No images of the skeleton were released while the university carried out further tests on the bones. On 4 February 2013, at a press conference at Leicester University, it was announced that not only did radiocarbon dating suggest that the remains were those of a male who had lived between 1455 and 1540, testing also showed that the individual had enjoyed a protein-rich diet, with high levels of marine protein detected in the bones. Crucially, DNA tests also matched the bones to the nearest surviving relative of Richard III.
Analysis of the skeleton had confirmed that the individual was male, in his late 20s to late 30s, with a ‘gracile or feminine build’. Yet, perhaps most strikingly, from the moment the remains were uncovered, it was clear that the skeleton demonstrated a noticeable curvature of the spine or scoliosis that had most likely occurred at the time of puberty. ‘The analysis of the skeleton proved that it was an adult male, but with an unusually slender, almost feminine, build for a man,’ Dr Jo Appleby announced at the conference. ‘This is in keeping with historical sources which describe Richard as being of very slender build. There is, however, no indication that he had a withered arm – both arms were of a similar size and both were used normally during life.’ Without the spinal abnormality, it is estimated that the individual was roughly 5 feet 8 inches (1.72m) high. This would have been above average height for a medieval male; however, the curve in the spine would have taken a significant amount off his apparent height when standing. The spinal disability would have meant that the individual stood up to one foot (0.3m) shorter, with his right shoulder higher than his left. ‘Taken as a whole,’ Dr Appleby reported, ‘the skeletal evidence provides a highly convincing case for identification as Richard III’.
Ten wounds had been identified on the remains. Eight had been inflicted to the skull area, with two elsewhere on the body. Of course, these wounds are ones that were severe enough to have cut through bone, thereby leaving a permanent mark or damage to the skeleton itself. There could have been other wounds to the body – through soft tissue and organs – of which there is no longer any trace.
The most noticeable wound is at the back of the head, where an entire slice of bone has been sheathed, leaving a flap of bone hanging off still attached to the skull. The slice wound seems consistent with other similar remains found in gravepits at other medieval battle sites, which suggests massive cranial trauma caused by one particular weapon – the halberd. The weapon, mounted on a pole around 6 feet (1.8m) tall, consisted of an axe blade with a spike at its top together with a hook for grappling with and pulling down combatants. It was able to cut clean through bone without leaving any splinters, as can be witnessed on the Greyfriars skull. We can only speculate, but the Burgundian chronicler Molinet describes how, when Richard found himself stuck fast in the marsh into which his horse had leapt, ‘one of the Welshmen then came after him and struck him dead with a halberd.’ There is also an intriguing line in a poem by the Welsh poet, Guto’r Glyn, written shortly after Bosworth, praising the efforts of Sir Rhys ap Thomas during the battle. One stanza relates how ‘He slew the boar, shaved his head’ (Lladd y baedd, eilliodd ei ben). This may demonstrate that an understanding of exactly how Richard had been killed, with the back of his head being literally shaved off by the blow from a halberd, was already common knowledge among the Welshmen in Henry Tudor’s army who had witnessed the king’s final moments.
The halberd wound opening up the skull would have certainly caused almost instant loss of consciousness, with death following shortly afterwards, especially given that the axe blade would have cut into the brain tissue. If the blade had penetrated 2¾ inches (7cm) into the brain, death would have been instantaneous. If this injury had not quite killed Richard, another visible wound would certainly have done so. To the left of the slice wound, in the base of the skull is a smaller injury caused by a bladed weapon, most likely a sword. We know exactly how far the sword had been thrust through the skull, as a mark is present on the inner surface of the skull, directly opposite the entry point, a distance of 4⅛ inches (10.5cm). In effect, the blade had been thrust straight through Richard’s brain and did not stop until it impacted with the bone on the other side of the skull.
Three further shallow wounds have been identified on the outer surface of the vault of the skull. Although only slight wounds that shaved away a small area of bone, highly consistent with where the blade of a weapon such as a sword or halberd, the wounds would not have been immediately fatal, but would have bled heavily. More noticeable is a small rectangular or diamond-shaped wound that has pierced through the top of the skull, leaving a visible hole, though not deep enough to have been fatal. It would have been inflicted by a small spiked weapon; the aperture of the hole in the skull is too small to have been caused by a halberd or a poleaxe, but instead seems more likely to have been the result of a rondel dagger, which often bore a diamond-shaped, four-sided blade, being thrust down or pressed into Richard’s skull.
