The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds (24 page)

Next, Robert Woosnam-Savage, Curator of European Edged Weapons at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, and Dr Stuart Hamilton, Deputy Chief Forensic Pathologist, East Midlands Forensic Pathology Unit, would reveal the likely sequence of events during the last moments of life, and explain the nature of the fatal blows.

In his research, Woosnam-Savage deals with the most vicious of human behaviour on the battlefield, with the weapons of the era. He could be aptly named, but the sensitivity he and Stuart Hamilton showed helped me get through that day. They had warned me in advance that the presentation would be detailed and possibly distressing. I accepted that; we can’t change events, but we have to know the facts in order to understand them.

Woosnam-Savage began by saying that he would call the remains Richard, and that he would start at the top of the skull and work downwards. Hamilton agreed, saying this would reveal the likely sequence of injuries. Jo Appleby tilted the skull towards us, and Woosnam-Savage pointed to a distinct shave wound. A sharp-bladed weapon, a sword or halberd, had been swung directly at the head from behind, with such force that it had taken off a thin slice of skin and bone. It, or a similar blow, had even skipped slightly, and made a second shave wound immediately after. Another blow, also from behind but at a slightly different angle, had been aimed at the head, but again had taken only another small slice of skin and bone. The skull had not taken the full impact of the blow.

From the angle of the strokes, Woosnam-Savage concluded that mere scalping was not intended, and also that Richard’s head must have been uncovered to have received such a wound; he was possibly bending or on his knees, though this was not certain. Woosnam-Savage couldn’t say whether Richard had ducked and dived away from the blows, so that they failed to connect fully, or whether the attackers’ aim was faulty in a frenzied mêlée. But it seems that Richard may have been dazed by these first injuries, because the next wound was close up and on target.

Appleby tilted the skull again. There was a square puncture wound visible at the top. I remembered this from the exhumation and had assumed it had been made by a pole-axe. It hadn’t. A much more likely candidate for the weapon that delivered this penetrating injury was a type of dagger with a four-sided blade, such as a rondel dagger. The dagger could have been placed directly above the top of the head and then, using the palm of the other hand on the pommel for extra force, pushed down into the head with brute strength. Appleby moved the skull to show the interior and the two small flaps of bone the knife wound had dislodged inside. The weapon had penetrated the bone, and affected the brain, but it was not a fatal wounding.

Now Jo Appleby turned the skull round to show the back. Here, there was no doubt about the violence wrought upon Richard’s head. Woosnam-Savage said it looked very much as if a cutting blade, such as that found on a halberd, had been swung down with force, and sliced off part of the back of the head, taking a portion of the brain with it. This may have proved a fatal blow, and, if so, death would have been almost instantaneous. Hamilton agreed, conjecturing that Richard would most likely have felt nothing but the impact before losing consciousness. The powerful swing had left a flap of skull still attached, no doubt matted with blood, hair and grey matter from his exposed brain. Woosnam-Savage commented on how this slicing motion, along with the other scoops and slices to the skull, agreed so well with the most evocative description found in a ‘praise poem’ written for the Welsh noble, Rhys ap Thomas, who may have played a crucial role in the battle. The poem was written before about 1493 by the poet Guto’r Glyn, who also fought at Bosworth: ‘
Lladd y baedd, eilliodd ei ben
’ (‘Killed the boar, shaved his head’).

Appleby turned the skull again slightly to reveal another potentially fatal wound. The tip of a sword, or bladed weapon, had been thrust through the head on the right, penetrating to a depth of just over four inches and marking the inside of the skull on the opposite side. Although there was no way to determine the sequence of the blows this wound alone would have been enough to kill Richard, as it was a stab perfectly capable of felling him almost at once.

Six wounds to the head had made their mark on the bones but death, when it came, had probably been immediate. In the adrenalin rush, Richard would have felt nothing: the shave wounds like bumps and scratches, the knife wound a dull thud in his head.

