In Defence of Leicester Archaeologists: Identifying the Skeleton in the Car Park

16th century portrait of Richard III from The National Portrait Gallery

At the end of March 2014 BBC History magazine published an interview with Winchester historian Michael Hicks and archaeologist Martin Biddle in which the 2012 discovery and subsequent identification of the supposed skeleton of Richard III -- previously thought lost -- was refuted on the grounds of inadequate evidence.

Although I'm no archaeological expert, I thought here might be a better place than any to collect my own thoughts from the past few weeks regarding the opinion of Hicks and Biddle in relation to some of the documentary and physical evidence surrounding Richard III's life and death. It is my opinion that there is overwhelming evidence, both scientific and circumstantial, to support the University of Leicester's identification of the skeleton in the carpark as King Richard III.



Date
The first concern, I'm sure, of any archaeologist on a dig such as that at the Greyfriars site is to establish the date of the skeleton. Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis established that there was a 95.4% chance that the man in question had died between 1450 and 1540.

Michael Hicks has criticised the emphasis on this date range despite the fact that it is consistent with the dating of the Battle of Bosworth on the grounds that it is too wide-ranging to be taken into account as serious evidence. Given that the man was also of around the same age as Richard was at the time of death it seems here that Hicks is just denying this evidence on pedantry alone. He claims this evidence is "inprecise" as though the Leicester and Ricardian historians have suggested that it is solid fact rather than just circumstantial and consistent evidence. Of course this detail alone does not function as clear evidence, but there are may other factors...

Burial 
There had always been controversy and mystery surrounding the exact location of Richard's body. Many suggested that it had been thrown into the River Soar (this was still the opinion of much of the British public right up until the discovery in 2012); other contemporary accounts -- usually Yorkist -- remarked that he had been buried 'in a dyke like a dogge.' However John Ashdown-Hill's research led him to find increasing documentary support for the idea originally recorded by contemporary John Rous that the king had in fact been buried in a local church:

"In 2008 I discovered a previously unpublished key sentence in a source at The National Archives. This stated that the royal tomb commissioned for Richard III by Henry VII in 1494 and erected in 1495 was to be set up 'in the Church of Friers in the town of leycestr where the bones of King Richard IIIde reste'." Source

Without this evidence the Leicester Council would never have allowed the dig to go ahead. This is of course only vague evidence, but a more detailed examination lends further weight to the identification of Richard III.
A burial in the city of Leicester has always been a likely scenario given that many sources remark that his body was paraded around the city in order to confirm to the public that he had been killed in the battle. It may be hard to swallow that an early Tudor regime so eager to allow public abuse of a deceased predecessor's body would then allow an actual church burial, but evidence suggests that the Tudors often tended to outwardly show respect for Richard. Tudor historian Polydore Vergil wrote that "King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies," and Henry VII himself later paid for a tomb to be built for him. The choice of a Franciscan Greyfriars priory is unsurprising given Richard III's longstanding connections with the Franciscan order. Whilst it is clear that the body was buried in a hurry in a grave too small and with no coffin or shroud, the location not far from the altar and the correct orientation of the body for a proper Christian burial suggest that the body was treated with some semblance of respect by the friars. These burial circumstances may not prove definitively that this body belongs to Richard III, but there are certainly a lot of striking coincidences and at the very least these add weight to the argument of the Leicester archaeologists.

The DNA Evidence
Hicks's main concern seemed to be about the accuracy of the DNA testing and how far the matching of the skeleton's DNA and that of Michael Ibsen, the traced descendant, really proves the identity of the skeleton itself. I'm not an expert in this myself but some of the masters- and PhD-level archaeologists that I work with have expressed the view that very few DNA sequences can be matched, and thus the relation cannot be proven 100%. Of course Hicks is right that as the DNA tested was mitochondrial (maternal line) it could have matched any number of the nobility of the time period. As I know very little about DNA testing (and, to be honest, science in general) I thought I'd put John Ashdown-Hill's personal response to the claims of the Winchester academics up here too. As well as being a historian he also provided a lot of research and insight into the DNA testing of the body.