Matching this skull wound, there is also small rectangular ‘punch mark’ on the cheekbone, just below the left eye. Given the delicate nature of the bone around this area, the fact that the wound did not cause more damage suggests that it must have been performed from behind, possibly as someone grappled with Richard, perhaps attempting to stab him in the eye. Strikingly, however, the ‘punch mark’ is so similar in size and shape to the head wound that it is likely to have been caused by the same weapon that inflicted the square wound that cuts through the top of the skull.
There is also a small cut mark on the lower jaw, caused by a bladed weapon, consistent with a knife or dagger. Of course, none of the wounds to the skull could have been inflicted while Richard was wearing his helmet. Either he had lost his helmet in battle, or else it had been forcibly removed. It may be possible that the cut mark on the jaw was caused by the chin strap to Richard’s helmet being deliberately cut away to expose the king’s bare head. In this case, Richard’s death would have been more of an execution on the battlefield than the result of an injury sustained while fighting. Perhaps Richard, having been brought down off his horse in the marsh, found himself surrounded by Henry Tudor’s Welsh troops. As he continued to fight, he was attacked from behind and held; perhaps his visor was lifted, allowing for the dagger to be gouged into his cheek. Incapacitated, the leather straps of his helmet were forcibly cut away, which also inflicted cuts to his jaw, nicking the jawbone. With his helmet removed, Richard was now at the mercy of his captives: we cannot know the exact sequence of events, but as the halberd axe came crashing down onto the back of Richard’s head, before the sword thrust through his brain, death would have been at least swift. Then, perhaps in some kind of ritualistic fashion, the rondel dagger that had been used to inflict the wound to Richard’s face was pressed down into the top of his exposed and bloodied skull.
Richard’s body would later have been stripped of its armour and, as the Crowland chronicler reported, ‘many other insults were heaped upon it,’ though the chronicler added, somewhat curiously, these were ‘not exactly in accordance with the laws of humanity’. The wounds to the body of the skeleton may reveal what the chronicler had in mind. The two wounds on the postcranial skeleton are likely to have been inflicted after armour had been removed from the body. One, a cut mark on a rib, did not penetrate the ribcage; the other, located on the right pelvis, would have been caused by the blade of a knife or dagger, that must have had been thrust from behind in an upward movement. According to the university’s research: ‘detailed three-dimensional reconstruction of the pelvis has indicated that this injury was caused by a thrust through the right buttock, not far from the midline of the body’. The sources recording the events after the battle concur, describing how Richard’s naked body was flung over the back of a horse as it was carried back to Leicester. Could this have been the perfect opportunity for someone along the route to take a dagger and thrust it into Richard’s corpse, performing the ultimate ‘humiliation injury’?
What is clear from the Greyfriars skeleton
is that, unlike other grave finds of those who died in other battles during the civil wars, such as the mass graves discovered near Towton, the face of the victim had not been touched after death. Unlike many of the Towton deaths, whose faces were deliberately destroyed or hacked apart as part of the ‘humiliation injuries’ performed to ensure that the bodies might go unrecognised and therefore never returned to their families, it is clear that Richard’s face was to be preserved intact. His body, going on public display in Leicester, needed to be recognised as the body of the king. Richard III was dead: there would be no return for the Yorkist king.
The remarkable discovery of Richard’s remains beneath a car park in 2012 reminds us that while history can only be the study of the past that survives, we can always hope to make more discoveries, unearthing further relics of the past, whether from the ground or in the archives. The story of Bosworth remains very much alive.
