The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA

by John Ashdown-Hill

  Francis Sandford was Lancaster Herald, and derived his text from a manuscript at the College of Arms (figure 27). This manuscript is in the handwriting of Thomas Hawley, who became a herald in 1509 and died in 1557. Hawley’s text of the epitaph and the compilation in which it figures comprise copies of reference material, made by Hawley for his own use. The existence of this manuscript in Hawley’s hand proves conclusively that the epitaph must have been written before 1557.

  The whole of the Hawley MS, in which Richard’s epitaph figures, was copied from an earlier compilation in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Wriothesley (d. 1534). Wriothesley’s manuscript is now at the British Library (figure 26). Thomas Wriothesley was one of the sons of John Wrythe, who was a herald during the reigns of Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. Thomas became a pursuivant in the private service of Arthur ‘Tudor’, Prince of Wales (1489), and subsequently (1503) Garter King of Arms. In the days of Thomas Wriothesley, the heralds kept their own libraries of reference material. The inclusion of a copy of Richard’s epitaph in Wriothesley’s collection securely dates the epitaph before 1534. Indeed, its context within the collection suggests a date for Wriothesley’s copy prior to 1531, and possibly much earlier. It is, therefore, absolutely certain that Wriothesley’s text of the epitaph was written down at a time when Richard III’s tomb in Leicester was still extant and undamaged. Although no record of a visit by Thomas Wriothesley to Leicester now survives, such a visit, either by Thomas himself or by one of his colleagues, may well have taken place. Wriothesley’s version of the epitaph could thus have been copied directly from the tomb. The fact that the writer changed his mind about some of the readings suggests that he might well have been working directly from an inscription.

  As for Buck’s text, that apparently belongs to a separate line of transmission, distinct from the Wriothesley–Hawley–Sandford tradition. Buck gave his source for the epitaph as a manuscript at the Guildhall in London. Small differences in the texts show that Buck’s Guildhall source was not identical with Sandford’s source at the College of Arms.

  Buck not only recorded his interpretation of the original Latin inscription, but seems also to have produced the versified English ‘translation’ from which most previous commentators have worked. This was the only version of the epitaph available in English until now, and the fact that its English verse forms are clearly of the seventeenth century was the major factor that encouraged earlier writers to dismiss the epitaph as a fabrication. This latter judgement was certainly incorrect. The epitaph was unquestionably written at about the time when Henry VII commissioned a tomb for Richard, and it may well have been inscribed upon the tomb itself, though we shall return to that point presently.

  First, however, we should also note that Buck’s English version is an approximate – and sometimes inaccurate – rendering of the rather complex Latin of the original. Here is a new, more direct and literal translation of Buck’s Latin text:

  I, here, whom the earth encloses under various coloured marble,13

  Was justly called Richard the Third.14

  I was Protector of my country, an uncle ruling on behalf of his nephew.

  I held the British kingdoms in trust, [although] they were disunited.

  Then for just15 sixty days less two,

  And two summers, I held my sceptres.

  Fighting bravely in war, deserted by the English,

  I succumbed to you, King Henry VII.

  But you yourself, piously, at your expense, thus honoured my bones

  And caused a former king to be revered with the honour of a king16

  When [in] twice five years less four17

  Three hundred five-year periods of our salvation had passed.18

  And eleven days before the Kalends of September19

  I surrendered to the red rose the power it desired.20

  Whoever you are, pray for my offences,

  That my punishment may be lessened by your prayers.

  While the manuscript texts and Sandford’s publication contain slightly different readings at some points, the major part of the text is identical in all the currently extant versions.

