The King's Grave

September 16, 2013
In September 2012, the remains of England’s Richard III, whose two-year reign marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and a long, bloody civil war, were exhumed from under a Leicester car park. Langley, who spearheaded the dig and a related TV documentary, and medieval historian Jones (Bosworth 1485), sought a more nuanced and complex Richard, hoping to quash the caricature of the murderous, hunchbacked psychopath vilified by Tudor propagandists and Shakespeare alike. Richard’s skeleton exhibited severe scoliosis, but the disability didn’t hamper his martial skills in battles that restored his brother Edward IV to the throne in 1471. The skeleton’s wounds likely show that this last English king to die in battle led a courageous and carefully planned cavalry charge at Bosworth against an inexperienced, fearful Henry Tudor luckily saved by mercenary French pikemen. Moreover, the authors argue that Richard was an idealistic king with a keen sense of justice and humor. It is a solid, perceptive work that rights historical injustices, but Langley’s recalling of premonitory goose bumps at Richard’s lost grave and her hiring a graphologist to interpret Richard’s handwriting is off-putting, and her passion devolves at times into cheerleading. Illus.