NOTE
I wrote this piece in 2002, for the
Richard III Society Bulletin which is published 4 times a year. In it I suggest
that we should finally search for Richard’s remains, and outline what should be
done to locate and then study them, a DNA study, facial reconstruction work, etc, none of which had ever been suggested before, as these
scientific procedures had not existed the last time the subject of searching
for him had been outed, 25 years previously.
But all the Richard III Society knew
how to do was ‘bah humbug’ my ideas, leaving me with no chance of obtaining
their support for a search.
10 years later Richard’s remains
were duly found, by the Richard III Society’s Philippa Langley. The remains
were found exactly as I suggested, then DNA tested, and then a facial
reconstruction was done, all as I had suggested 10 years before. She was awarded
an MBE.
However Philippa only gave me a
token acknowledgement in her Official Account of the discovery, despite
admitting in an email to me that she remembered my original article very well
(after 10 years and hundreds of articles published since then, why should she
especially remember mine? Come on!).
In my opinion this article planted a seed in her mind; after all, the entire
subject had lain dormant for decades before I raised it.
But the acknowledgement given me was disproportionate almost to the point of being
non existent.
So that Society, after they bah humbugged me – do seem to have then lifted the
lot.
Worse, during that 10 years an estimated 700 elderly Ricardians
died, going to their graves having never seen this come to pass – and for that
I will never forgive that Society who, had they supported me as they did
Philippa, would have seen a realization of this discovery 10 years sooner when
all those souls were still alive.
I do not harbour any animosity towards Philippa personally. We have over some
years enjoyed a long private correspondence on a variety of subjects, and her
subsequent work on the fate of the Princes is of course nothing to do with the
foregoing and is something for which she deserves commendation. However my feelings towards the Richard III
Society are very different.
Meantime, here is that Bulletin
article which I wrote back then. In addition to my back copy of the published
story and the many others which must still exist, which date to the summer of
2002, the date of this file reads, “ Created ….. January 10, 2002”.
Richard's Remains Need To Be Recovered
While most of our monarchs repose in splendid tombs,
Richard III, one of Yorkshire's fallen heroes,
lies in a most humiliating place
In 2001 I, and I'm sure many other Ricardians, witnessed on tv the recovery, from the dark and gloomy depths of Lake Coniston in northern England, of the mortal remains of the water speed record breaker Donald Campbell.
Campbell's remains, which had lain there since January 1967, were recovered by a team of dedicated and determined divers from 140 feet of water.
As an equally dedicated Ricardian, and a Yorkshireman to boot, my thoughts naturally turned at this point to the mortal remains of King Richard III, which may also lie in a watery grave.
In August 1485,as I'm sure all Ricardians are aware, his body had been buried in the Grey Friars' church at Leicester, (within the complex of the Grey Friars Monastery in St. Francis Lane), and eventually a modest tomb was provided for him by Henry Tudor. However at the Dissolution under Henry VIII his tomb was desecrated and according to popular tradition his remains were thrown into the nearby River Soar.
I was profoundly shocked, however, upon visiting this place recently, to see that the place is now, in effect, a rather narrow canal in the middle of a modern industrial city. In other words--and I will be true to my Yorkshire traditions here by being both blunt and realistic--if this tradition is correct, then the mortal remains of one of our fallen heroes, an anointed King and King of England at that, no less than King Richard III himself, repose in a place which for centuries if not today was synonymous with drowned rats, dead dogs and old prams.
Which does not say much about those who would be content to leave him there.
For, if this tradition is correct, we have a completely unacceptable situation whereby the mortal remains of Donald Campbell can be recovered from such great depths by oxy-helium breathing divers, while those of Richard the Third himself, laying in such a humiliating place in only one-twentieth the depth, are just simply left.
Of course the traditional story, though it has long persisted, may not be correct and Richard's remains may lie not in the canal but still upon the site of the Grey Friars' church underneath modern commercial Leicester. For example in 1612 Christopher Wren, father of the famous architect, worked as a tutor for the family which owned the ruins of the old Grey Friars and a house upon the site, and he seems to have had no knowledge of the story of Richard's remains having been thrown into the river, even though the first written reference to the event dated back to about the same time. He did however know of a stone which stood on the Grey Friars site and read : "Here lies Richard III, sometime King of England". However, it transpired that this stone had been erected by his employer.
