Afterword

Abstract

At the battle of Bosworth Field (22 August 1485), Richard of Gloucester, last Plantagenet King of England, was killed while on foot, having abandoned his horse in a mire. The skeletal remains now accepted as being those of Richard III show a series of blows to the head, ten in all, from one or more assailants, using a combination of sword and dagger to inflict fatal injuries. After death, the pelvis of the dead king was also hacked, presumably while the body was led away from the battle, slung in ignominy over a horse. The skull however was not further insulted. The report by the archaeopathology team makes riveting reading, complete with X-ray images of the skull and its jaw. The research team report their findings in Lancet (from which my paraphrase is drawn) with admirable forensic, empiricist clarity,¹ bringing us satisfactorily the ‘touch of the real’ long held out as a kind of holy grail of historicist inquiry of many kinds.² Popular culture, medical and police TV series have prepared us well for the hypnotic force of this kind of analysis. To know how Richard died, we must examine his physical remains. This can be the only way to irrefutably establish the ‘truth’ of Richard’s death. The successful analysis of these remains is of course a brilliant team solution to a long debated issue. How did Richard die? What became of his body later?