Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T07:06:43.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘The king in the car park’: new light on the death and burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars church, Leicester, in 1485

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Richard Buckley ,
Mathew Morris ,
Jo Appleby ,
Turi King ,
Deirdre O'Sullivan  and
Lin Foxhall
Richard Buckley
Affiliation:
1University of Leicester Archaeological Services, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Mathew Morris
Affiliation:
1University of Leicester Archaeological Services, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Jo Appleby
Affiliation:
2School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Turi King
Affiliation:
2School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK 3Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Deirdre O'Sullivan
Affiliation:
2School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Lin Foxhall
Affiliation:
2School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Archaeologists today do not as a rule seek to excavate the remains of famous people and historical events, but the results of the project reported in this article provide an important exception. Excavations on the site of the Grey Friars friary in Leicester, demolished at the Reformation and subsequently built over, revealed the remains of the friary church with a grave in a high status position beneath the choir. The authors set out the argument that this grave can be associated with historical records indicating that Richard III was buried in this friary after his death at the Battle of Bosworth. Details of the treatment of the corpse and the injuries that it had sustained support their case that this should be identified as the burial of the last Plantagenet king. This paper presents the archaeological and the basic skeletal evidence: the results of the genetic analysis and full osteoarchaeological analysis will be published elsewhere.

Keywords

LeicesterGrey Friars1485Richard IIIBattle of Bosworth
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 336 , 1 June 2013 , pp. 519 - 538
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
The online version of this article is published within an Open Access environment subject to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution licence ;.
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd.

References

Austrums, R. 2011. Geophysical survey report: Greyfriars church, Leicester (Report J2934). Report prepared for Stratascan, Upton-upon-Severn.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. 1986. King Richard’s grave in Leicester. Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 60: 21–24.Google Scholar
Billson, C.J. 1920. Medieval Leicester. Leicester: Edgar Backus.Google Scholar
Bl Harley MS 542. Richard ye third his deathe by ye Lord Stanley: ff. 31–34. Unpublished manuscript in the British Library, London.Google Scholar
Buckley, R., Story, J. & Bourne, J.. 2006. Leicester Abbey: medieval history, archaeology and manuscript studies. Leicester: Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society.Google Scholar
Calendar of the Close Rolls 1254–56. 1931. Calendar of the Close Rolls preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry III vol. IX A.D. 1254-1256. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Connor, A. & Buckley, R.. 1999. Roman and medieval occupation in Causeway Lane, Leicester (Leicester Archaeology Monographs 5). Leicester: University of Leicester.Google Scholar
Courtney, P. 1998. Saxon and medieval Leicester: the making of a medieval landscape. Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 72: 110-45.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 2009. The archaeology of the dead: lectures in archaeothanatology. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Dyer, A. 2000. Appendix: ranking lists of English medieval towns, in Palliser, D. (ed.) The Cambridge urban history of Britain, Volume 1: 600-1540: 747-70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorato, V., Boylston, A. & Knüsel, C. (ed.). 2007. Blood red roses: the archaeology of a mass grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Foarde, G. & Morris, R.. 2012. The archaeology of English battlefields: conflict in the pre-industrial landscape (CBA Research Report 168). York: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Gilchrist, R. & Sloane, B.. 2005. Requiem: the medieval monastic cemetery in Britain. London: Museum of London Archaeology Service.Google Scholar
Glasscock, R. 1975. The lay subsidy of 1334 (Records of Social and Economic History, new series II). London: The British Academy & Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gnanaratnam, A. 2009. The excavation of St Peter’s Church and graveyard, Vaughan Way, Leicester 2004-2006, Volume 1: stratigraphic sequence (Report 2009-156). Report prepared for ULAS, Leicester.Google Scholar
Greene, J.P. 1992. Medieval monasteries. Leicester: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Halle, E. 1970 [1550]. The union of the two noble families of Lancaster and York. Menston: Scolar.Google Scholar
Higgins, T., Morris, M. & Stone, D.. 2009. Life and death in Leicester’s north-east quarter: excavation of a Roman town house and medieval parish church at Vine Street, Leicester 2004-2006. Volumes 1 & 2 (Report 2009-134). Report prepared for ULAS, Leicester.Google Scholar
Hunt, L. 2011. An archaeological desk-based assessment for land at Greyfriars, St Martin’s, Leicester (NGR: SK 585 043) (Report 2011-038). Report prepared for ULAS, Leicester.Google Scholar
James, T. 1997. Excavations at Carmarthen Greyfriars, 1983-1990. Medieval Archaeology 41: 100-94.Google Scholar
Little, A.G. 1951. Fratris Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston: tractatus de adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Lucas, J.N. 1980-1981. The debris of history: an archaeological survey of Leicester. Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society 55: 1–9.Google Scholar
Martin, A. 1937. Franciscan architecture in England (British Society for Franciscan Studies 18). Manchester: The University Press.Google Scholar
Marx, W. (ed.). 2003. An English chronicle 1377-1461. Woodbridge: Boydell.Google Scholar
Mellor, J. & Pearce, T.. 1981. The Austin friars, Leicester (CBA Research Report 35). London: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Morris, M. 2013. The Greyfriars Project: the archaeological search for the last known resting place of King Richard III, Grey Friars, Leicester (Report 2013-013). Report prepared for ULAS, Leicester.Google Scholar
Nichols, J. 1815. The history and antiquities of the county of Leicester: Volume I, part II. London: Nichols, Son & Bentley Google Scholar
O’sullivan, D. 2013a. In the company of the preachers: the archaeology of medieval friaries in England and Wales (Leicester Archaeology Monograph 23). Leicester: University of Leicester.Google Scholar
O’sullivan, D. 2013b. Burial of the Christian dead in the later Middle Ages, in Tarlow, S. & Nilsson Stutz, L. (ed.) The Oxford handbook of the archaeology of death and burial. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rous, J. 1745 [1486]. Joannis Rossi antiquiarii Warwicensis Historia Regum Angliae. Oxford: Theatro Sheldoniano, impensis J. Fletcher & J. Pote.Google Scholar
Speed, J. 1611. The history of Great Britaine under the conquests of ye Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. London: William Hall & William Beale.Google Scholar
Vergil, P. 1972 [1555]. Historia Anglica. Menston: Scolar.Google Scholar