’s pride in his service ‘cum Henrico Septimo apud Bosworth Field’, in the earliest use of the actual battle name: the Shakespeare Centre (Birthplace Trust), DR10/1349, a deed of 26 October 1500. Henry VII’s first parliament is described in Cavill, English Parliaments. Material on the Stanley-Harrington dispute is drawn from Michael Jones, ‘Richard III and the Stanleys’, in Richard III and the North, ed. Horrox. For the political climate of the time see Paul Strohm, Politique: The Languages of Statecraft Between Chaucer and Shakespeare (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2005) and Grummitt, Short History of the Wars of the Roses. Thomas Barowe’s bequest is from Anne Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard III and the University of Cambridge’, in Richard III and East Anglia, ed. Visser-Fuchs. On legitimacy and the Tudor claim to the throne: Michael Bennett, ‘Table Tittle-tattle and the Tudor View of History’, in People, Places and Perspectives: Essays on Later Medieval and Early Tudor England, ed. Keith Dockray and Peter Fleming (Stroud, 2005). For the de la Pole pedigree see Philip Morgan, ‘“Those Were the Days” – a Yorkist Pedigree Roll’, in Estrangement, Education and Enterprise in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. Sharon Michalove (Stroud, 1998). Cliff Davies, ‘Information, Disinformation and Political Knowledge under Henry VII and Early Henry VIII’, Historical Research, 85 (2012) provides an important reassessment of the Tudor view of history. Jane Sacheverell’s petition is in University of Nottingham Library, GB159 Mi5/168/23.
Bibliography
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——, The Last Days of Richard III (Stroud, 2010)
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Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King (Stroud, 2008)
Paul Cavill, The English Parliaments of Henry VII (Oxford, 2009)
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Ken Wright, The Field of Bosworth 1485 (Leicester, 2002)
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Act of Accord
Addison, Heidi
Agincourt, Battle of
Aitken, Janice
Albany, Duke of
Alexander the Great
Ambien Hill
André, Bernard
Anjou, Margaret of
Appleby, Dr Jo
Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment (DBA)
Archaeological Institute, University College London
Archaeology: battle
Argentine, John
armour
Arrivall, The
Arthur of Brittany
Arundel, Earl of
Ashdown-Hill, Dr John; The Last Days of Richard III
Ashfordby, Thomas Gregory of
Astill, Paul
Atherstone
Atterton, parish of
Baker, Steve
Barnard Castle
Barnet, Battle of
Barowe, Thomas
Basin, Thomas
Bateson, Sir Thomas
Bath and Wells, Bishop of
Bawdry
Baynard’s Castle
BBC
Beaufort, Cardinal
Beaufort, Edmund, Duke of Somerset
Beaufort, Lady Margaret
Bedford, George Neville, Duke of
Beja, Duke of (later Manuel I)
Belgium
Berkeley, William, Lord
Berkhamsted
Bermondsey Abbey
Berwick: recapture of
Berwick Castle
Beverley, William
Bierbrier, Morris
Blisworth, Roger Wake of
Blore Heath, Battle of
Bolingbroke, Henry
Bologna
Boon, Dr Julian
Bord, Dr Raymond
Bosworth : Psychology of a Battle (book); see also Jones, Michael
Bosworth, Battle of
Bourchier, Thomas
Bow Bridge
Bowers, Mick
Bracher, John
Brackenbury family
Brackenbury, Sir Robert
Brandon, Charles
Brandon, Sir William
Brecon
Brittany, Arthur of
Brittany, duchy of
Brittany, Francis, Duke of
Britten, Nick
Brooks, Colin
Buck, Sir George; History of King Richard III
Buckingham, Anne Neville, Duchess of
Buckingham, Henry, Duke of
Buckley, Richard
Burgundy
Burgundy, Charles, Duke of
Burgundy, Margaret, Dowager Duchess of
Burntoft, John Randson of
Caerleon, Lewis
Calais
Calais Castle
Cambridge University: King’s College; Queens’ College
Camden, William
Canterbury, Archbishop of
Capwell, Dr Tobias
carbon-14 dating
Carmeliano, Pietro
Carroll, Pauline
Carson, Annette: Richard III: The Maligned King
Cassidy, Ted
Cassiman, Jean-Jacques
Castle Rising
Catesby, William
Catholic religion
Cely, George
Centre for Human Genetics, University of Leuven
Chandée, Philibert de
Channel
Charles II: reign
Charles VII
Charles VIII
Charles the Bold
Chastel, Guillaume du
Cheney, Sir John
Chertsey Abbey
Cheshire
Chester
chivalry: warrior code of
Christ Church
Church of the Annunciation
Church of the Greyfriars see Greyfriars
Church
Church law
Churchill, Winston
Clair, Piara Singh
Clarence, George, Duke of
Clarence, Lionel, Duke of
Claxton, Sir Robert
Cobham, Eleanor, Duchess of
Gloucester
Colchester, Richard Fox of
Coldharbour, London house of
College of Arms, London
Colonna, Aegidius: De Regimine Principum
Commynes, Philippe de
Cooper, Nick
Corbet, Sir Richard
Cornwall, Richard of
Coventry
Coward, Jon
Cramond Inn
Crown Hill
Croyland Chronicle
/>
Dadlington Field
Daily Telegraph
Darlington
Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP)
Dartford
deoxyribonucleic acid see DNA
Derbyshire
Desk-based Assessment, Archaeological (DBA)
Desmond, Earl of
Devon
diet: results of stable isotope analysis
DNA: hapoltype J; mitochondrial; Richard III’s; Joy Ibsen’s; contamination of; Michael Ibsen’s; ancient; analysis; in determining hair and eye colour
Dokett, John
Doncaster
Dorset, Thomas, Marquis of
Drayton, Michael
Dublin Castle
Dudley, William, Bishop of Durham
Dudley, Lord
Duncan Jordanstone College of Art and Design (University of Dundee)
Dunnesmore
Durham: bishopric of
Durham Cathedral
Durham, County
Dymmock, Andrew
East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit
Eboracum see York
Edgecote, Battle of
Edinburgh
Edward III
Edward IV: marriage to Elizabeth Woodville; death; as Earl of March; buried at Windsor; bastardy of; sons Daughters; see also Princes in the Tower
Edward the Confessor
Edward V
Edward, Prince of Wales
Elizabeth I
Elizabeth R (TV series)
Ely, Bishop of
Englezo, Lambis
English Historical Review,
Environmental Research Centre, University of Glasgow
Estates, Three
Exeter
Exeter, Henry, Duke of
exhumation licence
Farnaby, Simon
Fasland, Jacob
Fastolf, Sir John
Faull, Very Reverend Vivienne
Fenny Drayton
Fiddler, Dr Christine
Finding the Lost Battalions (film),
FitzGerald, John, Earl of Desmond
Fitzherbert, Ralph
The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds Page 28