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

by Langley, Philippa

  In Leicester, I walk the short distance between the train station and the Greyfriars Building in Grey Friars Street, which allows me fifteen minutes of fresh air to clear my head and prepare myself for what’s to come. En route strangers smile as they pass – what is it about this friendly city that makes me feel so much at home? Situated in the heart of England, Leicester has always welcomed outsiders, from Saxons and Vikings, to Romans and Jews, Asians and Africans.

  At Leicester City Council’s Greyfriars Building reception desk I have to explain why I am here, but then Mick Bowers arrives and I’m finally let in. It’s good that security is tight, but I am surprised that news of the dig hasn’t filtered through. Perhaps there’s no interest here either. On the way to the office on the first floor that I can use Bowers shows me the Richard III display boards, full of pictures, history, genealogy and a timeline, making a wonderful introduction for Social Services employees. Centre stage on the display is a voting sheet: ‘Good Richard’ (orange stickers), ‘Bad Richard’ (green stickers) or ‘Annoyed That Their Car Park is Out of Use for the Dig’ (blue stickers). There are some votes for good, some for bad but the blue section is already half full. It’s a lovely moment: I think we may be about to change history; they just want their car park back.

  Mike Mistry is the attendant who ensures all runs smoothly in the organized chaos that is the Leicester Social Services car park. Of particular concern are the children who are brought here into care, who typically arrive with care workers at the northern end. Our dig is not going to make his job any easier but he’s affable. I spot Richard Buckley, who is already in the car park with Christine Fiddler. As Mick and I approach them, they’re discussing the bike shed and Trench Two whose size and planned location may just block it. It looks as if the trench might have to be shortened to allow cyclists through, but after another look at the site plans, it’s agreed there’s no need to do so; the cyclists will have ample room to get round it and into their shed. I’m relieved. In the days to come every inch that we dig may count. Archaeologically, the car park is virgin ground and I only have funding to dig 1 per cent of the 17 per cent remaining open area of the Greyfriars precinct. We’re about to play a very expensive and advanced game of Battleships. We will need to find the Greyfriars Church in that 1 per cent, never mind any gravesites. Not for the first time, I glance over to the northern end and the white letter ‘R’ painted on the tarmac.

  Richard Buckley confirms that high fencing has been ordered for the site for Health and Safety reasons. I ask if we can put covers over the fencing for privacy (I’m already thinking of the potential human remains we may uncover) and he assures me that they have tarpaulin. Everything will be under control. Apparently the BBC has been in touch which is great news. If the BBC is showing interest it bodes well for tomorrow’s launch and a frisson of excitement runs through our small group. As we leave the earlier tensions fade away in laughter and banter about what the next day will bring. Richard Buckley has told his team that if we find Richard he will eat his hat. It’s now well after 3 p.m. and I get a text from historian and genealogist Dr John Ashdown-Hill telling me that he’s arrived in Leicester. We agree to meet up later at the apartments into which we’ve all been booked. Annette Carson, author of Richard III: The Maligned King, has confirmed she’ll be in Leicester at 6 p.m. and will come straight to us.

  The apartments are a five-minute walk from the Social Services car park, located by the River Soar. On the way you pass the fine statue of Richard in Castle Gardens. Unlike the statue at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, where a serpent is curled over his back to denote slanders against him, this depicts Richard III as a warrior king, a courageous fifteenth-century soldier. As I pass the River Soar my thoughts turn to the tale that Richard’s remains were thrown into its depths, a story that remains powerful, no more so than in Leicester. Will the next two weeks consign it to the dustbin of history? Maybe the discoveries of the next fortnight will challenge and change English history, or maybe our theories will be proved wrong.

  Back at the apartment the doorbell rings and I open the door to Annette Carson. We hug and she comes in to discuss the plan for tomorrow. I’m telling her about the BBC attending the launch when a text arrives from Richard Buckley to say that ITV Central News is also coming. It’s not long before John Ashdown-Hill arrives and we discuss our respective areas of expertise for the media launch as we don’t want to repeat information. John’s sphere is the Greyfriars Church and genealogy, with his discovery of Richard’s mtDNA sequence, and he is also well practised at repudiating the River Soar story. From her understanding of contemporary sources, Annette’s competence is in defending Richard III’s reputation, while knowledge of his character and the genesis of the dig project is my speciality. With our strategy for tomorrow sorted out, we bid one another goodnight.