Polydore Vergil’s Manuscript account of the Battle of Bosworth,
Urbini Latini 498 fos. 434v–435 © 2013 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY
Chapter 1: Fortune’s Wheel
The family background of the Tudors is covered in R.A. Griffiths and R.S. Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty (Stroud, 1985), chapters 1 and 2. Henry VI’s reign and its decline is covered in extensive detail by R. Griffiths, The Reign of Henry VI (London, 1981), B. Wolffe, Henry VI (London, 1981) and J.L. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996). Owen Tudor’s relationship with Katherine of Valois is discussed in Griffiths and Thomas, chapter 3; S.B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London, 1972) chapter 1 and Appendix A and R.A. Griffiths, ‘Queen Katherine of Valois and a missing statute of the realm’, Law Quarterly Review, XCIII (1977), pp. 248–58. Owen Tudor’s arrest is described in Tyrell and Nicholas (eds.), A Chronicle of London (1827), p. 123 with further details in Foedera, ed. T. Rymer (20 vols, 1704–35), vol. X, pp. 685–6, 709–10 and Calendar of Patent Rolls (CPR) Henry VI, vol. III, pp. 182, 225, 283, 285, 344. For Edmund and Jasper Tudor’s upbringing see J. Blacman, Henry the Sixth, ed. M.R. James (Cambridge, 1919). The Tudor’s rise to power is covered in R.S. Thomas, ‘The political career, estates and connection of Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke and duke of Bedford (d. 1495)’ (University of Wales, Swansea, Ph.D. thesis, 1971); H.T. Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses (Cambridge, 1915); Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI and Griffiths and Thomas, Making of the Tudor Dynasty, chapters 3–5.
The course of the civil wars of the fifteenth century is best covered by J. Gillingham, The Wars of the Roses (London, 1981) and C. Ross, The Wars of the Roses (London, 1981). The most modern popular treatment is T. Royle, The Wars of the Roses (London, 2009). For the campaigns, their impact on society, and the nature of war in the fifteenth century, A. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English Society, 1452–97 (London, 1981) and the same author’s The Wars of the Roses: The Soldiers’ Experience (Stroud, 2005) are invaluable, while the individual battles are chronicled in P.A. Haigh, Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1995). For Richard, Duke of York, see P.A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York 1411–1460 (Oxford, 1988).
Margaret Beaufort’s background and life is covered in M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, The King’s Mother. Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge, 1992) and M.K. Jones, ‘Richard III and Lady Margaret Beaufort – a re-assessment’ in P. Hammond (ed.), Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law (London, 1986). Details of Henry Tudor’s early life can be found in B. André, ‘Vita Henrici Septimi’ in Memorials of King Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdiner (London, 1858) and H. Owen and J.B. Blakeway, A History of Shrewsbury (2 vols, London, 1825). John Fisher’s recollections of Henry’s birth are printed in The English Works of John Fisher, part I (Early English Text Society, extra series, XXVII, 1876) and also J. Gairdiner (ed.), Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, vol. I (London, 1861), pp. 422–3.
Chapter 2: To Conquer or Die
Jasper Tudor’s fortunes and rise to prominence at court can be tracked in the grants awarded to him registered in the patent rolls: CPR 1452–61, pp.130, 180–1, 267, 486–7, 494, 532–3, 534, 550, 565, 574, supplemented by R.S. Thomas’s thesis. The looming conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York is covered in the works by Gillingham and Royle. The battle of Wakefield has recently been reassessed by H. Cox, The Battle of Wakefield Revisited (2010). The account of Owen Tudor’s death is in the Chronicle of William Gregory, skinner, ed. J. Gairdiner, The historical collections of a citizen of London in the fifteenth century (Camden Society, new series XVII, 1876), p. 211. Jasper Tudor’s letter is printed in W.W.E. Wynne, ‘Historical Papers (Puleston)’ in Archaeologia Cambrensis I (1846) pp. 145–6. The Yorkists’ act of attainder against Jasper Tudor is printed in Rotuli Parliamentorum (6 vols., Record Commission, 1767–7), vol. V, pp. 478–81. The grant of Henry Tudor’s wardship to Sir William Herbert is recorded in CPR 1461–67, p. 114 while details of his upbringing can be found in Vergil, p. 134 (full details in the notes to chapter 3 below), CPR 1485–94, p. 332 and André, pp. 12–13.
