Digging for Richard III by Mike Pitts

Author:Mike Pitts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Excavation in 2013, showing Richard III’s grave (ringed), Greyfriars church (shaded pale) with presbytery (outer lines to right/east) and choir (inner lines) as shown by floors and foundations, and sites of infilled Trench 1 (wider vertical lines) and removed wall between council car park and school playground (narrower vertical lines). (Mike Pitts)

When she had held the skull and looked at the gaping hole on the base where there shouldn’t have been one, she had wondered if Richard Buckley might have been wrong when he told her that Skeleton I wasn’t Richard III. Now it all seemed quite normal, with arms and legs in the right place, and she began to relax. Maybe they hadn’t found Richard III. Maybe he was somewhere else. Maybe at the bottom of the River Soar.

Mathew was yet even to entertain the notion that they might have found a known individual. The trauma to the head, however, gave the skeleton a special interest. ‘This is going to be a really interesting analysis and write-up,’ he thought.

Philippa came over for a look. All this time she had been in a parallel world to the one inhabited by the archaeologists. Though she hadn’t yet taken in the significance of the head wounds, she was just as convinced that Skeleton I was Richard III, the body under the R (or at least, it had to be said, near the R), as the archaeologists were convinced it was not.

Now, as she looked down at the bones in the freshly dug trench, she saw something that challenged her belief. ‘It was really odd,’ she said later. ‘He looked to have no battle wounds and he seemed to be quite tall. I’m 5 ft 9 in, and you could see his leg bone was pretty much the same length as mine. I thought, “Maybe this isn’t him.”’

From the start of the excavation, Philippa had always referred to Skeleton I as ‘him’. Darlow filmed a sequence with Simon Farnaby and Philippa watching Jo and Turi remove soil on the Tuesday, when only the leg bones had been exposed. Earlier, Philippa had told Farnaby that Skeleton I was Richard III. ‘I just thought she was insane,’ he said. ‘This is ridiculous, it’s the first thing that was found. What’s the chance of the trench being cut in the right place? I mean it was bizarre.’

‘Are you nervous about this?’ he asked her. ‘Strangely, I am,’ she said. ‘I feel sick.’

‘I suppose it’s a weird thing digging up dead bodies,’ said Farnaby.

‘Yeah,’ said Philippa. ‘It is. The whole point of this journey, this project, was to try and honour this man.’ She paused, and looked from Farnaby down into the trench. ‘I mean it might not even be him.’ And her voice broke.6

Now, with the whole skeleton exposed but for the torso, that momentary doubt seemed to have been confirmed. Jo read her thoughts. ‘This just looks like a well-nourished friar,’ she said. ‘It’s not him.’7

Philippa was devastated. It seemed that everything she’d worked for

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