Richard III’S body was abused after a valiant death. A reputation rethink is needed, says
Most intriguing are the facial injuries, stab wounds apparently inflicted by a dagger: A small rectangular injury on one cheek bone, and a cut mark on the lower jaw.
THE KING had an ‘‘unusually slender, almost feminine build’’, yet he fought manfully to the end; his body was hacked and abused as he was dragged from the battlefield by his triumphant enemies; then England’s last Plantagenet monarch was tossed in an unmarked grave, without ceremony, to lie unnoticed for five centuries.
Richard III’s bones cannot tell us whether he was a good king, or the evil monarch of legend and Shakespeare’s imagination. But they have revealed an astonishing amount about his last hours, death and burial, providing a glimpse into his character and the horrific nature of medieval warfare.
Richard’s skeleton seems to confirm that, as one chronicler reported, he was ‘‘killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies’’ during the Battle of Bosworth Field, despite suffering from a disease that had bent his spine into the shape of a question mark. He suffered no fewer than 10 wounds. The one that killed him was probably a massive blow to the base of his skull, most likely inflicted by a sword or halberd, or another penetrating injury to the back of his head made with a smaller blade. If, as the scientists suspect, those blows penetrated his brain, he would have lost consciousness immediately and died swiftly, perhaps instantaneously.
In one contemporary account, the king’s horse was stuck in the mud and he was killed by a Welshman, Wyllyam Gardynyr, who struck him with a halberd or poleaxe, driving parts of his helmet into his skull. The skull shows evidence of three more head wounds, any of which might have killed Richard through loss of blood.
But perhaps most intriguing are the facial injuries, stab wounds apparently inflicted by a dagger: A small rectangular injury on one cheek bone, and a cut mark on the lower jaw. These could not have been sustained while Richard was still wearing his helmet. Perhaps they were inflicted after his death, or perhaps he lost his helmet during the battle and fought on.
The king was more than 173cm, tall for the time, but the effect of scoliosis, beginning at the age of about 10, would have made him seem smaller. His curved spine would have put pressure on his heart and lungs; in his lifetime he may have suffered considerable pain.
Other wounds suggest that he was stripped of his armour after death and then suffered symbolic ‘‘humiliation injuries’’. Contemporary accounts describe Richard’s naked body being strapped to a packhorse and taken back to Leicester. The body in the grave was found with hands crossed, consistent with having them bound to secure him to the horse. The skeleton reveals that the body was ‘‘stabbed from behind in an upward movement’’ with a ‘‘thrust through the right buttock’’ and into the pelvis. As the slain king was carried away, he was probably stabbed in the backside as symbolic proof of his utter defeat.
Richard’s resting place was not a formal grave, but a hole in the ground, although near the high altar of Grey Friars church. The archaeologists have concluded that the hole was irregular, with sloping sides, and too short for Richard’s frame. There is no evidence of a shroud or coffin, and no royal accoutrements. Richard’s bloody, naked corpse was buried ‘‘without any pompe or solemn funerall’’, in the words of one of the Franciscan monks who carried out the burial.
The victors intended Richard’s end to be as degrading as possible, his stripped body abused and exposed to public mockery before burial in a pauper’s grave. Tudor propagandists continued the vilification, depicting Richard as a brute and murderer – the ‘‘foul bunchbacked toad’’ of Shakespeare’s creation.
Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne was weak. He needed to paint Richard as a villain and usurper.
Further humiliations followed. A brick outhouse was built over his grave; his feet were chopped off during building work centuries later; and finally Leicester County Council built a car park on top of the monarch.
But the bones of the king tell a different story from the standard one. At 32, despite a serious spinal disability, he charged into battle and went down fighting with multiple wounds. As one account put it: ‘‘Slight in body and weak in strength . . . to his last breath he held himself nobly in a defending manner.’’