Richard's remains bare the bones of a bloody past
The discovery and confirmation of Richard III's remains, excavated at the site of a Leicester car park is a testament to how far we have come socially, politically and scientifically, writes Mike Stuchbery.
Thirty years. That's what it took. Thirty years of feuding, bursting regularly to bouts of bloody violence. Thirty years of raising armies and hurtling them across the country, leaving a trail of dead in their wake. Thirty years of murder.
28,000 men died over the course of one cold day in 1461, near the village of Towton. Those retreating and surrendering were cut down, bashed and sliced again and again. One skull recovered from a mass grave shows eight blows to the head, seven of them dished out prior to the fatal blow.
Yes, there were lulls in the fighting. At times, both the House of York and the House of Lancaster felt that victory was close at hand. However, the War of the Roses wouldn't end - not decisively - until a late summer's day in 1485, when the forces of Henry Tudor finally overwhelmed those of the king, Richard Plantagenet, the third of his name, at Bosworth Field.
Surrounded, the 32-year-old king, slight of frame but still adept with his weapon, fought against hopeless odds until he was struck in the back by an arrow. Stunned and possibly paralysed, he was then hit at the back of the skull with a sword or vicious halberd, killing him.
The discovery and confirmation of Richard III's remains, excavated at the site of a Leicester car park reveals much to us about the brutality and casual violence of a world only just emerging into the Renaissance. The skeleton - yes, with the scoliosis that so memorably contributed to his portrayal by Shakespeare as a 'deform'd unfinish'd' villain - was placed unceremoniously in his grave without a shroud or grave clothes. The position of his hands, wrists together, suggests that they may have been bound at the time of, or after death. There is speculation that this means his body was tied to a horse.
It is the wounds to Richard's body that are the most striking. A cut to his ribs and a wound to the pelvis speak of 'humiliation wounds', of a celebratory mauling and mutilation at the hands of the victors. They are not all that different to the details of reports we hear today from the Middle East, of Syrian civil war atrocities. We're still a bunch of animals. Nothing much has changed.
Yet it is the gap, the disconnect between Richard and ourselves that makes the loudest sound. Richard comes from a time before humanism took hold, when God's supposed anointment as king was all that mattered. He comes from a time before regular sittings of the parliament, before participatory government took shape in England or anywhere else in the western world. A world not yet illuminated by the Enlightenment, then bathed in the vitriol and blood of revolution. This is, quite literally, a relic from before the age of rights, of citizens and liberty and such other lofty ideals. The re-emergence of this body is a reminder of just how far we in the West have come from a world of near-constant skirmishing and civil war.
The identification of the body is also a testament to the power of the scientific process. Carried out over the course of a year by the University of Leicester, the project brought together archaeologists, forensic pathologists, genealogists and geneticists to sort, categorise and analyse evidence to build a picture of the man they had found.
Slowly, over time and with great patience, they examined and re-examined their findings so as to remove doubt to the identity of the remains. The excitement was palpable at the press conference as representatives of each area of study came forth to announce their findings, yet the time was taken by each to explain the steps they took and the challenges they faced. At a time when our home-grown polemicists mangle graphs to push their ideologies, it is inspiring to see the scientific process so respected and honoured. At a time when ignorance is on the rise and what defines 'fact' is questionable, the identification of Richard III is a reminder of just what we're capable of if we put our minds to it and work together.
Richard will be re-interred at Leicester Cathedral - he was previously buried, shortly after the battle in 1485. Yet the identification of his body signals the start of a new beginning for academics, scientists and historians as they come face-to-face with a monarch until now only found in chronicles and in Shakespeare's scheming hunchback. Maybe, in time, we'll start to learn more about the man himself and pull down more of the barriers that separate us from that distant, bloody world.
Mike Stuchbery is a Melbourne teacher and writer, now based in Stuttgart, Germany. He enjoys delving into history, thinking about thinking, long walks and the music of the Baroque period. View his full profile here.