BRITISH RESEARCHERS REPORT DISCOVERY OF REVILED RICHARD III

King unearthed from parking lot

DNA tests cited as evidence of 15th-century ruler’s identity

Jo Appleby, a lecturer in human bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, who led the exhumation of the remains found during a dig at a Leicester parking lot, speaks at the university Monday.
Jo Appleby, a lecturer in human bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, who led the exhumation of the remains found during a dig at a Leicester parking lot, speaks at the university Monday.

— Skeletal remains found under a parking lot in the English Midlands city of Leicester are those of King Richard III, researchers announced Monday, a find that paves the way for a possible reassessment of the brief but violent reign of one of the most widely reviled of English monarchs.

Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on a project to identify the bones, said tests and research since the remains were discovered in September proved “beyond reasonable doubt” that the “individual exhumed” from a makeshift grave under the parking lot was “indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England.”

Richard Taylor, the University of Leicester registrar, coordinated the team of archaeologists, historians, genealogists and geneticists who identified the skeleton, which was buried 6 feet below a corner of a municipal parking lot.

The last piece of the scientific puzzle fell into place with DNA findings that became available Sunday, five months after the skeletal remains were uncovered, Taylor said.

At that point, he said, members of the team knew that they had achieved something historic.

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AP

This undated photo, made available Monday by the University of Leicester, England, shows the remains found underneath a parking lot last September at the Greyfriars excavation in Leicester, which have been declared Monday “beyond reasonable doubt” to be the remains of England’s King Richard III, missing for 500 years.

“We knew then, beyond reasonable doubt, that this was Richard III,” he said. “We’re certain now, as certain as you can be of anything in life.”

DNA samples from two modern-day descendants of King Richard III’s family matched those from the discovered bones, geneticist Turi King said at a news conference held by the University of Leicester research team.

One of the descendants, Michael Ibsen, is the son of a 16th-generation niece of Richard III’s. Ibsen, a Canadian carpenter who lives in London, and the skeleton share a rare strain of mitochondrial DNA, King said. The same DNA group also matches a second living descendant who wants to remain anonymous.

photo

AP

This undated photo made available Monday shows what is presumed to be the skull of Richard III.

Between 1 percent and 2 percent of the population belongs to this genetic subgroup, King said, so the DNA evidence is not definitive proof in itself of the skeleton’s identity.

But a gaping hole in the skull is consistent with contemporary accounts of the battlefield blow that killed the monarch more than 500 years ago.

Before the DNA study was complete, Taylor and other team members said, the team had assembled a catalog of evidence that was conclusive that the remains are those of the king, including confirmation that the body was that of a man in his late 20s or early 30s, and that his high-protein diet had been rich in meat and fish, characteristic of a privileged life in the 15th century.

Still more indicative, they said, radiocarbon dating of two rib bones had indicated that they were those of somebody who died between the years 1455 and 1540. King Richard III died in the Battle of Bosworth Field, 20 miles from Leicester, in August 1485.

Equally conclusive was the evidence available at the time the bones were unearthed: They were found in the exact spot a 16th-century Tudor historian, John Rouse, had identified as the burial place, the site of the former chapel in the Greyfriars priory; and the skeleton had a distinctive spinal curvature consistent with scoliosis, a condition that causes the hunchback appearance that has been passed down through history as King Richard III’s most pronounced physical feature.

Archaeologists using radar in search of the priory discovered that it was not underneath a 19th-century bank where it was presumed to be but under a parking lot across the street. They found the skeleton within days of the start of digging.

On Monday, reporters were escorted to view the skeletal remains, laid out in a locked room on the third floor of the university’s library, lying on a black velvet cushion inside a glass case.

No cameras were permitted, in accordance with an agreement reached with Britain’s Justice Ministry when it issued a permit for the skeleton’s exhumation, and, university officials said, in accordance with the dignity due a king. Two members of the university chaplaincy’s staff, one of them in the black and-red robes of a Roman Catholic priest, sat beside the remains as reporters filed by,adding to the air of solemnity and reverence.

Researchers showed photographs of the skeleton as they found it, stuffed into a grave without a coffin, clearly displaying the spinal curvature.

In addition, team members said, the remains showed an array of injuries consistent with historical accounts of the fatal blows that King Richard III suffered on the battlefield, and other blows he was likely to have sustained from vengeful soldiers of the army of Henry Tudor as the king’s body was carried on horseback into Leicester, including dagger thrusts to the cheek, jawbone and lower back.

The skeleton displayed evidence of 10 wounds, eight of them in the skull and some likely to have caused death, possibly by a blow from a halberd, a medieval weapon with an axlike head on a long pole.

Tudor succeeded King Richard on the throne as King Henry VII.

Since at least the late 18th century, scholars have debated whether King Richard was the victim of a campaign of denigration by the Tudor monarchs who succeeded him. His supporters argue that he was a decent king, harsh in the ways of his time, but a proponent of groundbreaking measures to help the poor, extend protections to suspected criminals, and ease bans on the printing and selling of books.

But his detractors cast King Richard’s 26 months on the throne as one of England’s grimmest periods, its excesses captured in his alleged role in the murder in the Tower of London of two young princes - his own nephews - to rid himself of potential rivals.

Richard III ruled England between 1483 and 1485, during the decades-long battle over the throne known as the Wars of the Roses, which pitted two wings of the ruling Plantagenet dynasty - York and Lancaster - against one another.

Shakespeare told the king’s story in Richard III, depicting him as an evil, scheming hunchback whose death at 32 ended the Wars of the Roses and more than three centuries of Plantagenet rule, book ended England’s Middle Ages, and proved a prelude to the triumphs of the Tudors and Elizabethans.

Britain’s current monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is distantly related to Richard but is not a descendant.

Philippa Langley of the Richard III Society - which seeks to restore the late king’s reputation - said that for centuries Richard’s story has been told by others, many of them hostile.

She hopes a new surge of interest, along with evidence from the skeleton about how the king lived and died - and how he was mistreated after death - will help restore his reputation.

“A wind of change is blowing, one that will seek out the truth about the real Richard III,” she said.

Langley, who helped launch the search for the king’s remains, said she could scarcely believe her quest had paid off.

“Everyone thought that I was mad,” she said. “It’s not the easiest pitch in the world, to look for a king under a council car park.”

Some scientists felt qualms about the haste with which the Leicester team announced its results. The findings have not been published in peer reviewed scientific journals, though the university said they soon will be.

“It’s a bizarre way of going about things,” said Mark Horton, a professor of archaeology at the University of Bristol - although he said “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” identified the skeleton as Richard’s.

Archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine, also said he found the evidence persuasive.

“I don’t think there is any question. It is Richard III,” said Pitts, who was not affiliated with the research team.

The discovery is a boon for the city of Leicester, which has bought a building next to the parking lot to serve as a visitor center and museum.

Officials of the University of Leicester said the bones will be buried in Leicester’s Anglican cathedral, barely 100 yards from where they were found. A spokesman for the cathedral said the reburial would probably take place early next year as part of a memorial service honoring Richard as an English king.

It is a day Langley has dreamed of seeing.

“We have searched for him, we have found him - it is now time to honor him,” she said.

Information for this article was contributed by John F. Burns and Alan Cowell of The New York Times and by Jill Lawless of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/05/2013

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