Alternatively, it is possible that his remains were thrown into the Soar not at the Bow Bridge at all, but at the West Bridge which is situated right between the Bow Bridge and the Grey Friars site in the town. After all, if at the Dissolution pilferers were carrying remains away from ransacked tombs to be disposed of in such a disrespectful manner as throwing them into a river, then why carry them on past the first bridge they came to (the West Bridge)? It is possible that the Bow Bridge was subsequently substituted for the West Bridge in peoples’ minds as the site where Richard's bones were disposed of, because of the earlier legend of Richard's spur --and later his head-- banging against the Bow Bridge parapet on the day of Bosworth.
But whether his remains were removed or not, I think it is safe to conclude that Richard presently lies in a place wholly unbefitting for any anointed King, let alone Richard III. Further, of course, the question of whether he lies under modern city buildings or in the canal is something which in any event no amount of theoretical discussion but only real action will ever resolve. And this, of course, leads us inevitably on to the subject of excavation.
At the present it is not possible to excavate under the whole of the site of the old Grey Friars' church. Large areas of it could however be presently excavated -- but a practical problem here is that the area to be covered is simply too large (the site was rather spread out and we have no idea just where Richard's tomb was), and will have to be narrowed, both by diligent research in order to better ascertain the areas most likely to have housed the tomb, and by a geophysical survey which might reveal the foundations of where the large tombs once stood.
But surely it would not be beyond our capabilities either, to drain that small section of canal by both the West and the Bow bridges and excavate into the muddy bottom beneath. For that is where his remains may simply be: the gentler currents which constantly prevail will excavate the mud and silt from underneath bone and cause it to move straight downwards, where it will eventually become encased in denser material (hardpack) resistant to canal dredging and to any floodwater.
Of course, it is possible that any remains thrown into the river may have been transported away by any floods or strong flows occurring relatively soon afterwards, but a river transporting material will readily dump it at the nearest bend, which in the case of both the West and the Bow Bridges is very close by. However the possibility of material as dense as bone being removed from this particular site is rather remote; for example you are about to read about remains from the 9th century which have been found at the Bow Bridge and which have arguably not moved since then (after all, in is unlikely that these remains have been washed into the city from relatively empty lands outside, and stopped conveniently at the bridge).
In any event, of course, these questions once again are not matters which are going to be solved by any amount of debate, but only by real excavation.
The river at both the West and the Bow bridges is narrow, shallow, very slow, and very openly accessible. Excavation of the river may be effected by using excavators to dig four transverse ditches, one at either side of each bridge, into which are lowered half-inch thick, square-corrugated bulkheads of the type in common use in the construction industry. The water between the supported bulkheads is then pumped out, and the river bed dried by way of a deeper drainage ditch dug in the area to be excavated ,which ditch is constantly pumped out by means of a small pump. The river water may pass between each pair of bulkheads by means of a two-foot diameter pipe. Merely dredging the bottom sediments with a scoop will not suffice, as of course we must get into the hardpack below these sediments.
This technology is no longer beyond the scope of any determined group of people. Even back in ancient times the technology was there to drain the river, and indeed in Victorian times, in 1862, this was actually done at the Bow Bridge when it was rebuilt. During this work, in which only the immediate area around the foundations was examined, two human skulls were actually found. Another skull, this time with a rather nasty head wound, had already been donated to Leicester Museum in the 1830's by a builder who had also worked on the bridge; however this skull's present whereabouts is unknown. Another skull, which may or may not be the same one, was taken from a Leicester museum over 100 years ago .This builder's great-great-grandson, who still lives in the area, possesses yet another skull found at the Bow Bridge location. Whilst it is extremely unlikely that any of these skulls are Richard's ( this latter skull for example was very recently tested by Oxford University and found to be that of a 9th century Saxon, and in any case imagine for example the large number of suicides which a bridge may be the scene of over several centuries ; even at the rate of only two a century, we're looking at a dozen cases.) this does however give us no small indication of the total quantity of human remains which may lay down there. Peter Liddell, Keeper of Archaeology at the Leicester Museum Service, is of the opinion that there may be a large quantity of human remains awaiting discovery at this location, not least of all because the river may have been eroding into an adjacent Friary cemetery.
DNA could identify him. I have read and noted the comments which have been made by various agencies regarding the limitations of DNA analysis and the uncertainty of whether DNA may survive in a reasonable condition in a bone sample 500 years old, but I think that these comments are rather negative: for example there is currently a Japanese project to resurrect the Woolly Mammoth using DNA from 12,000 years, and in any event the U.K. Channel 4 "Time Team" have routinely carried out DNA analyses on remains much older than Richard's. Specific doubts have been expressed about the likelihood of Richard's DNA surviving (if his remains are indeed in the river) because of the tendency of running water to remove DNA from a bone sample. But these doubts are probably not justified in this case, because a bone sample thrown into a river will become encased in the much drier hardpack below the riverbed within about 50 years, -- before the DNA has been removed.