  I’m ready to collapse into bed when I get a text from Dominic Sewell, the historical equitation specialist, who has just arrived in Leicester; we agree to catch up early tomorrow morning in the car park. The phone then never stops and I spend the next two hours sorting out tomorrow’s filming at the car park launch with various news crews, film crews, radio stations and newspapers. What have I kicked off?

  The Media Launch

  Friday, 24 August 2012

  I’m up at 5 a.m., nervous about what today will bring but thankful that the weather is reasonable – overcast but not raining. John, Annette and I walk to the Social Services car park and arrive at six o’clock to find the large green gates open and a white satellite news van already in place. I notice it is parked over the letter ‘R’, hiding it from view. Richard Buckley and Mick Bowers are already there.

  Dominic Sewell pulls up in a car jam-packed with the clothing and armour of a medieval knight. We have a quick discussion and I explain that it’s his job to bring the car park to medieval life with combat display. His ‘foot soldier’, Henry Sherry, a reenactor from the Wars of the Roses group, puts on his ‘murrey’, a dark reddish purple and blue tunic, the colours of the House of York, while Dominic climbs into his hose and padded undergarments aided by Josh, his ‘squire’, who then straps on his armour. They are soon joined by Dr Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection in London. It’s a great honour to have a leading expert in this field with us. Toby will talk about Richard, his armour and Bosworth. Claire Graham, the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) specialist from Stratascan, is setting up her equipment and running a final analysis of the Social Services car park area. We joke about how far the project has come since we last met in this car park for the original GPR survey a year ago. I see Carl Vivian starting to film for the University of Leicester and meet Colin Brooks, their photographer, who explains that they will be recording all events at the dig for the partners.

  The presence of Assistant City Mayor, Piara Singh Clair is a welcome boost and gives the Looking for Richard project its official launch. Michael Ibsen, the genetic descendant of Richard III and his seventeenth-generation nephew, is due from London today and Dr Turi King, the DNA expert from Leicester University, will obtain his DNA sample. Everyone working in the car park will have to give their own DNA sample too, just in case there’s cross-contamination.

  I spot Alex Rowson, associate producer at Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP), setting up his equipment. Dr Julian Boon from Leicester University, the inventor of Personality Profiling, is here. As part of the Looking for Richard project I had commissioned him and Professor Mark Lansdale to do the first-ever Personality Analysis of the king. I ask Dr Boon what he will talk about to camera and he confirms his overriding view that Richard III was essentially a well-meaning man living in difficult times. If one of the UK’s leading psychologists, who has spent the past eighteen months profiling Richard, has come to this conclusion, it needs to be heard. Michael Ibsen arrives and is engulfed by news teams. He takes it all in his stride. It’s an added bonus to have a genetic descendant with us on launch day, bringing Richard’s world directly into ours. Tur
i King and Ibsen make an extraordinary team and collecting his DNA by mouth swab is filmed live; it’s quite surreal to see a living relative of a king having his DNA taken in a car park. The whole place is crammed with news crews and media.

  Richard Buckley is pleased that the gazebo has sides so there will be somewhere to shelter if the weather turns. He wants to start spray-painting the car park today to mark out the areas of Trench One and Trench Two so that the buzz saw can cut them ready for tomorrow’s machining work. He’s keen to get on and I agree. We don’t know how much time we may need. Every moment counts. He gives the go-ahead for marking up the trenches with yellow paint and archaeologist Leon Hunt, who put the Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment together for the project back in the spring of 2011, begins the task. He too is quickly surrounded by cameras.

  By late afternoon, everyone has left. I look back at the deserted car park. The long, rectangular layouts of the two thirty-metre trenches shine brightly in yellow spray paint. Beside them, and sometimes crossing them, is the faintest of cuts carved into the once pristine tarmac, like a perfect precision puncture wound. The letter ‘R’ is now encased within the cuts of Trench One.

