Hey Blog! This week is going back to the mediaeval period (again!) for some more discoveries, to Leicester for a museum, and a car park for a notable mediaeval monarch.
“Now is the winter of our discontent,
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;”
Begins Shakespeare’s play Richard III. It reads like one of his Tragedies – throughout the play, lords and ladies fall ill and die or get their heads loped off even faster than in Alice in Wonderland: Clarence, Grey, Rivers, Vaughan, Queen Alice, Hastings, and finally Gloucester/King Richard III – all dead. But it is in fact a History – a play based on fact, not fiction, and recent history at that. When the great Bard was writing, in the late 1500s, it was only a hundred years earlier that Richard III, last of the Plantagenet kings, had been killed with a blow to his head while at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, supposedly crying “A horse, a horse! My Kingdom for a horse!” – perhaps the most famous line in the play. And while much of the decoration in the lines and even the underlying theme, of the hunchbacked usurping tyrant who murders his nephews and most of his family to claim the crown, is Tudor propaganda, some fact remains.
At the point when Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was alive, England was recently over the Huundred Years’ War with France and still going with the Wars of the Roses. The White Rose of York, led by King Edward IV and later King Richard III had recently triumphed over the Red Rose of Lancaster, led by Henry VI and his wife Queen Margaret; but the Lancastrian Henry Tudor of Richmond was in exile in France, waiting to come over and win at Bosworth (thus becoming King Henry VII). When his brother the king died, the Duke of Gloucester moved swiftly and rose to power as king. He was a good and strong ruler, and kept the country peaceful – until Henry Tudor came over and won the Battle of Bosworth, struck Richard down with the help of the Stanley family, and started the Tudor dynasty. Then, to put his claim to the throne beyond the doubting minds, he claimed that Richard had not been the rightful ruler, and moreover, he was wicked. Unfortunately for Richard, that is the view that has stayed.
Or at least, it has stayed till now. A few years ago, the Richard III society was granted permission to dig up the council carpark in Leicester. The church of Greyfriars was supposed to be underneath it, and that is where Henry VII brought Richard III’s body from Bosworth. Incredibly, they were right on top of the church. Even more incredibly, they were in the choir – the most important burial site. And against all odds, there was a skeleton with severe, but not disabling, sclerosis of the spine, and wounds in the skull. A hunchback with head wounds – the long-lost king?!
Over the course of the investigation, with the aid of DNA tests, radiocarbon dating, pathologists and archaeologists, it was proved that this was indeed the last Plantagenet monarch. It was a near miracle, to find, on day one, the exact skeleton you were looking for – pretty much an unheard-of feat. So don’t go looking for a king in your local car park (unless you live next to the Tower of London and you want to find Edward V, the prince in the Tower that Richard is reputed to have murdered – even though it’s not very likely that he did!), because chances are you will be disappointed. Go and check out the visitor centre on the site of the Leicester dig instead – I can certainly recommend it. You will be shown around the full story, and if that’s not enough, you can also go to the battle site, a few miles away. There is also a documentary called The King in the Car Park, which tells the story.
Even though the King himself may have been dead for more than 500 years, memory is alive and well. People still have divided opinions on his true character, but one thing’s for sure – this mediaeval monarch will still be inspiring people for a long time to come.