The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds (2 page)

Yorkists defeat Lancastrians at Battle of Towton

12 June 1461

Richard and his brother George return to England

1 November 1461

Richard created Duke of Gloucester

May 1464

Edward IV marries Elizabeth Woodville

September 1465

Richard resident in household of Earl of Warwick

January 1469

Richard returns to court

June 1469

Warwick’s rebellion starts

26 July 1469

Battle of Edgecote. Henry Tudor’s guardian, William, Lord Herbert, Earl of Pembroke defeated by rebels and subsequently executed

17 October 1469

Richard made Constable of England

12 March 1470

Warwick rebels again. Battle of Losecote Field. Warwick and Clarence flee to France and ally themselves with the Lancastrians

2 October 1470

Warwick invades; collapse of Edward IV’s authority. Richard accompanies Edward into exile in Burgundy. Readeption (Restoration) of Henry VI

March 1471

Edward IV and Richard return from exile and land in Yorkshire

14 April 1471

Earl of Warwick is defeated at the Battle of Barnet

4 May 1471

Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian Prince Edward are defeated at Tewkesbury

21 May 1471

Henry VI is murdered in the Tower of London, almost certainly on Edward IV’s orders

Spring 1472

Richard marries Warwick’s daughter Anne Neville, starts to fight for a share of the Neville inheritance and begins to build up a northern affinity

29 August 1475

Edward IV and Louis XI meet at Picquigny, ending the English invasion of France. Richard shows his displeasure by absenting himself from the agreement

18 February 1478

Richard’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason and executed in the Tower of London

24 August 1482

Richard invades Scotland. Berwick recaptured

9 April 1483

Death of Edward IV; succession of Edward V

29–30 April 1483

Richard and Buckingham arrest Rivers, Grey and Vaughan at Northampton and Stony Stratford and secure custody of Edward V

4 May 1483

Richard and Edward V enter London: George Neville, Duke of Bedford dies and Richard loses hereditary right to the Neville lands

10 June 1483

Richard appeals for help from northern supporters against the Woodvilles

13 June 1483

Execution of Lord Hastings and arrest of Morton and Archbishop Rotherham at council meeting

22 June 1483

Richard’s right to the throne proclaimed in a sermon by Ralph Shaw

26 June 1483

Richard becomes king

6 July 1483

Coronation of Richard III

29 August 1483

Richard arrives in York on royal progress

10 October 1483

Rebellion flares up in southern England

2 November 1483

Execution of the Duke of Buckingham at Salisbury

23 January 1484

Richard’s only parliament meets at Westminster

April 1484

Death of Richard’s son, Edward of Middleham

7 December 1484

Richard’s first proclamation against Henry Tudor

16 March 1485

Death of Richard’s queen, Anne Neville

9 June 1485

Richard arrives in Nottingham to await Henry Tudor’s landing

23 June 1485

Richard’s second proclamation against Henry Tudor

7 August 1485

Henry Tudor lands at Milford Haven

22 August 1485

Battle of Bosworth. Richard III killed; Henry Tudor (Henry VII) succeeds him

History of the Church of the Greyfriars, Leicester

1230

House in existence on Greyfriars site

1255

Church of Greyfriars first mentioned

1402

Rebellion: number of greyfriars executed by Henry IV

25 August 1485

King Richard III buried in the choir of the Greyfriars Church

1495

Tomb and epitaph erected over burial by Henry VII

1538

Dissolution of the Monasteries. Greyfriars expelled and priory and church closed. Sold to John Bellowe and John Broxholme to remove roof lead and timbers

1540s

Greyfriars priory and church become ruins. Site sold to Sir Robert Catlyn

(superstructure of King Richard’s tomb removed)

1600

Site sold to Robert Herrick. Mansion house and gardens built

1611

John Speed reports King Richard’s grave lost and his bones dug up at the Dissolution

1612

Christopher Wren records a ‘handsome stone pillar’ marking the site of King Richard’s grave in Herrick’s garden

1711

Herrick’s descendants sell land to Thomas Noble. New Street laid out with houses

1759

Herrick’s mansion house sold to William Bentley

1914

Land and gardens sold to Leicestershire County Council who erect offices around it

1930s–40s

Land and gardens tarmacked to become car parks

1968

Site passes to Leicester City Council, Social Services Department

Looking for Richard project, Leicester

2004–5

Philippa Langley visits car parks. Dr John Ashdown-Hill discovers Richard III’s mtDNA

2007

University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) digs in nearby Grey Friars Street but uncovers no trace of Greyfriars Church

2008

Ashdown-Hill refutes River Soar story. Annette Carson in
Richard III: The Maligned King
asserts the king’s grave is probably in the Social Services car park

21 February 2009

Langley and Ashdown-Hill meet. Langley begins Looking for Richard (LFR) project at Cramond Inn, Edinburgh

September 2010

Leicester City Council supports LFR project

January 2011

Langley obtains TV rights to John Ashdown-Hill’s book,
Last Days of Richard III

March 2011

Langley commissions ULAS for LFR project

June 2011

Langley receives permission from Leicester City Council for Ground Penetrating Radar Survey and archaeological investigation of Social Services car park

28 August 2011

Langley carries out Ground Penetrating Radar Survey of the three car parks

March 2012

April dig cancelled

July 2012

International Appeal saves dig

25 August 2012

Two-week dig begins. Leg bones discovered beside letter ‘R’

