King Richard III has Canadian connection
Descendent’s DNA compared to bones found
A team of British and Canadian archeologists has unearthed human remains at a dig site in central England where the body of King Richard III is believed to be buried — a discovery now likely to be tested against the DNA of an Ontario family with a unique genetic link to the overthrown 15th- century monarch, last of the Plantagenet kings.
The excavation at a parking lot in downtown Leicester began last month in the Midlands city where the deposed king’s corpse was displayed and then interred in a church following his defeat at the nearby Battle of Bosworth Field on Aug. 22, 1485.
The climactic event in the War of the Roses, the battle and Richard III’s death marked the beginning of the Tudor dynasty that saw Henry VII — Richard’s chief rival — and his heirs rule Britain until 1603, the end of Elizabeth I’s reign.
The precise location of the Greyfriars church where Richard was buried — destroyed during a Tudor- era wave of anti- clericalism — had remained a stubborn mystery to modern researchers. But soon after the latest dig began, the University of Leicester- led archeological team identified the walls of the old religious compound, unearthed a number of telltale artifacts from its 15th- century church and generally closed in on Richard’s presumed burial site.
Details about what the archeologists have found are to be revealed at a news conference near the Greyfriars site on Wednesday. In a statement Monday,” the project leaders revealed the dig “has uncovered evidence of human remains.”
The 18- day search has attracted international attention, and the surprising Canadian link to the project seems set to move to centre stage in the unfinished saga of Richard III. In 2005, British historian John Ashdown- Hill traced Richard’s maternal bloodline to retired Canadian journalist Joy Ibsen, a British- born woman who immigrated to Canada after the Second World War and raised a family in London, Ont.
Ibsen, who died in 2008 at age 82, donated samples of her DNA for future testing after learning that she and Richard III had the same maternal ancestor — Plantagenet matriarch Cecily Neville, Richard’s mother — and thus the same “mtDNA” signature.
Ibsen passed the same genetic trait to her three children — Michael in London, England, Jeff in Toronto and Leslie on Vancouver Island — and 55- year- old Michael offered samples of his own DNA last month in Leicester at the ceremony launching the search for Richard’s remains.
Among the scientists involved in the excavation is Vancouver geneticist Turi King, now a researcher with the University of Leicester.
“I am stunned by this announcement,” Michael Ibsen told Postmedia News Tuesday after learning the archeologists had dug up bones at the site.