Has the long lost grave of the deposed King Richard III been found?

Richard III, King of England

Richard III (2nd October 1452 – 22nd August 1485) was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last King of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field was the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses and is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England.

When his brother Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's son and successor, the 12 year old King Edward V. As the new King travelled to London from Ludlow, Richard met and escorted him to London, where he was lodged in the Tower of London. Edward V's brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, later joined him there. Arrangements began to be made for Edward's coronation on 22nd June.

However, before the young King could be crowned, Edward IV's marriage to the boys' mother Elizabeth Woodville was publicly declared to be invalid, making their children illegitimate and ineligible for the throne. On 25th June an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed these claims. The following day, Richard III officially began his reign. He was crowned on 6th July. The two young  Princes were not seen in public after August and there arose subsequently a number of accusations that the boys had been murdered by Richard, giving rise to the legend of the Princes in the Tower.

There were two major rebellions against Richard. The first, in October 1483, was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and most notably by Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham. The revolt collapsed and Buckingham was executed at Salisbury near the Bull's Head Inn. In August 1485 there was another rebellion against Richard, headed by Henry Tudor, 2nd Earl of Richmond (later King Henry VII) and his uncle Jasper. Henry Tudor landed in Pembrokeshire, his birthplace, with a small contingent of French troops, and marched through Wales recruiting foot soldiers and skilled archers. Richard died during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last English King to die in battle (and the only English King to do so on English soil since Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066).

Richard's death at Bosworth resulted in the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, which had ruled England since the succession of Henry II in 1154. The last male Plantagenet, Edward, Earl of Warwick (son of Richard III's brother Clarence), was executed by Henry VII in 1499. Henry Tudor succeeded Richard to become Henry VII and sought to cement the succession by marrying the Yorkist heiress Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter and Richard III's niece.

Polydore Vergil, Henry Tudor's official historian, would later record that "King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies". Richard's naked body was then exposed, possibly in the collegiate foundation of the Annunciation of Our Lady, before being buried at Greyfriars Church, Leicester.In 1495 Henry VII paid £50 for a marble and alabaster monument.According to one tradition, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries his body was thrown into the nearby River Soar, although other evidence suggests that a memorial stone was visible in 1612, in a garden built on the site of Greyfriars. The exact location was then lost, owing to more than 500 years of subsequent development,until the archaeological investigations of 2012 revealed the site of the garden and of Greyfriars church. There is currently a memorial ledger stone in the choir of the Cathedral, as well as a stone plaque on the bridge where his remains were allegedly thrown into the Soar.


Last year the University of Leicester dug on the site of a city church where it was thought the king was buried. They found a skeleton with a badly curved spine and head injuries consistent with recorded details of Richard's death in 1485.

Sources said the tests, the results of which are to be released at 10:00 GMT on Monday the 4th, had "gone down to the wire".



While he remains for many historians the prime suspect for the death of his nephews - the Princes in the Tower - the skeleton's discovery has provided a golden opportunity for those seeking to restore his reputation to make their case.

Dr Phil Stone, chair of the Richard III Society, said: "This is an incredibly exciting time for anyone interested in Richard: it is simply the biggest news to hit Ricardian studies for 500 years."I really hope it is him. It is important, not just because it answers questions about what happened to his body but it gives us a chance to give him the solemn and respectful burial he deserves.
"And along with that, it gives us an opportunity to show the wider public what Richard was really like and remind them Shakespeare's play was fiction."


In September 2012, the university confirmed there was "strong evidence" a skeleton found beneath a council car park in the Greyfriars area of Leicester was the lost king.

The remains have been subjected to a battery of tests, including DNA, carbon dating and environmental analysis in an effort to confirm the identification.

The University of Leicester has played a pivotal role, not only in leading the archaeological dig but in terms of working in partnership with the city council and the Richard III Society to bring this extraordinary project to fruition.



"There is a palpable excitement at the university for an announcement that could potentially rewrite history."