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

by John Ashdown-Hill

  My eldest brother embarked on a long career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Montreal, London (England) and Ottowa. My other brother, Patrick, has had a varied career and lives in retirement in British Columbia. I wanted a career in journalism but at that time women were not welcome in daily newspaper newsrooms. Having mastered typing and shorthand I got my foot in the door of a western Canadian newspaper as secretary to the editor, a crusty ex-alcoholic (and crackerjack newspaperman). That newsroom was a great place for a young, aspiring writer. Some very good journalists worked there (I was to marry one of them later) as well as some odd characters! The pressure of daily deadlines was exciting, especially when I graduated to writing features or reviews. I learned a lot here. After one and a half years I moved on to an eastern paper as a reporter in the Women’s Department, leaving that job for a two-year stint as Women’s Editor at a small daily.50

  Joy and Norm Ibsen were married in May 1956. ‘We ended up in London, Ontario, where we still live. Norm has had a thirty-eight-year career at the London Free Press and is now retired. After producing three children I became a freelance writer, contributing articles to magazines and newspapers, and reviewing books’.51 As for Joy’s mother, Muriel Charlotte Folliot Brown lived in a number of places including London, Ontario. She died in London, Ontario, on 25 May 1961 at the age of 77. Her husband died in 1965.

  Joy had an interest in her family tree before I contacted her, and she knew a good deal of information from family tradition, by word-of mouth from relatives. ‘Although I have spent most of my life away from England, I have often looked back at the rich genealogical history I have inherited, and have felt grateful to those who have preserved my “roots” over the centuries’.52 However, Joy had tended to concentrate on male lines of ancestors, and readily admits that she had not made a great deal of progress with her female line ancestry. Her previous knowledge on that side of her family extended back a mere three generations, to her great grandmother, Charlotte Vansittart Neale. The family’s descent from the house of York, and its relationship with Richard III, were lost in the mists of time. ‘How puzzling that a family interested in their ancestors would not have known of this connection and passed the information down the generations! … Possibly the widely-held traditional view of Richard III as an infamous murderer was a reason to play down the Plantagenet connection.’53

  When I first contacted Joy with details of her descent from Anne of York, Cecily Neville and Catherine de Roët, the information came as a complete surprise to her. Fortunately, she was also fascinated to be presented with a family tree that went back to the Emperor Charlemagne and beyond. ‘For my part, I am delighted to have been tracked down and identified … as a living descendant of Anne of Exeter, eldest sister of Edward IV and Richard III’.54 In July 2004, Joy told me:

  we are off shortly to Vancouver Island to dog-sit for our daughter at her seaside house. Our sons are flying in from Toronto and England for a small family reunion and I plan to surprise them with all your startling revelations about my family tree, the DNA etc. They are aware of the Pitt and Frere ancestors but not of their mother’s descent in the female line from Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. They’ll have to start showing me due respect!55

  16

  The Future of Richard III

  It may seem perverse to conclude this book by seeking to discuss the future of a man and king who has been dead for more than 500 years. However, historical interest in Richard III continues, and the controversy surrounding his name still rages. In one way, of course, this is a pity, since it leads to a vast quantity of circular and rather predictable writing about Richard, based on partie-prise attitudes, and offering few, if any, fresh insights.

  But Ricardian study is not obliged to restrict itself to well-worn and unproductive ruts. This present book constitutes a conscious attempt to avoid the deepest and best-known ruts of the Ricardian controversy, seeking new ways of understanding Richard and the events of his short reign. Its chosen time frame in terms of Richard’s life has mercifully allowed us to largely eschew the hoary and currently unproductive chestnut of ‘who murdered the princes in the Tower’. Nor has it sought to pass any kind of inappropriate retrospective judgement on Richard, whether favourable or unfavourable. Instead, it has tried to give an account of what actually happened during the last months of his life and afterwards. The justification for this approach hopefully lies in the fact that what has emerged as a result is a fresher, rather different picture of Richard III in 1485.