  The Dig: Day One

  Saturday, 25 August 2012

  The long-awaited moment has arrived: 25 August and the day King Richard III was interred here in the Greyfriars Church, 527 years ago. Annette and I arrive at the car park just as the 360-degree excavator is ripping into Trench One, and the first piece of tarmac is removed. John Ashdown-Hill is already here, as are Carl Vivian and Colin Brooks, recording the moment for the partners. The DSP team, following everything for Channel 4, are keen to tell the story of the real, historical Richard III and Annette Carson suggests we have a meeting to discuss primary sources soon. She and Ashdown-Hill can’t stay indefinitely as their costs are mounting daily, so we agree to meet in the gazebo at 1 p.m. when everyone will be taking a break.

  Excavation is now under way at the northern end of Trench One and the noise is terrific. Ashdown-Hill, Carson and I think this was the site of the church. The machine will very shortly be going right over the painted letter ‘R’, close to where my instinct told me Richard’s remains lay when I first came here. I still believe it. Nothing has changed my mind. If Greyfriars Church isn’t where we expect, all our research, Ashdown-Hill’s template of the Greyfriars layout, my intuition – everything will have been for nothing. As the machine delicately prises off the top layer of tarmac the letter ‘R’ crumbles away. I can’t take my eyes off the excavator and have to pinch myself as I watch. Over three and a half years of non-stop cajoling, bringing partners on board, getting everyone on-side, and raising considerable funds, has brought us to this moment.

  I’m introduced to Mathew Morris, Richard Buckley’s lead archaeologist at the dig and site director. We chat briefly before he goes back to the machining. The weather is good, part sun, part cloud and the DSP team check their phones for an update: some time later in the day a large and prolonged shower is forecast. Then the machining suddenly stops. Richard Buckley and Mathew Morris are looking into the trench, which isn’t that deep, or long, pointing to what might be a small medieval wall at the most northerly end. It’s a couple of feet down, clearly running north–south. None of us can quite believe it as we’ve been machining for less than ten minutes. Richard points out the old stone, yellowy-white in the rich, clay soil. It’s a straight wall. This early on a potentially medieval structure is a good sign and it’s quite high up, signifying that the medieval layer may not be too far down. He explains how this could relate to the 2007 dig they performed at Grey Friars Street when he and his team uncovered the medieval layer two feet down, which could indicate the level here. If so it’s also very good news for costs and timing. That dig was the closest excavation to this car park, and made me think that the Social Services site could be the potential location of the church.

  Half an hour later the small medieval wall to the northern end of Trench One is gone, replaced by earth and red-brick rubble and what looks to be solid, red-brick walls poking through at a lower level. ‘False alarm, I’m afraid,’ Buckley says wearily. It looks as if the Victorians used the medieval stone for one of their own walls, possibly foundations for an outhouse building we know was here from the maps Buckley had investigated. The archaeologist can see my disappointment but tells me to take heart: ‘We’ve found medieval stone and that’s a good sign.’ As the machining continues Turi King arrives and we tell her about the ‘medieval wall’. I take the opportunity to have a chat with her about the potential finding of human remains and protecting DNA. She assures me that they have the protective suits, masks and gloves ready to go. I quiz her about possible contamination and she gives me a lot of information. But one thing sticks in my mind: it’s never good to get water on remains.

  The machining of Trench One is going well, the archaeologists eagle-eyed as each layer of earth emerges. The excavator goes down and down but it looks like there’s only Victorian rubble and red-brick walls poking through, all to the northern end. I’m really disappointed – gutted actually. There appears to be no medieval archaeology where I believed the church and Richard’s final resting place would be. Nothing. My instinct has never let me down before. I tell myself it’s only day one and that we have a great team of professionals on this project with two weeks of digging to go. Whatever we find will enhance Richard III’s story and our knowledge of the period.