Woosnam-Savage wanted us to see the face. Appleby put the skull back on the mandible so that it was complete on the light box. On the right of the mandible there was a slash mark, a knife wound, but not very deep, or long. It would need further investigation to tell whether it had been done to remove Richard’s helmet strap or was another attack wound, but it looked as if it too could have been delivered from behind. Above the cut was a single stab wound on the cheekbone to the right of the nose, potentially from a four-sided dagger, such as a rondel. It was a clean, square puncture wound similar to that on the top of the skull, so perhaps it was inflicted by the same attacker. Woosnam-Savage showed how an assailant might have come from behind and held Richard’s head for purchase as he stabbed the dagger into his face, but not to its full extent. Might Richard have been fighting on his knees?

Woosnam-Savage believed it would be speculation to go any further. Unlike remains from many battle sites, including Towton in 1461, the features were not terribly defaced. It appeared that Richard may have been protected from further damage, perhaps on the orders of Henry Tudor. If Henry was to claim King Richard’s throne, he needed his rival not only dead, but seen to be dead, and not just on the battlefield; civilian observers who had known him and could identify him would be essential to Tudor plans.

From the marks on the bones, Woosnam-Savage and Appleby calculated there were a total of eight wounds to the head, all of which had come from behind. The legend that King Richard’s head had hit Bow Bridge on his return to Leicester, where his spur had struck on the way to battle, was, it seems, a myth, as there was no mark to suggest the skull could have struck a bridge.

Richard’s armour had done its job: his arms and legs showed no attack marks or defensive wounds. But there was a further post-mortem wound, another cut from behind, where a dagger had been slashed across a rib on the right-hand side of his back, although whether this was inflicted with the armour removed, or as it was being cut off the body was unclear. It was suggestive, however, of a probable ‘victory’ blow.

I felt a sense of relief, as I thought we had come to the end, but the story was not over yet. The body had one final wound to reveal. Woosnam-Savage squeezed my hand, and quietly told me to prepare myself. In his study of human remains from medieval battlefields, he had never come across what he regarded as such blatant physical evidence for the particular and final indignity inflicted on Richard’s body.

He asked us to move down the table. Appleby lifted the pelvis and tilted it towards us. Woosnam-Savage pointed to a small but deep cut that went in one side and out the other. Richard had been stabbed in the right buttock, so forcibly that the blade had penetrated the pelvic bone. The weapon used may have been a double-edged sword or dagger, but Woosnam-Savage thought the very fine nature of the trauma indicated it was most likely a dagger.

The atmosphere in the room had been quietly sombre. Now it was charged with shock. I could scarcely take in his words. The acute angle of the cut showed, Woosnam-Savage explained, that it probably couldn’t have been made when the armoured Richard was standing, or even lying on the ground. The blow would, however, appear to be consistent with it having been struck when his body was perhaps tilted and at a more readily accessible angle, his rear presenting an easy target. He had most likely been stabbed while slung over the back of the horse that bore him back to Leicester.

This was the final proof Woosnam-Savage needed to satisfy himself that the Greyfriars skeleton was indeed that of Richard III. It was an insult injury. In his years of study into the nature of battlefield trauma he had come across many insult injuries, but it was the placement and angle of this one that had convinced him, and was why he had decided to name the remains throughout his presentation. Stuart Hamilton had seen this kind of insult injury in the backside inflicted by today’s football hooligans. Nothing is new, he remarked. He too was convinced by it that the skeleton was that of Richard III.

Richard had revealed his story. His bones didn’t record any other wounds or insult injuries, only his ignominious burial.

In Jo Appleby’s opinion the grave was hastily dug as it was too short for the body, and as a result the head was discovered at a higher level during the exhumation. His hands and arms were still together but positioned over his right pelvic area, suggesting his hands had been tied. With his hands bound, the chances were that his body had not been washed or properly prepared for burial. He might not have been given a shroud either. Was it Henry Tudor’s henchmen who shoved the corpse into the earth naked and despoiled? And did Henry Tudor choose the site in the friars’ sanctum deliberately so that the grave would not become a House of York shrine?