  Perhaps the way to a better understanding of Richard III is by means of a deliberate endeavour to avoid the pantomime, black versus white, good versus bad arguments which have so bedevilled the study of his life and reign, for these merely tend to produce a somewhat 1066 and All That impression.1 By concentrating instead on the minutiae of Richard’s day-to-day life, and by seeking entirely new kinds of evidence, as this present study has sought to do, it may be possible to arrive at a clearer and better picture of the real man and king: a picture which is hopefully not black and white, but full of rich colours and shadings.

  The revelation of Richard III’s mtDNA sequence is one piece of new evidence. In connection with my Belgian research concerning possible Margaret of York remains, Joy Ibsen kindly provided a DNA sample which was analysed initially by Oxford Ancestors, a commercial company engaged in DNA testing for genealogical purposes. The resulting mtDNA sequence was communicated to Professor Jean-Jacques Cassiman of the Centre for Human Genetics, Catholic University of Leuven, who had been requested by the authorities in Mechelen to attempt to extract and sequence DNA from the various sets of potential ‘Margaret of York’ remains. Professor Cassiman repeated DNA tests on further samples provided by Joy Ibsen, and also succeeded in sequencing DNA from the Mechelen remains. As a result, it emerged that Richard III and his siblings belonged to mtDNA haplogroup J, and that their ‘clan mother’ was ‘Jasmine’. It also appeared that none of the three sets of female remains which had at that time been recovered from the Franciscan church in Mechelen could be those of Margaret of York. A summary of the results of the DNA tests on the three sets of Mechelen bones is given in appendix 5.

  The first edition of this book highlighted one huge gap in the evidence that was then available, relating to England’s last Plantagenet king – namely the fact that the precise location of his physical remains was at that time still unknown. In fact, my original text ended with the words ‘Perhaps one day the search for Richard III will begin!’. Screenwriter Philippa Langley, who is also the Secretary of the Scottish Branch of the Richard III Society, had been working on the project to go in search of Richard’s grave for quite some time at that point and was awaiting the first edition of this book, and the research it included, before taking the project proper to Leicester City Council. In particular, Philippa was impressed by:

  the potential evidence for identification which was implicit in my publication of Richard III’s mtDNA sequence

  my demonstration that Speede’s story of Richard’s exhumation in the sixteenth century was nonsense

  my indication – based upon my knowledge of medieval Catholic practice, and of the layout of medieval friaries – that existing reconstructions of the layout of the Leicester Greyfriars, which postulated a church located on the southern side of the site, were incorrect, and that Richard’s remains should, therefore, be sought on the exposed northern side of the central Greyfriars car park.

  As a result of the publication of this book, Philippa decided to ensure that investigation of the three car parks in Leicester which now occupy the Greyfriars site would take place. She had to overcome major hurdles to achieve this, but finally, in August 2012, thanks to her tremendous work, the archaeological investigation commenced, and on the very first day of the dig the bones which ultimately proved to be the remains of Richard III were found, in precisely the area which I had indicated as the most likely location for the choir of the vanished priory church.

  Subsequently, wit
h the help of DNA samples from Joy Ibsen’s elder son Michael, those remains were proved to have an mtDNA sequence consistent with the proposition that they were the bones of Richard III. The bones showed evidence of scoliosis which would have made the left shoulder lower than the right in life (just as Richard’s contemporary, John Rous, had described). The body was male and of the right age and social class, it showed evidence of a violent death and of significant post mortem injuries. carbon-14 dating indicated that the individual had died in about 1490.

  When the remains had been carefully removed, one by one, from their grave by gloved and masked osteologist, Dt Jo Appleby, they were packed individually in labelled polythene bags and then carefully stacked in a long cardboard box. I was then asked by Philippa to carry that box to the white van that was waiting to remove the remains to Leicester University, where they would be kept safe and subjected to detailed examination. As I carried that box my mind was full of very strange thoughts and reflections. At that moment, I felt that I was as close as I would ever be to the real Richard III.

