Final battle of a most notorious king

HE may have been dead 528 years but Richard III is still making headlines.

Some of his fellow monarchs have long since slipped from popular memory but the last Yorkist king remains box office gold. Perhaps only Henry VIII and Elizabeth I can match his billing when it comes to controversy and corpses. This has a lot to do with the fact that his life story reads a bit like a Hollywood script, soaked as it is in murder, intrigue and betrayal.

Then there’s the small matter of Shakespeare’s withering portrait of him as a hunchback villain with an eye for a memorable soliloquy. All of which has helped make him one of our most iconic monarchs.

But it was the discovery last year of remains dug up from beneath a council car park in Leicester and later confirmed as his by a team of experts from Leicester University, that sparked renewed interest in the medieval king.

Scientists carried out careful analysis of the remains confirming that he did actually suffer from the spinal condition scoliosis, and revealing details of the battle wounds that killed him – which bear close resemblance to surviving historical documents from the period that said his horse became stuck in a marsh and that, stranded, he was overpowered and hacked to death by enemy soldiers.

However, following this initial excitement a row erupted over where his final resting place ought to be. The licence to carry out the excavation, granted by the Ministry of Justice, gave the university the authority to decide where to rebury the king. But the Plantagenet Alliance, which includes some of the king’s distant relatives, wants to see him buried in York claiming it was his wish. They began a legal challenge to the decision in May and last month were granted the right to launch judicial review proceedings against opponents who want him to be laid to rest at Leicester Cathedral.

In granting the review, Mr Justice Haddon-Cave urged both parties to “avoid embarking on the legal Wars of the Roses part 2”. The debate, though, has continued and only this week Dame Judi Dench, who was born in York, has given her support to campaigners calling for the remains of the last Plantagenet king to be buried in her home city.

So far more than 29,000 people have signed an online petition calling for his remains to be re-interred in York, compared with just over 19,000 in Leicester.

You might wonder, given the fact he’s been dead for half a millennium, why there’s such a fuss about where he’s re-interred.

But a significant tourism boost is anticipated for whichever place is eventually chosen, with footfall at Leicester Cathedral already said to have increased 20-fold since the discovery.

Whatever the final outcome it’s certainly got people talking about this pivotal moment in English history.

The White Queen, the BBC’s 10-part adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s best-selling historical novel series The Cousins’ War, brought the Machiavellian world of 15th century England to life, while next month’s inaugural Harrogate Historical Fiction Festival brings together screenwriter Philippa Langley and historian Michael Jones to discuss the “real” Richard III with Manda Scott, chairwoman of the Historical Writers’ Association and best-selling fiction writer.

But while much of the recent focus has been on the king and where he should be buried, a new book – Bosworth 1485: A Battlefield Rediscovered – puts the spotlight on the battle in which Richard was killed, pinpointing its precise location and shedding fresh light on medieval warfare.

Dr Glenn Foard, a reader in battlefield archaeology at Huddersfield University, co-authored the book with historian Professor Anne Curry and led the team who discovered the actual site. For centuries it was believed the battle took place in Leicestershire at Ambion Hill, now home to a battlefield heritage centre. However, historians began to cast doubt on this traditional location and in 2005 Dr Foard was called in by Leicestershire County Council to settle the matter.

It was a long and difficult project but in March 2009, a single 30mm lead ball was discovered and by analysing documentary evidence, reconstructing the historic terrain and carrying out systematic archaeological surveys using metal detectors, Dr Foard was able to work out that the battle wasn’t fought at Ambion Hill but two miles away on low lying ground, next to a marsh known later as Fen Hole.

Dr Foard, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading battlefield archaeologists, says Richard might have chosen this spot because he felt the flat ground would allow him to use his artillery to better effect. However, Henry’s men simply manoeuvred behind the marsh to attack the flank of Richard’s army and avoid the heavy artillery fire.

Among some of the most interesting discoveries is a silver-gilt badge in the shape of a boar, the emblem of the doomed king. This would almost certainly have been worn by one of the knights who rode with Richard to his death on his fateful last cavalry attack.

Afterwards, his body was stripped bare and taken to Leicester where it was publicly exhibited before being dumped in a crude grave at the site of the Greyfriars church. According to a proclamation made by the new king, Henry VII, Richard was killed at “Sandeford in the county of Leicester.” The problem was it’s never been clear where Sandeford was, although chroniclers at the time describe features such as a marsh that lay between the two armies.

Even for someone with Dr Foard’s expertise this was a difficult challenge. “It’s one of the most iconic battles in English history and if you want to understand what happened you need to look at the landscape, because if you’re looking at the wrong landscape then you can’t understand the battle,” he says.

“The reason we were able to locate the battlefield was due to the discovery of artillery pieces, that really was key. It’s not the first time guns were used but it is the first time we’ve found archaeological evidence that they were used.”

The actual battle itself wasn’t huge in terms of the size of the armies involved. “It wasn’t another Towton or anything on the scale of Marston Moor,” explains Dr Foard. “It was significant because Richard was the last English king to be killed in battle and his death brought the Tudors to the throne and in doing so changed the direction of English history.”

Richard was a contentious figure in life and has remained so in death, although some historians felt his portrayal was part of a campaign to discredit him by the victors at Bosworth. “He was the most infamous king in English history, some people would say, but there was a feeling that his image was shaped by Tudor propaganda.” Then there’s his depiction by the Bard. “The Shakespeare connection is very strong, it’s captured people’s imagination and that famous saying ‘my kingdom for a horse’ has become one of those classic phrases people remember.”

On the subject of Richard’s final resting place he is less forthcoming. “I can see the argument for him to be interred in Leicester as that was where he was first buried. But there’s also a very good case for him to be interred in York, I’ll leave that for others to decide.”

When it comes to the importance of the archaeological discoveries at the Bosworth, though, he has no doubt about their significance.

“What’s most exciting for me is what it tells us about military history. We’re only just scratching the surface but we’re now starting to look at earlier battlefields and in 10 years time we’ll be able to say much more about warfare in the medieval period. Bosworth is the beginning of the story not the end of it.”

But while the question of exactly where Richard III fought his last battle may have been answered, the debate over his final resting place is likely to rumble on for some time yet.

• Bosworth 1485: A Battlefield Rediscovered, published by Oxbow, is out now priced £45.