31 August 2012

Langley instructs exhumation of remains found beside letter ‘R’. ULAS applies for licence to exhume up to six sets of remains of persons unknown

3 September 2012

Discovery of Greyfriars Church. Exhumation licence received from Ministry of Justice. Dig extended into third week by Leicester City Council

4 September 2012

Exhumation of remains beside letter ‘R’ begins

5 September

Full set of remains exhumed (minus feet). Discovery of choir of church

12 September 2012

Announcement of discovery of the remains thought to be those of Richard III

6 December 2012

Carbon-14 dating analysis confirms remains are late fifteenth century

16 January 2013

Facial reconstruction revealed to Langley

3 February 2013

DNA match confirmed between remains and Michael Ibsen (living relative of Richard III)

4 February 2013

University of Leicester confirms remains found on 25 August 2012 are those of Richard III. Channel 4 and Darlow Smithson Productions premiere
Richard III: The King in the Car Park

Introduction

The Inspiration

I
SUPPOSE
I had always known about Richard. Shakespeare’s villain must have registered somewhere in the recesses of my mind, but he didn’t strike a chord with me. When I was growing up in the northern market town of Darlington, history had been my favourite subject. We had studied the Viking period through to 1066, our teacher bringing history vividly to life, and I’d revelled in the characters that formed our island nation. Oddly enough, we were never taught about Richard III and the Wars of the Roses, the conflict that tore the country apart. And there was another mystery that I discovered years later: Richard, Duke of Gloucester’s home at Middleham Castle lay a short drive away yet there had been no school trips to see the history right on our doorstep.

I began to take an interest in Richard after I read Paul Murray Kendall’s biography,
Richard III,
in which he questioned Shakespeare’s interpretation of the king, proposing a different character altogether. Kendall drew on the testimonies of those who had known Richard intimately, such as the city fathers of York who, the day after Richard’s death at Bosworth, had written:
‘
King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us … was piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this city…’ noting he was ‘the most famous Prince of blessed memory’. Richard’s life had everything: politics, power, romance, intrigue, mystery, murder, self-sacrifice, loyalty and incredible acts of bravery. I was intrigued to know more about the man and why it had been so necessary for the Tudors to rewrite his story.

As I learned more about him I was puzzled as to why Richard had always been represented one-dimensionally on screen. The malevolent, crooked, Shakespearean figure has been rolled out since the dawning of the film industry with Hollywood portraying a tyrant in its first-ever full-length feature film,
Richard III,
in 1912. No one seemed interested in rendering a more complex, nuanced portrait while, perversely, Tudor history has been extensively filmed, television companies favouring exciting modern dramas about the Tudor monarchs who succeeded Richard III.
The Six Wives of Henry VIII,
starring Keith Michell, was screened in 1970, quickly followed by Glenda Jackson’s
Elizabeth R
and many other similar programmes. It would seem that little has changed today. HBO’s critically acclaimed
Game of Thrones
is loosely based on the Wars of the Roses but is a fantasy, and the BBC has a forthcoming modern, glossy series about the women of this period,
The White Queen,
adapted from Philippa Gregory’s trilogy, with Richard sidelined to a supporting role. Cinema, too, has recounted almost every story concerning the Tudors, but has yet to bring the actual Richard to life.

I was baffled by the industry’s apparent desire to avoid putting King Richard III’s more subtle persona centre-stage on the screen. Was this because of a general lack of interest in the character or something more profound? Perhaps Richard was too complex, and it was too difficult to find his voice. Or perhaps the establishment was happy to maintain the Tudor version of his story, in which case there was little need to reinterpret his life. After all, Shakespeare had already presented the Tudor account. Many modern works claiming to reveal the real King Richard were simply rehashes of the Tudor Richard. Villains sell.

Some independent voices, using contemporary sources who had known Richard, described a different man but they were lost among the Tudor histories. However, I was persuaded by the evidence for the real, human Richard. By now I had joined the Richard III Society, the oldest and largest historical society in the world. Its Ricardian statement of intent resonated with the ‘many features of the traditional accounts of the character and career of Richard III’ being ‘neither supported by sufficient evidence nor reasonably tenable’. Since 1924, its work has provided the platform for leading research on the man and his times. Moreover, the view of the society’s patron, the Duke of Gloucester, and his moving dedication address in 1980 in defence of ‘something as esoteric and fragile as reputation’ captivated me.

I started to write my own screenplay about Richard but, try as I might, I couldn’t make the Richard I’d found in all the primary sources square with all the deeds he was supposed to have done. I could portray Richard, the loyal, dutiful son and brother living happily in the north, undertaking the tasks he is known to have performed there – and this matched what I knew about his character – but I couldn’t make the quantum leap of propelling him on to the throne. I was confronted by a giant jigsaw puzzle where many pieces fitted together easily, reflecting Richard’s character, but the key moments remained opaque. King Richard III was an enigma. I was by no means the first writer to have this problem. There are many accounts of historians being unable to understand his actions at important points, particularly in 1483 when he took the throne. But I was approaching him from a different perspective. I had to be familiar with his character before I could put into context the many challenges of his life, rather than the other way round. The later events of Richard’s life did not define him; his character had been formed before they took place.

I wasn’t interested in creating a saintly, one-dimensional figure; that would have been as nonsensical as the sinister person presented to us for so long. And yet I couldn’t make sense of the jigsaw before me.