"The match between the mtDNA of the bones and that of living female-line descendants of Richard III’s eldest sister, discovered by me in 2004, cannot in itself absolutely prove identity over a 500 year time gap, but the haplogroup subgroup is relatively uncommon in this case, and when taken in combination with all the other evidence (the body of a man who was of high social status, who died violently at the right age and at the right date, and who had the right physical characteristics) the mtDNA match is compelling.

If it also proves possible to establish a Y-chromosome match, of course, that would add to the evidence in favour of the identitity of the remains. In September 2012, I supplied the names and addresses of a number of male line Plantagenet descendants to Dr Turi King of the University of Leicester, with this aim in mind."

I would also add the comment by user "wolverinedg" on the same article:

"If you work the genealogical charts, you will find that out of 58 possibilities (looking only at Joan Beaufort & her descendants), only 2 can be placed with any certainty at Bosworth in 1485 & only one of those 2 died. I doubt the numbers would get any better by expanding the scope to descendants of Katherine Swynford."

Of course I'm not sure how true this is but it is quite convincing: Hicks is trying to say that the skeleton found on the site of the Greyfriars priory could be any of the contemporary nobility descended from the same line as Richard III, but the fact of the matter is, as Phillipa Langley as also said, it is impossible to name another who died in the same way at the same time as Richard III (and who was also moved from the battlefield). To this I would also draw attention to the fact that Leicester University have never said that they have proven 100% that the skeleton is Richard III, only that it is very likely.

The Skeleton -- Wounds and Disfigurement 
The skeleton itself is consistent with a lot of the established knowledge on Richard III. The discovery of a skeleton with scoliosis was shocking to the archaeologists working on the Greyfriars site. This is largely because Ricardians such as Phillipa Langley had for a long time discounted the impression left by Shakespeare and a supposedly doctored portrait of Richard III that the king had had a hunchback or some kind of deformity, despite the numerous contemporary accounts of it. Given the spinal curvature it is thought likely that the man would have had a fairly obviously raised right shoulder, which is consistent with paintings of the king. Although the Tudors are famous for propaganda, it is more likely that they exaggerated on reality than created a myth entirely from scratch.

As for the injuries sustained by the skeleton, they too lend a lot of weight to the identification of the body when compared with what we already know about Richard. Based on historical evidence (such as that of Vergil and Rous), weapons historian Robert Woosnam-Savage has said:

"Richard probably got within a few yards of Henry before his horse probably became stuck in marshy ground or was killed from underneath him. On foot, with foot soldiers closing in, the fight becomes a close infantry melee.
It would have been difficult to get through the armour, so attackers would have gone for gaps, or tried to break pieces off.
The skeleton only shows the minimum number of injuries - the soft tissue has gone - and he is likely to have taken many more wounds of which there is now no trace.
At some point he loses his helmet and then the violent blows start raining down on the head, including a possible blow from a weapon like a halberd, including the one which I think kills him." Source

The 8 head wounds found on the skeleton are consistent with contemporary reports of Richard III fighting on foot in his final moments before being struck repeatedly by Henry VII's men from horseback. Wounds gained post-mortem -- "humilation wounds" as they are sometimes referred to -- include a stab wound through the buttock, and although these could have been sustained for any reason it is consistent with accounts that relate the public display and abuse of Richard's body in the city of Leicester after the Battle of Bosworth. 

Conclusion
In essence I would say that although the points that Hicks and Biddle make are perfectly reasonable and correct, when looking at the bigger picture it is hard to ignore the scientific facts alongside the historical documentary evidence. I would not go as far as to display sheer animosity towards Hicks and Bibble akin to that shown by some of the commenters on the original BBC article (I certainly don't think they're jealous or bitter) but would guess that they are trying to be the voices of reason in this situation. They often speak as though the specialists linked to the discovery and identification of the skeleton have not expressed that they are not 100% sure that the skeleton is Richard. Even without taking the scientific evidence of the radiocarbon dating and the DNA testing into account the circumstantial evidence for the skeleton being Richard III is in abundance, and it would be very coincidental if this man -- who just happened to be the same age as Richard, died around the same time, in similar circumstances and with similar wounds, and had the same kind of disfigurement as accounts suggest Richard had -- was someone else entirely. The calls for a more in-depth investigation away from the media spotlight are welcomed, however, as I think it would only lend us more insight into such a fascinating case. 

Sources: 
Read the original BBC History article
The Richard III Society website
BBC article on the wounds of the skeleton