  So was this epitaph actually inscribed on the tomb of c. 1494? This point cannot be absolutely proved either way, since there was a well-authenticated fifteenth-century tradition of epitaphs inscribed on tablets of wood, or on parchment, and hung by admirers around the tombs of the famous. It is therefore possible that Richard III’s epitaph was not directly inscribed on the tomb, but hung up nearby. Even so, the text remains interesting. It is generally favourable to Richard, and certainly not overtly hostile. It seems highly improbable that any writer of the ‘Tudor’ period would have dared to pen a valedictory text on Richard III without the authorisation of the reigning monarch. Thus we must assume that the text reflects the ‘official viewpoint’ of Henry VII’s regime on Richard III in about 1494.

  If the epitaph may be regarded as an ‘official statement’ by the government of Henry VII on Richard III, it is certainly of interest. Unsurprisingly, perhaps – for this is a theme encountered in other ‘Tudor’ sources – it pays tribute to Richard’s bravery. The final couplet has sometimes been seen as implying that Richard was evil (and Buck’s verse translation, which employs the word ‘crimes’, certainly carries that flavour). In fact, however, the closing lines merely reflect the standard late medieval preoccupation with purgatory, common to all believers at the time when Richard’s tomb was erected. It was normal in tomb inscriptions to request prayers for the deceased, and the fact that this epitaph does so need not imply that Richard III was more in need of such prayers than other people.

  The text of the epitaph, together with the fact that it is not overtly hostile to Richard, raises a broader question. Why did Henry VII decide, nine or ten years after Richard’s death, to create a monument for him? Had Henry simply mellowed as time passed? Did he come to feel sorry for Richard? Was it that sufficient time had elapsed for him to feel that a memorial to Richard would now be safe?

  Early in 1493, having already survived an attempt on his crown by the Earl of Lincoln and the young pretender generally known as ‘Lambert Simnel’,21 Henry had become aware of a new Yorkist conspiracy against him. He knew that Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, had under her wing a young man reputed to be his brother-in-law, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.22 During 1493 and 1494, Yorkists at home in England were known to be plotting against Henry, and in the interests of Margaret’s protégé. This was the background against which Henry took the decision to erect a tomb for Richard III, and it is interesting to note in passing that 1494 (the year apparently mentioned in the epitaph text as the date of the tomb’s commissioning) was also the year in which Henry VII issued a silver medallic token possibly intended to contest the claims of the new Yorkist pretender.23 Was the commissioning of Richard III’s tomb a calculated move on Henry’s part, designed to curry favour with Yorkist opinion? The epitaph rather cleverly exploited Yorkist divisions. Logic decreed that the sons of Edward IV on the one hand, and Richard III on the other, could not both simultaneously have legitimate Yorkist claims to the throne. Their claims were mutually exclusive: if Edward V was a legitimate king, then Richard III was a usurper, and vice versa. Previously it had suited Henry to treat Edward IV’s sons as legitimate claimants. However, now that one of those sons was reputedly moving against him, it may have seemed preferable to reassert Richard III’s claim. After all, King Richard was safely dead.

  12

  ‘Here Lies the Body’1

  When Henry VIII dissolved the religious houses of England, the fate of the burials within the monastic and conventual churches varied. Occasionally, surviving relatives took steps to rescue their loved ones. In such rare instances coffined bodies – or even entire tombs – were moved elsewhere. In other cases, empty tomb superstructures alone may have been salvaged without their accompanying bodies, and re-erected as cenotaphs. This seems to have occurred in the case of three tombs from Earls Coln
e Priory, which once housed the de Veres (Earls of Oxford). As we shall see in greater detail below, King Henry VIII himself had the body of his sister, Mary, moved from Bury St Edmunds Abbey to St Mary’s church in the same town. The Earl of Essex had the monuments and remains of his father and grandparents moved from Beeleigh Abbey to the parish church at Little Easton in Essex. Later, following the death of the third Howard Duke of Norfolk, his heirs transferred the remains of his father and grandfather (the two preceding Howard dukes) from Thetford Priory to Framlingham church. The bodies and tombs of the Howards’ Mowbray forebears, however, were left behind in the ruins of Thetford Priory, and theirs was the more common fate by far. The superstructure of their tombs subsequently pillaged and lost, the mortal remains of the Mowbrays still lie buried where they were originally interred.