  I believe that my search for Richard’s mtDNA showed what could be achieved by taking a new approach, but this is not the end of the story. At the time of my initial DNA research I was aware that, ideally, the mtDNA sequence obtained from samples supplied by Joy Ibsen – direct female-line descendant of Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter – should be confirmed from other sources. I made one attempt to obtain such confirmation, using a sample of the hair of King Edward IV, cut from his body when his tomb was opened in the eighteenth century, and kindly supplied to the present author by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Unfortunately, that attempt was unsuccessful. The DNA of the Edward IV hair sample was too degraded to produce a sequence. Now, however, Dr Turi King and her colleagues from the University of Leicester have succeeded in finding independent confirmation of the mtDNA sequence of Michael and Joy Ibsen, and matching the mtDNA with the sequence obtained from the Leicester bones.

  Sadly, in November 2008, Joy Ibsen died of cancer. One of my lasting regrets is that she was not alive in the first months of 2013, to hear the news that the body of her uncle sixteen generations removed had been found and identified thanks to her assistance. Although for the moment the living members of her family still preserve the line of her mtDNA, this almost unique heritage is now coming to an end. It is extremely fortunate, therefore, that, with the active co-operation and support of Joy and subsequently of her children – in particular of her elder son, Michael – details of this fascinating mtDNA sequence are now on permanent record.

  FAMILY TREE 8: The Plantagenet Y-chromosome.

  It would also be desirable to seek to analyse and hold on file similar independent information in respect of Richard III’s Y-chromosome – the only component of the nuclear DNA whose origin can currently be traced for certain. Dr Turi King and her team at Leicester University have already made some progress in that direction. Richard III’s Y-chromosome was that of the entire Plantagenet dynasty, back to its earliest known male line progenitor, Geoffrey, Count of Gâtinais, who lived in the first half of the eleventh century. Of course, there are no individuals bearing the surname Plantagenet living today. The ‘Tudor’ kings took good care to see that this surname and all the males who carried it were exterminated. However, the members of the Somerset family are surviving descendants of the Plantagenets in an unbroken (though illegitimate) male line. As shown in Family Tree 8 (above) they can claim direct patrilineal descent from King Edward III via his illegitimate grandson, John Beaufort. From John the fifteenth century earls and dukes of Somerset were descended. And although John’s legitimate male heirs died out in 1471, one of his grandsons, Henry third Duke of Somerset (died 1464), left an illegitimate son, Charles Somerset, whose line of descent leads directly to the present Duke of Beaufort. Thus in this family the Plantagenet Y-chromosome – Richard III’s Y-chromosome – theoretically still flourishes at the present day.2 A suitable DNA sample could be provided by any male member of the Somerset family, and volunteers to provide such samples have now come forward.

  Comparing the Somerset male line DNA to that of the remains which we now know to be Richard III will potentially be very interesting, and it is one of the many things that we still have to look forward to in the coming years. Unfortunately, unlike female line genealogy, male line genealogy as recorded on paper is not always consistent with the biological facts. The person who is recorded as having been someone’s father may not have been their true biological father. Therefore, the comparison of the living Somerset Y-chromosome with that of Richard III is open to various possible out-somes and interpretations. Whatever future research in this area reveals is, however, certain to be of interest in one way or another.

  Holding on record such DNA sequences relating to ancient royalty, might in the future help to resolve further historical mysteries. One particular way in which DNA analysis could yet serve to clarify an important aspect of Richard III’s story relates to the fate of Richard III’s nephews, the so-called ‘princes in the Tower’,3 a story which has long bedevilled Ricardian research. Although there is absolutely no proof that either ‘prince’ was ever murdered by anyone, a perennial theme of popular histories is ‘who murdered the “princes in the Tower”?’. Or, even better, ‘did Richard III murder the “princes in the Tower”?’. Given that some historians consider that Henry VII’s aim was to exterminate the entire posterity of the house of York, and view this policy as an example of ‘strong kingship’, the whole debate about the fate of the ‘princes’ seems curiously unfair. However, it would be good to be able to shed light on this issue if possible – if only in the hope of finally closing the debate.