Edward IV’s reign is best covered in C. Ross, Edward IV (London, 1974), H. Kleineke, Edward IV (2009) and C. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth (2 vols., London, 1923). Many of the principal sources from Edward IV’s reign can be found in Edward IV: A Sourcebook, ed. K. Dockray (Stroud, 1999). For the most recent account of the battle of Towton and its context, see G. Goodwin, Fatal Colours: The Battle of Towton 1461 (London, 2011). The Lancastrian alliance with Louis XI is covered in Scofield I, pp. 261–5, 315–18, while payments by the French king to Jasper Tudor are to be found in Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) Fonds Français 6970 fo. 501v, Fonds Français 20,496 fo. 91, with a later pension from October 1469 to September 1470 recorded in Archives nationales (AN) KK 62 fo. 51v and BnF Fonds Français 20,685 pp. 383, 461, 475, 493 and 499 for later years. Thomas’s thesis, pp. 209–14, describes Jasper Tudor’s raiding in Wales, with his escape documented in National Library of Wales Mostyn MS fo.323v.
Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and the later breakdown between Edward IV and Warwick is covered in Ross, Edward IV, chapters 5–7. For Clarence and the re-adeption, M. Hicks, False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence: George, Duke of Clarence, 1449–1478 (Gloucester, 1980). The evidence for Henry Tudor’s movements at Edgecote as described by Richard Corbet can be found in Owen and Blakeway, History of Shrewsbury, vol. I, p. 248 and in Westminster Abbey Muniments (WAM) MS 5472 fos. 41v, 43r, 44r, 44v. Margaret’s attempts to reconcile her son to the new regime are in WAM 5472 fos. 45v–47r. The details of Henry’s visit to Westminster are taken from WAM 12183 fos. 19r–19v, 20v–21r, 21v, 22r, while the account of Henry VI’s meeting with Henry Tudor is from Vergil, p. 135.
Chapter 3: Exile
For a detailed account of Edward IV’s return to claim the throne in 1471 see The Historie of the Arrivall of King Edward IV A.D. 1471, ed. J. Bruce (London, Camden Society Series 1, 1838). For Somerset’s visit to Margaret Beaufort and Stafford’s actions see Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, pp. 54–5, and WAM 12183 fo. 50, WAM 12189 fo. 58. Details of the battle at Barnet have been taken from Great Chronicle of London, ed. A.H. Thomas and I.D. Thornley (London, 1938), p. 216 and printed in Three Chronicles of the Reign of Edward IV, (ed.) K. Dockray (Stroud, 1988), p. 16. Barnet and Tewkesbury are given full treatment in P.W. Hammond, The Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury (Gloucester, 1990) and Goodman, The Wars of the Roses, pp. 79–83. Sir William Cary’s comments on Prince Edward’s death are in W. Campbell (ed.), Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII (2 vols., Rolls Series, 1873–7), abbreviated as Materials, vol. I, p. 138. For Henry VI’s death see Warkworth’s Chronicle, p. 18, Great Chronicle, p. 220 and W.J. White, ‘The Death and Burial of Henry VI’, The Ricardian VI (1982).
Jasper Tudor’s flight through Wales is recorded in Leland’s Itinerary in Wales, (ed.) L.T. Smith (London, 1906), p. 66 and R. Griffiths, Sir
Rhys ap Thomas and his family: a study in the Wars of the Roses and early Tudor politics, (University of Wales Press, 1993), p. 179. His and Henry’s arrival in France is covered by Alain Bouchard, Grandes Chroniques de Bretaigne, vol. II, p. 420; Vergil, p. 155; Commynes, vol. II, p. 234 (full details below). Sir John Paston’s remarks are in J. Gardiner (ed.), The Paston Letters 1422–1509, (6 vols., 1904) vol. III, p. 17. Duke Francis’s reaction to Jasper and Henry’s arrival is in Vergil, pp. 158–9.
Key accounts of Henry’s exile appear only in Polydore Vergil’s Anglia Historica, of which the most accessible translation remains Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, ed. H. Ellis (Camden Society, 1844). B.A. Pocquet du Haut-Jusse, Francois II, duc de Bretagne et l’Angleterre (Paris, 1929), J.L.A. Calmette and G. Perinelle, Louis XI et l’Angleterre (Paris, 1930), J. Allanic, Le Prisonnier de la Tour d’Elven, ou la Jeunesse du Roy Henri VII d’Angleterre (Vannes, 1909) and H. Marsille, Vannes au Moyen Age (Vannes, 1982) are the key French studies. The influence of Henry’s early life is discussed in R.A. Griffiths, King and Country: England and Wales in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1991) chapter 7 and in A.E. Goodman, ‘Henry VII and Christian renewal’, Studies in Church History XVII (1981), pp. 115–25.
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