  In the case of Richard III there were no close relatives on hand to rescue his remains when the Leicester Greyfriars were expelled in 1538. The superstructure of his tomb probably remained for a while in the roofless ruin of the choir. Indeed, it is even remotely possible that Richard’s tomb effigy survives to this day, having eventually been salvaged and relocated in another church, like the de Vere tombs from Earls Colne.2 As for Richard’s body, as recent excavation at the Greyfriars site has proved, it simply remained lying where the friars had buried it in 1485. Even before the excavation, the available evidence strongly suggested that this was so. In due course the friary site was acquired by the Herrick family. Robert Herrick, one-time mayor of Leicester, constructed a house and laid out a garden on the eastern part of the site, where once the choir of the priory church had stood. Here in 1612 Christopher Wren (future dean of Windsor and father of the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral), who was then tutor to Robert Herrick’s nephew, saw ‘a handsome stone pillar, three foot high’, bearing the inscription: ‘Here lies the body of Richard III, some time King of England’.3 This pillar had been erected by Robert Herrick when he redeveloped the site in order to preserve the location of Richard’s grave. What subsequently happened to this ‘handsome stone pillar’ is unknown. ‘It may not have survived the taking of Leicester by the Royalists [during the English Civil War], when desperate fighting took place near St Martin’s Church [Cathedral] which was immediately north of the Grey Friars’ grounds.’4 Part of Robert Herrick’s former garden now comprises three Leicester car parks. Indeed, remains of Herrick’s garden paths were discovered just to the south of the church choir ruins, in trench 3, during the recent excavation of the Greyfriars site. Until 25 August 2012, Richard’s bones remained lying a short distance to the noth-west of this paved area. In the alderman’s garden their location had been pinpointed by Herrick’s pillar. More recently, they were concealed beneath the modern tarmac. But for more than 500 years they simply remained lying in the very spot where they had been buried in August 1485.5

  Despite the fact that the site of Richard’s grave was both known and clearly marked in the early seventeenth century, that same century was to witness the growth of an extraordinary and macabre fantasy which we must pause briefly to consider, since until very recently it continued to mislead incautious historians. The earliest recorded hint of this farrago was published in 1611 by Speede, whose text is reproduced in appendix 4 (below). This version stated that following the Dissolution, Richard’s tomb was completely destroyed, and that his remains were then dug up and reburied at one end of Bow Bridge. Speede cites no source for his curious account other than ‘tradition’ and, as we shall see in due course, quite apart from the fact that it is very difficult to see how any burial would have been possible under the low stone arches of the old Bow Bridge (see illustration) there were also other excellent reasons for doubting Speede’s accuracy.

  Subsequently, Speede’s story grew vastly and luridly in the telling. In its fully developed, modern form, the tale related that at the time of the Dissolution, Richard’s body was dug up and dragged through the streets of Leicester by a jeering mob, being finally hurled into the River Soar near Bow Bridge. It is worth noting that this later version of the story does not at all accord with Speede’s original report. Nor was there a single shred of contemporary (that is to say, mid-sixteenth-century) evidence in support either of Speede’s account, or of the later version of the exhumation story. On the other hand, there was evidence that, even as late as the 1620s, Leicester inhabitants and visitors were unaware of these accounts.6 This strongly suggested that the story of Richard III’s exhumation was far from being a matter of universal ‘common knowledge’. It is also relevant to remark that there seem to be no recorded instances, at the time of the Dissolution, of dead remains being treated in the sacrilegious way which the tale purported to describe.7 Nor was there any reason to suppose that Richard III was the target of popular hatred in Leicester (or anywhere else for that matter) in the 1530s. In fact, it is a matter of record that the House of Commons defended Richard’s reputation at this very period before a bemused Cardinal Wolsey.8