  Although the fate of the ‘princes’ is unknown, there is a marble urn in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster which bears their names and purports to contain their bones. The urn was created by Sir Christopher Wren at the behest of Charles II, to house some fragmentary remains which were discovered during some demolition work at the Tower of London in the 1670s. We have no idea from what period these bones date, nor is it known whether they represent boys or girls. The remains have never been subjected to any rigorous scientific examination. Nevertheless, the requisite information which would make it possible to show whether or not these could indeed be the bones of the ‘princes’ may in due course become available, and I have been struggling with this for some years now.

  FAMILY TREE 9: The mtDNA family tree of the ‘princes in the Tower’ (simplified).

  In 1787, the tomb of Mary ‘Tudor’, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk was opened in St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. The queen’s body was found to be well preserved, and locks of her long red hair were cut off as souvenirs. One such lock of hair remains in Bury St Edmunds, where it is displayed at Moyses Hall Museum. Mary ‘Tudor’, younger sister of King Henry VIII, was a daughter of Elizabeth of York, and thus the female line niece of the ‘princes’. In 2007, I was given permission by the Bury St Edmunds museum authorities to attempt DNA testing of a few strands of this hair. Sadly, however, in the event it proved impossible to open the Bury St Edmunds locket without risking damage both to the locket itself and to the hair. Finally, the attempt had to be abandoned.

  But the hair in the Moyses Hall Museum locket is not the only lock of Mary ‘Tudor’’s hair in existence above ground. After a prolonged search I located a second locket, and a sample of hair from this locket was tested in the hope of thereby obtaining the mtDNA sequence of the ‘princes in the Tower’. The initial tests did not succeed in producing a complete and uncontaminated mtDNA sequence, but a few strands of the hair remain in a sealed container in my keeping, and since DNA testing has progressed in the last few years in may, at some stage, be possible to repeat the attempt.

  The obvious alternative line of investigation, which would seek to replicate the research which led to Joy Ibsen in Canada, by identifying a living female-line descendant of Elizabeth Woodville or one of her sisters, is sadly impossible in the case of t
he ‘princes’, because research by myself and others has shown that there are now no known living all-female-line relatives of Elizabeth Woodville. Although my work on the DNA of the ‘princes’ has yet to yield positive results, it goes to show that there are still new avenues of research to be explored, and that in due course more may be known about Richard III. If we keep searching for new sources, new evidence, new approaches, some of the other aspects of Richard’s story which have been contentious for the last five centuries may finally be resolved. Philippa Langley’s determination to seek the real Richard III beneath a Leicester car park shows very clearly what can be achieved.

  Meanwhile, hopefully at some suitable moment in the not too distant future, Richard III’s remains will be given an honourable reburial. Provisional plans for a suitable tomb in Leicester Cathedral – just across the road from the Greyfriars site where his body lay for more than 500 years – have already been made. Of course today this cathedral is an Anglican church. Since I myself share Richard III’s Catholic faith, I explored with the Dean of Leicester the possibility of the inclusion of elements of Catholic liturgy in plans for the reburial service, together with the invitation of members of the Catholic hierarchy. I was very happy to be reassured upon these points, because one of the things which we do know for certain about Richard III is that his religious beliefs were important to him during his lifetime.

  As for the present position, we already know rather more about Richard III than we did before. We have a clear impression of his build and appearance. We know how he died. We know that, like the bodies of many defeated leaders, Richard’s corpse was almost certainly mal-treated in the immediate aftermath of his defeat and death. We are now certain of his mitochondrial DNA sequence and have the possibility of learning more about his genetic make-up in the future.