The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds (5 page)

Thomas Roberts’s map of 1741 with modern overlay of trenches. A formal garden is visible to the east of the three trenches, thought to be the garden of Alderman Robert Herrick.

However, there was still the urgent need to find funding. Buckley mentioned Leicester University and its not insubstantial research budgets. ULAS, though an independent body hiring its offices from the university, worked closely with it. Buckley called Richard Taylor, the university’s Deputy Registrar and Director of Corporate Affairs, who thought the project had merit, and understood that the ULAS academic research would be in quest of the church. He asked what might be required of the university. Hesitant to bring in such a powerful player on the funding side, I asked for their specialists and expertise to be made available to the project free of charge. Taylor quickly confirmed that I had only to let him know what I needed, so I immediately mentioned the DNA unit and Professor Mark Lansdale, Head of the Psychology Department. Taylor agreed and said that if I needed extra funding once the dig was under way, the university would help. I asked how much. ‘If you find the Greyfriars Church, the wallet will open,’ he replied.

In March 2011, on Buckley’s advice, I commissioned ULAS to undertake the Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment (DBA). This is the preliminary research document drawn up to determine the archaeological viability of a site. It would be based on historical research, including detailed map regression, and analysis of any potential ground disturbance, together with the location of gas mains and electric and fibre-optic cables. The DBA would provide me, as the client, with the necessary professional green light to enable the dig to go ahead. I gave ULAS what information I had on the Leicester Greyfriars site. The cost of the DBA was £1,140, so I called Phil Stone because the Richard III Society had a bursary fund for original research to which I could apply. The joint secretaries, Sue and David Wells, helped prepare the request document, which Phil Stone gave to the Executive Committee who passed it immediately.

In April 2011, with the DBA completed, I asked ULAS where it intended to dig the first trenches. Richard Buckley explained that in order to pick up any trace of the east–west church walls beneath the surface, two overlapping thirty-metre trenches would run north–south which he hoped would bisect the walls. The trenches would also have to be positioned to maximize the remaining parking on site to help with costs. I pressed again for the northern end of the car park and Buckley confirmed that Trench One would cover the exact area I wanted; it ran right over the letter ‘R’.

The greatest expense of the dig was going to be the reinstatement work, turning the site back into a car park. I also had to find, and fund, interim parking for the Social Services for the duration of the dig, which we agreed would last for two weeks. Richard Buckley assured me it would be possible to dig three trial trenches in that time. I proposed the dig should take place over the Easter holiday period, April–May 2012, as this would give me time to get the funding, and broadcaster, on board. It would also reduce the cost of the off-site car parking. But in the meantime I had to raise an estimated £35,000.

Sarah Levitt told me that I would need permission from the team at the Greyfriars Social Services for the dig and the disruption it would cause. Their consent was vital; Levitt would not be able to overrule them if they refused. I was tense for my meeting with Mick Bowers, Head of Greyfriars Property Services. Bowers understood the dig would cause major headaches, but he’d spoken to his team, who were willing to take on the extra work-load involved because, they said, the search for Richard was a worthy one. Bowers would be in charge of matters at their end. It was a huge relief, and I thanked him. ‘Not a problem,’ he said, and smiled. I later discovered his wife was a Ricardian.

The next priority was to finalize the TV programme. The first-ever search for the grave of an anointed King of England was a good story, so someone would bite. It just so happened I had a certain someone in mind.

I had been a big fan of the documentary filmmaker Julian Ware for many years. He insisted on meticulous research, a sensitive approach and top production values. He was joint creative director of the award-winning Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP), which had just made
WW1: Finding the Lost Battalions
(July 2010), about amateur historian Lambis Englezos’s search for the lost graves of the 1916 Battle of Fromelles in France. Ware confirmed his interest in the Looking for Richard project, to be headed up by DSP’s Acting Head of Development, Simon Young, an archaeologist who had produced
Finding the Lost Battalions.

A few weeks later, however, the project’s future was up in the air again. Sheila Lock (CEO of LCC) was ill, Chris Wardle, the City Archaeologist, was not convinced of its viability, and to cap it all Leicester was about to vote for its first elected mayor, the person who would then run LCC and therefore be able to kill the project stone dead.

Or not. In May 2011 Sir Peter Soulsby was elected Leicester’s mayor. He valued history and heritage (it was in his manifesto), so it was with some relief that a few weeks later Sarah Levitt confirmed he’d given the Looking for Richard project the green light. We were back on.

At the cathedral, the dean, the Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, welcomed the Reburial Document and expressed the cathedral’s readiness to accept the remains of King Richard into its care, should he be found. Taking me to the sanctuary, the dean proposed that the tomb should be close to its northern wall. As I looked at the great east window dedicated to the fallen in battle, I felt her suggested place would be a fitting tribute and final resting place for England’s last warrior king.

But I still had to raise the necessary funds. Sarah Levitt put me in touch with Martin Peters, Managing Director of Leicestershire Promotions Ltd (LPL), responsible for marketing the county and city. With DSP on board, and a TV special in the offing with Channel 4, Peters understood the venture’s potential, and so agreed to fund the Looking for Richard project.

By early August 2011, with the £35,000 I needed, I had agreed terms with LCC as the landowner and ULAS as the contractor. As the client, my agreements repeated the Reburial Document’s ethos for the project: if we discovered Richard III’s remains, the science and analysis would be completed at the earliest opportunity. The two partners were aware that I was searching for a named individual with living relatives, and even though he had been dead for over 500 years, I wanted him granted the same decency and privacy as is laid down by the law governing exhumations of those who died less than a hundred years ago.

The agreement also made it clear that as named custodian of the remains after identification, I would take Richard to a Catholic place of sanctity and rest where he would be prepared for his reburial in the (Anglican) cathedral. It was important that this should be in a spiritual environment and the king’s faith taken into consideration if he were finally to be laid to rest.