  But the lurid tale was colourful and memorable. It appeared to accord with later perceptions of Richard III’s reputation. Moreover, as we have already seen, it was apparently backed up in the eighteenth century by the existence and display in Leicester of the old stone coffin, reputed to be Richard’s, and then in use as a horse trough. Despite the obvious fact that this object dated from many centuries earlier than King Richard’s time, it was displayed to eighteenth-century tourists as ‘Richard III’s coffin’. This improbable but visible relic, combined with the fact that an existing tradition linked Richard III with Bow Bridge (see chapter 7), helped to popularise the post-Speede story that Richard’s body had been thrown into the river close by the bridge. Both coffin and legend were widely reported in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Implicitly reinforced in the nineteenth century by the erection of a prominent and well-meaning (if regrettable) commemorative stone plaque, the tale of ‘ the body in the river’ became so widely accepted that a skull of unknown age, dredged up from the Soar, and exhibiting damage which was thought to be attributable to sword cuts, could not fail to be hailed, on its appearance, as ‘King Richard’s skull’.9 Meanwhile, as redevelopment took place in Leicester, the king’s authentic gravesite, once well known and clearly marked, became quietly lost to view.

  The Dissolution of the English religious houses led inevitably to the secularisation of the Franciscan Priory site in Leicester. The last guardian, William Gyllys, together with the six remaining friars, surrendered the priory to the king in 1538.10 Henry VIII had already granted the site to John Bellowe esquire and John Broxholme, gentleman. The general practice in such cases was that the lead and timbers from the church roof and other materials of value were removed and sold for the benefit of the crown before the site was handed over to its new owners, so although some of the domestic buildings of the priory may have been left intact, the former church probably changed hands as a ruin. The surviving ruins of Franciscan priories in other parts of the country give some idea of what the Leicester Greyfriars might have looked like in about 1540.11

  Writing in the early seventeenth century, Weever reports that following the Dissolution and Reformation there was widespread destruction of funeral monuments in those churches which continued in use, where the main targets were inscriptions inviting prayers for the dead. Since this defacing of monuments was chiefly motivated by religious considerations, the monuments left behind in the ruins of monastic and conventual churches were probably less of a target for the zeal of reformers (as they did not offend the gaze of the reformed faithful during worship). Moreover, such monuments now stood on private property, and indeed, were themselves part of that private property. They may thus have escaped the iconoclasts. Nevertheless, they will inevitably have suffered from the elements now that their church buildings were roofless, and in most cases they will gradually have had their materials sold off for the profit of the new owners. Gradually their tomb superstructures will have disappeared.

  What exactly happened at the Leiceste
r Greyfriars is unknown. John Speede (widely followed by incautious later writers) stated that Richard’s tomb ‘was pulled downe and utterly defaced’.12 For reasons which will emerge presently, Speede’s account was completely unreliable and despite the fact that it enjoyed widespread credence, it had no evidential value whatever. Nevertheless, by 1612 Richard III’s 1495 tomb superstructure had certainly gone, for by that date, as we have seen, it had been replaced by a new monument: the commemorative pillar set up by Robert Herrick, a former mayor of Leicester, who had acquired the Greyfriars site and laid out a house and garden there. Our informant in this matter is Sir Christopher Wren’s father and namesake, who was an eye-witness.

  At the dissolution [of the Greyfriars] the place of his [Richard III’s] burial happened to fall into the bounds of a citizen’s garden, which being (after) purchased by Mr Robert Herrick (some time mayor of Leicester) was by him covered with a handsome stone pillar, three foot high, with this inscription, ‘Here lies the body of Richard III, some time King of England’. This he shewed me walking in the garden, Anno 1612.13

  When precisely Herrick’s pillar was erected is unknown, but in all probability it was set up immediately after the clearance of the final remains of Richard’s ruined tomb of c. 1494. Thus there was probably no time-gap during which the grave’s location was unmarked.