  After a short break for breakfast, I walk back to the car park to find Richard Buckley gone and the excavator standing idle. Mathew Morris explains that the machine has thrown a track. I’m thinking time and money: I only have a small contingency for overtime. Buckley arrives back on site with Stevie Stell the excavator driver who, utilizing the pulling power of the excavator, is going to use a massive chain to re-engage the track. We’ve got to get it back on today. Buckley asks how much I have left in the kitty from the international appeal. About £800, I say. ‘We can do a lot with that,’ he replies. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll make up the time.’ The excavator roars back into life. I watch the driver gently pulling the chain that is tied to the track and wrapped around its powerful scoop. The DSP team fly past me to film the repair. It’s slow, careful work and inch by inch the massive track slides smoothly back into place. Richard Buckley gives the thumbs up as the driver trundles the excavator back over the northern end of Trench One. The scoop arm drops down and begins to lift out giant clods of earth, debris and rubble, swinging them on to the spoil heaps. I check my watch. It’s 2.15 p.m. We’re going to be okay.

  Buckley has left to see his family, when suddenly Mathew Morris’s hand shoots into the air. The excavator stops and Morris jumps into the trench. He looks up at me.

  There’s a bone.

  He’s pointing to a long, but clearly smashed, bone lying in an east–west direction, about five feet down in the trench. I ask if it’s human. We’ve found so many animal bones already that I don’t trust what I’m seeing. Morris nods. He says it looks like a leg bone and bends to perform gentle trowel work around it. It may just be an odd bone, so he’s looking to see if there are any others with it.

  I realize that Morris’s head, poking out at me from the trench, is only a few feet from where the letter ‘R’ once existed and right where I had my intuition. My heart is pounding. I feel odd, as if I’m somehow here but not here. My legs are moving, taking me to the edge of the trench. I’m jumping in, getting to Morris as fast as I can. I see the leg bone. It’s brown and dirty, covered in earth and mashed up a little, scraped by the scoop of the excavator which has taken some of its side away. ‘It happens,’ Morris says quickly. ‘We try our best but it can happen, especially when we’re not expecting things to be where they are.’ The bone is clearly human. Morris scrapes carefully at the soil around it and a second bone begins to show through. He clears the earth around it a little. This other leg bone is lying beside the first, directly adjacent to it. It looks as if we might have a burial, maybe a whole skelet
on. The odd sensation I’m experiencing won’t go away. All I can think is that it’s Richard. I hear myself telling Morris that we’re right beside the ‘R’ that marked the spot. I want him to believe me – to believe it – to believe what he’s seeing. He’s smiling, telling me not to get my hopes up, because the two bones may be the only remains here. ‘We don’t even know if there is a skeleton,’ he says. ‘We have to remember that we’ve found no medieval archaeology in this part of the trench. It could be anyone and from any age, not even medieval. The level they’re at may be far enough down to indicate they are fifteenth century but it’s only an indication at the moment.’

  I just want to be alone here but the cameras are all pointing, and everyone is staring down at the first real find. Morris tells the driver to move the excavator further down the trench to scoop out the earth and rubble there and the crowd follows the machine. I’m left at the northern end and for a moment the absurdity of what I am doing hits me. I’m in a trench in a municipal car park in Leicester looking at a couple of lower leg bones and thinking they are those of a king. I tell myself I have to go with what feels right, what my instinct is telling me. That has been the story of this project from the start and I’m not going to stop now.

  I climb out of the trench and glance over at the spire of the cathedral rising over the car park to the north. Looming above it is the darkest storm cloud. I suddenly remember the weather forecast and know we only have moments before it arrives. I’m thinking about the exposed bones and how to protect them from rain when a tempest hits. Everyone is rushing for cover. I yell at Morris to get something to cover the bones with, the fear of losing the DNA coursing through me. Annette Carson shouts that she’s got bubble-wrap, her voice as panicked as mine. The rain’s coming down in sheets. I sprint while pulling on a luminous protective coat, jumping into the trench just as Morris hurls down some large plastic finds bags. The DSP team are in the gazebo, hurriedly donning their coats and fixing a plastic cover on the camera, then they rush out again to film in a downpour fast becoming a deluge. Everyone’s under cover but I can’t leave the trench. The remains must be protected.