Everything appeared to be going well but there was a clock ticking. I had commissioned a GPR survey from Stratascan to cover the three car parks: New Street, the Social Services and, crucially, the former grammar school site, which was immediately adjacent to the Social Services. But the former grammar school was up for sale for redevelopment. A new owner might not give us permission to dig, yet if John Ashdown-Hill’s research (and my intuition) and Richard Buckley’s maps were correct, it could be critical to the success of the project. Buckley told me to take heart. In a recession there might not be a developer interested in buying the grammar school.

I asked Buckley about the potential of the GPR survey. Having previously undertaken three on city centre sites, he was sceptical, since all had proved inconclusive and failed to reveal any structures that later digging had uncovered. In this case, however, with it being virgin ground, he felt it might be worth a go. However, he warned me that the church might be in the south of the precinct, and if this were the case it would be game over for my search because the south was heavily developed, which meant that King Richard’s grave would be under a building. The cost of the survey (just over £5,000) would be met by the Richard III Society and founding members of the Looking for Richard project.

On Sunday, 28 August 2011 Stratascan began the GPR survey, using a powerful MIRA scanner. Annette Carson, an international award-winning copywriter as well as a biographer, had helped put together a short promotional script for DSP to film. She understood that the prospect of major media attention might keep the local authorities on board in difficult times. Richard Buckley, Phil Stone and John Ashdown-Hill (back briefly in the UK) were to be interviewed along with Carson, whom, at last, I finally met. Also coming along were local Richard III Society members Sally Henshaw, secretary of the Leicestershire Branch, and Richard Smith, their chairman, who had both been helping the project with research. Giving up his time on the bank holiday weekend too was Assistant Mayor, Councillor Ted Cassidy, representing LCC in Sir Peter Soulsby’s absence and who spoke powerfully to camera. With filming under way, the assembled team asked why I was so determined to search for Richard’s grave. I pointed to the ‘R’ on the tarmac, and told them my story.

DSP were filming in the cathedral as I again met the Reverend Faull, together with Dr John Ashdown-Hill. The dean repeated her view that the tomb would be best situated in the sanctuary. Later, Dr David and Wendy Johnson showed her the first detailed computer-generated images (CGI) of the tomb design, its imagery of the boar, white rose of York and cross of St Cuthbert displaying what had been important to Richard, both as duke and king.

A few weeks later, Richard Buckley’s scepticism of the GPR survey proved justified. The results were inconclusive, and alarming. A layer of apparent ‘made’ ground, or demolition debris, close to the surface had skewed the results, or was hiding the archaeology beneath. We couldn’t see any walls, and only with my prompting could Stratascan identify two or three potential gravesites, none of which was in the northern end of the Social Services car park near my ‘R’. The survey was a disaster for the project. Channel 4 was wavering, which meant Martin Peters at LPL was too, with his budgets constrained in straitened times. By March 2012, without the guarantee of a TV documentary, and with deep regret, LPL pulled its funding. The Easter dig was cancelled.

Despite these setbacks, I couldn’t give up now. Sarah Levitt had offered us new dates in 2012: the August bank holiday weekend would work for LCC. Phil Stone, at the Richard III Society, told me to grab them, saying we couldn’t afford to lose another opportunity and we would make the new dates work. He offered to give £5,000 to kick-start the new funding round. Martin Peters was next. He said that, if we could guarantee a film for his website, LPL would put in up to £15,000, while Michael Johnson gave £500 from Leicester Adult Schools.

By the end of April 2012, I considered re-mortgaging my home. Phil Stone had confirmed that we were too late to launch an appeal in the society’s
Ricardian Bulletin,
so I rang Leicester University. After some negotiation, Richard Taylor agreed the university would put in £10,000, plus £2,000 VAT (if needed) and a further £2,000 if Richard III was found (to cover the cost of the coffin and pall). Now Richard Buckley and I worked to reduce the cost of the dig. Thanks to his carefully revised layout for the first two trenches, allowing for more parking during the dig, I managed to shave over £2,000 from the cost of the off-site parking for the Social Services staff. The August dig could go ahead without my desperate re-mortgaging plan. Sarah Levitt confirmed the deadline of 1 August for all monies to be paid into the ULAS account. Miss it, and the dig was over.

With a few weeks to go before the deadline, LPL gave us devastating news. Due to problems with their own funding, they could only put in £5,000. They would secure this funding, but I was £10,000 short. I trawled every local business and worthy to make up the shortfall. Martin Peters at LPL stepped in to help as did Martin Traynor, Group CEO of the Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce. It was a valiant effort, but in the worst recession in living memory local businesses could not see any investment potential in an archaeological dig; even one that was in search of a king. Further, the research grant I had hoped for from Leicester Archaeological and Historical Society was refused. The society said it couldn’t support an archaeological project in search of King Richard’s grave, citing the River Soar story as evidence of its likely outcome. At my request, John Ashdown-Hill put together a two-page document outlining his research repudiating the story, to no avail. The search for Richard would be cancelled. In desperation I called Phil Stone, who authorized an immediate appeal to the membership of the Richard III Society – worldwide. Annette Carson agreed to design and write a two-page International Appeal leaflet.

The appeal went out by email. Within moments, pledges of money were pouring in from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and throughout the UK. Some who contacted me were out of work and struggling to feed their families but wanted to give what they could. The response was overwhelming, moving me to tears. In three weeks, the appeal raised just under £13,000 and gave the Looking for Richard project its mandate. The donors told us:

‘Search for him. Find him. Honour him.’

On 1 August 2012 all monies were paid into ULAS’s account (see full funding below).

Looking for Richard: In Search of a King – Two-Week Dig