But here again, of course, we meet with the realistic truth that the condition of Richard's DNA is not something which we are going to discover by ponderous debate, but only by real excavation.
Interviewed recently by the Leicester Mercury, Ben Dempsey, a researcher for U.K. Channel 4's "Time Team" archaeological show, said that he would love to have a crack at recovering Richard's remains, but alas it was his opinion that their chances of success, within the time frame which they allow themselves, would be limited.
If Richard's skull and lower jaw can be recovered intact, then a facial reconstruction may also provide a definitive indication of the accuracy of the various portraits of him. Further, even the simplest analyses of his leg bones would forever lay to rest the questions regarding his height, and of course the matter of his alleged deformity could also be laid to rest (it is also believed that Richard may have broken his shoulder as a child at Middleham, and that this was the true origin on the legend of his deformity. This could also be checked out if only we had his remains).
In York Minster, the biggest cathedral in Europe and to my mind as a Yorkshireman certainly the most beautiful, behind the High Altar is a most befitting place for a tomb for him. Subject to permission being granted, of course.
One can certainly imagine a visit there, perhaps in high summer, to a marble tomb smothered in fresh white roses and bathed in the multi-coloured light of the largest and most beautiful stained glass window in England, beneath the banners of the White Boar and the flaming Sun of York. And the majesty of the ceremony which would lay him there would hardly be something which would soon fade from our minds.
Or must he remain in some most awful place, either under so much rubbish in a canal or in an almost certainly desecrated grave under modern commercial buildings? Surely such a continued travesty must justly serve as an indictment to us all. Richard III remains the only English king since the Conquest to have no official tomb ascribed to him. Is it really within the heart and soul of any true Ricardian to leave him where the Tudors just threw him?
If he is indeed in the canal, then he will not always remain there, of course; for, ominously, another reason Donald Campbell's remains were expeditiously recovered was to prevent them, in this world where specialist technology is becoming increasingly available to all, from ending up in the glass display cabinets of unscrupulous pilferers, many of whom may also of course be contract workers removing finds from future construction projects which might take place on any of these sites. In order to create at least some practical awareness of this, and also to preserve against further general destruction, the sub-surface ruins of the Grey Friars' in particular should receive Scheduled Ancient Monument status. To date, they have not.
In sharp contrast to the alleged bones of Edward V and his brother, resting in a secure urn and protected by so much red tape, it must be said that Richard's remains could be very openly accessible and therefore very vulnerable indeed. What will we look like, if we thinkers spend time only in dilatory debate, while these doers just go right in there and help themselves?? Now wouldn't that have been typically British of us?
And yet, even among the truest of Ricardians, nothing---absolutely nothing--- is being done.
NB: Permission to excavate would need to be sought from the National Rivers Authority and/or Leicester City Council. Funding would presumably be either private, commercial or media-- unless of course any of the relevant Authorities can be talked into it
This most archaic
photograph shows the Bow Bridge in Leicester, where according to tradition
Richard's remains were thrown into the river. The bottom part is actually the
original bridge over which King Richard rode on his way to Bosworth, and over
which his despoiled body was subsequently brought back into the town. It was
demolished in 1861. Note the narrowness of the river.
Summary/ Future Action.
1. Richard's remains were either thrown into the River Soar at the West or Bow bridges, or alternatively they still lie under the site of their tomb at the Grey Friars.
2. If they were thrown into the river, other, older remains already found have shown that they might not have been transported far. We also know that they will sink down into the drier hardpack within as little as 50 years, before running water has had the chance to remove all their DNA.
3.The river needs to be drained at these locations and the hardpack (below the dredged levels) opened and excavated. A database of the DNA of all finds (whose DNA is still present) needs to be initiated.
4.On the site of the Grey Friars, research needs to be done on the precise location of the foundations of the old buildings with reference to a modern street plan. Once the layout of the church is established, the specific places most likely to have housed important tombs need to be pinpointed and recorded. Then when these places come up again for development from time to time, they need to be excavated first. It would be preferable if the site were to be accorded Scheduled Ancient Monument status forthwith.
---Michael Alan Marshall