Richard III Unearthed

The Festival team have been watching the archaeological developments at Grey Friars in Leicester with great interest as we have Richard Buckley and Mathew Morris coming to the Chalke Valley History Festival this June.  These two academics and archaeologists from Leicester University have been leading the Grey Friars Project, the search for the body of Richard III, and it has ended in one of the most spectacular historical discoveries in the this country this century.

This morning, at a news conference at 10am, the team announced that DNA samples match that of the last Plantagenet king, killed in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth.

A few months ago, Richard Buckley confided to us that he was ‘pretty convinced’ the bones were those of King Richard.  Killed at Bosworth, the 32 year-old king was stripped, mutilated, and lain across a horse and then unceremoniously dumped in the former priory of Grey Friars in Leicester.  Strong archival evidence suggested the body had been buried there and so it has proved to be.

On Saturday 29th June, Mathew Morris and Richard Buckley will be presenting their findings at a special event at the History Festival, part of a double bill that will include recent forensic archaeological discoveries at the Battlefield of Bosworth.

It promises to be an incredible start to the Festival weekend – one that includes some huge names and not a few Spitfires…