It was announced earlier this week that the skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park late last year is indeed that of king Richard III. The car park being on the site of a former, long demolished, abbey.
Experts from the University of Leicester have confirmed that DNA recovered from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch’s family.
A leading archaeologist from the University of Leicester, told a press conference that “Beyond reasonable doubt it’s Richard.”
Richard, the last of the House of York, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 by forces under the command of Henry Tudor, thereafter known as Henry VII. Richard had served just 26 months on the throne and was the last English king to die in battle.
It has further been announced that the former English king will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in the former English city of Leicester; a city with a dwindling minority White British population estimated in the 2011 Census as constituting just 45% (61% in 2001) of the total.
Another interesting “twist” from the announcement is that the claim alleging that Richard was a “hunchback” was not a Tudor fabrication as many had supposed, as the skeletal evidence established beyond doubt that Richard did indeed have a marked spinal deformity.
This follows increasing scholarly doubt that he was as villainous as later claimed and may not have been responsible for the murder of the princes in the Tower.
Having subjected the skeleton to “rigorous academic study”, including carbon dating, it has been shown that the remains date to a period from 1455-1540 and that they belonged to a male in his late 20s or early 30s. Richard was 32 when killed.
The skeleton also reveals that he suffered 10 notable injuries, including eight to the skull (of which two were potentially fatal), at around the time of death.
The spine was badly curved, a condition known as scoliosis, but contrary to Tudor propaganda there was no trace of a withered arm.
Richard was born at Fotheringhay Castle in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, where Mary Queen of Scots was later executed during the reign of arguably England’s greatest monarch, Elizabeth I.
To what extent the largely non-native population of Leicester will identify with a former English king interred in a building belonging to an increasingly “alien” faith has yet to be seen.
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A very moving and thought provoking article. I have long thought that Richard III has been too harshly judged by pro-Tudor historians. It is perhaps fitting that we shall meet near the place where he made his last, courageous stand in battle, though I hope with a happier outcome . . . I shall take the opportunity of visiting Leicester to pay my respects to his mortal remains.
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that low’r’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.W
If, as stated, Richard, the last of the House of York, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, how come they can confirm his identity by a DNA comparison with a person living today> So by my reconning he must have ancesters who are the rightful heirs to the English throne.
It was done via his sister’s descendants but you might be right in saying they have as much right to the throne as those on it now.
Richard III has more historical connections with Yorkshire than with Leicester, and it was his wish that he be buried in York Minster, not Leicester Cathedral! His wish should be honoured and he should be given a state funeral in Yorkshire.