The lost King of England

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

In 2012, archaeologists from the University of Leicester discovered the lost grave of Richard III under a car park in Leicester. Richard was the King of England more than 500 years ago and for centuries was portrayed as one of the great villains of English history. He was killed in 1485 leading his army in battle against a rival claimant to the throne, Henry Tudor. After the battle, Richard III corpse was stripped naked, paraded around down, before being hastily buried in a church within a friary in Leicester, which was later demolished. Alex Last spoke to Dr Richard Buckley who led the archaeological project to find the remains.

Photo: Remains of King Richard III being studied at The University of Leicester (BBC)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds my grandfather worked
0:31.1	on the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, and it troubles me.
0:36.7	It also troubled some of the scientists who developed it.
0:40.0	Find out more in the bomb, a brand new podcast from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last.
0:57.0	And today we go back to 2012 and the story of the archaeologist who famously found the lost grave of an English king.
1:07.0	Looking at that grave on the day the skeleton was uncovered, to me it was quite clear who it was.
1:17.0	And it was very poignant actually.
1:20.0	In 2012, Dr Richard Buckley led an archaeological dig to find the long lost remains of one of England's most vilified kings, Richard III.
1:31.0	Now is the winter of our discontent. Made glorious. Third.
1:39.0	Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York. Immortalized by Shakespeare, Richard III was briefly the King of England some 500 years ago at the end of a period of turmoil known as the Wars of the Roses.
1:50.0	For centuries he was portrayed as having a twisted or hunched back with a limp and a withered arm,
1:55.0	a man who upon the death of his brother, the king, connived to seize the throne for himself
2:01.1	and had the rightful heirs, his nephews murdered in the Tower of London.
2:06.7	Or this of course might not actually be true because history is often written by the victors
2:11.8	and Richard did not last long.
	...

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