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When you hear someone mention Richard III you probably either think of cockney rhyming slang for “turd” or of a body found under a Council car park in Leicester. Following this discovery a Richard III museum has been built on the site (so the council have to park elsewhere) and it is now a must see attraction.
Richard III lost at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, he was the last English king to lead his army into battle and his defeat ended the Wars of the Roses replacing the House of York with the Tudors.
That is fact, a great deal of everything else we “know” about Richard III is hearsay, myth or propaganda.
History is written by the victors and the early Tudors wanted to rubbish the previous regime to show what good people they were in comparison and to justify their claim to the throne so Tudor historians went into overdrive saying not only was he a cripple but what a devious, nasty and violent piece of work he was.
This culminated in Shakespeare’s play written 110 years after the battle where Richard is described as “an ugly hunchback, rudely stamp'd, deformed, unfinish'd, cannot strut before a wanton ambling nymph". The picture shows Anthony Sher playing him in 1984.
Clearly if he led his army into battle on horseback, wielding a sword and wearing full armour he can’t have been that disabled. He is also accused of several murders including those of his nephews who were held in the Tower of London but nothing has ever been proven and this could also be propaganda. After the battle his body was supposedly buried in a churchyard in Leicester belonging to a Friary.
When the Friary was ruined during the dissolution it was said that Richards bones were thrown in the river but again this was never recorded at the time, just a story spread at a later date.
In 1924 a Richard III Society was formed whose aim is to restore his reputation but what they do at gatherings goodness knows, perhaps they march round saying “A horse, a horse, my Kingdom for a horse” (a famous line from the play).
Twenty years ago a screenwriter by the name of Philippa Langley (pictured) decided to make a film to help give a more balanced view of Richard and quite quickly this became an obsession to try and find where he was buried. Time Team turned down the opportunity on two occasions so she raised the money for the dig and, after some good research and a little bit of luck, his grave was found under a Council car park in the centre of Leicester which had been the site of the Friary.
How do they know it was the right body?
It does have a curved spine which gave him a slightly uneven appearance which was then exaggerated by Shakespeare and others to imply he was crippled but the real clincher was the researchers had found someone who they can trace to being a direct descendant of Richard via the female line, his DNA matched that of the body!
(The female line is important, there is a lot more certainty about the connection between a baby and it’s mother, who the father might be is often open to question).
The face is of course a reconstruction from his skull, his bones are now buried in a huge casket in the centre of Leicester Cathedral.
Finding the grave is a very good story which is well told in the museum, well worth a visit should you find yourself in Leicester.
The Leicester University archaeologist Richard Buckley said he would eat his hat if they found Richard III's grave, this picture shows him eating an edible hat. When the film of the dig was released he and the University claimed "We found Richard III" and sidelined Philippa Langley which annoyed a great many people as she had raised the money and organised the dig against the rather negative views of the archaeologists.
Turd? If you associate Richard III with turd then you might find this video of Ronnie Barker amusing - Richard III
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