I shared the quiet journey back to the hotel through the dark, wintry streets of Leicester with the DSP team. We dropped Bob Woosnam-Savage off at the station to catch his train, and he squeezed my hand again before he jumped out. The day was over, and I felt a sort of relief: at least we wouldn’t have to go through that again and nor would Richard.

I drank and laughed that night. It’s true what they say: when the dark times pass, people need to remind themselves that they’re alive. Just for a short while I certainly did, but I had more weeks of worry ahead of me. Professor Caroline Wilkinson at the University of Dundee was to carry out the facial reconstruction and much would be revealed at the end of that painstaking process. And the DNA testing would establish the most important facts of all regarding the identity of the Greyfriars remains. Suddenly all my certainty that they were those of Richard Plantagenet was thrown into the air again.

Wednesday, 16 January 2013

With the cost of the university’s analysis work mounting, it looked as if the facial reconstruction would have to be abandoned. But Dr Phil Stone, chairman of the Richard III Society, declared that the society would commission and fund this part of the project. To see the face of the remains discovered at the dig would be a crucial part of the society’s investigative work. For me it would be a further step in the quest for the real Richard III. Finally to see the face of the last warrior King of England, the man I had sought for the last four years, would be the culmination of a long and difficult journey. It would also be an enormous personal relief since after all the research it would have seemed wrong not to proceed to the project’s visual conclusion. For purposes of veracity, DSP would administer the facial reconstruction process whilst filming it and then hand over the completed reconstruction to the society at the end of the project.

The surviving portraits of Richard are all sixteenth-century copies of lost originals. The only possible contemporary portrait is a drawing in historian John Rous’s
The Rous Roll,
which was completed during Richard’s reign, some time between 1483 and 1484 when his son was still alive, as it depicts Richard with his wife and son. Richard is standing upright in his armour wearing a crown, his dark hair arranged in the style of the period, akin to a bob. The face echoes typical sixteenth-century portraiture, being quite compact, with a strong jaw and chin and well-defined features. Rous’s drawing, however, is a brief, ethereal representation and with no particular detail to go on, Richard’s face remained as enigmatic as ever.

I had asked Dr Turi King, DNA expert at the University of Leicester, whether the tests would divulge the colour of Richard’s hair and eyes. King said that if we were successful in isolating the ancient DNA then advances in this technology meant that information as to colouring would probably be available in the future.

In the meantime, Richard’s facial reconstruction was complete. Professor Caroline Wilkinson, a leading expert in facial anthropology, had worked on TV programmes
Meet the Ancestors
and
History Cold Case,
bringing to life many deeply human projects. She had used photography and detailed 3D CT scans of the skull to create an accurate reconstruction and was assisted by Janice Aitken, a specialist artist and lecturer at the University of Dundee’s Duncan Jordanstone College of Art and Design, who added the final skin tones and colouring.

Before I was to see the reconstruction, Professor Wilkinson talked Simon Farnaby and me through the preliminary stages of the process using computer graphics. Wilkinson first examined the orbital structure to determine the depth and size of the eyes, adding the eyeballs. The reconstruction then followed a process based on the anatomical formations of the head and neck, where scientific standards are used to interpret the facial features. Computer-generated pegs are placed on the skull to act as guidelines for soft tissue depths. This data, taken from living individuals, is used to predict the amount of fat and skin over the muscle structure. Once this was done, the finished head was replicated in plastic and the hair, skin and eye colour added.

The reconstructed head was set up in the centre of the main archaeological finds room at the Archaeological Institute, University College London. To enable DSP to record me meeting Richard for the first time, I was asked to close my eyes as Simon Farnaby led me in. After a few moments’ hesitation, I opened my eyes. Richard’s face took me completely by surprise. I don’t know exactly what I had expected but it wasn’t this. I was not confronted by a stern face marred by thin lips and narrow eyes; nor features worn down by worry and grief. Instead it was the face of a young man who looked as if he were about to speak, and to smile. I searched in vain for the tyrant. I can’t describe the joy I felt. I was face to face with the real Richard III.