CONTENTS Dead under a car park ............................... 2 The death of a king ................................... 4 Richard III: the controversial king ............ 8 The missing king ..................................... 22 Buried bones ........................................... 24 Face to face with the past ........................ 42 Dead, but not forgotten .......................... 46 History beneath our feet .......................... 48 R.I.P. Richard ........................................... 52
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Dead under a car
park
In September 2012, under a small car park in Leicester, a gruesome discovery was made. A skeleton was found buried in the earth. Could this be a body that had been missing for over five hundred years? Could this be the body of a king?
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In order to find out who it was, we need to go back in time ... A long way back, to a time when powerful families had their own armies and fought each other in bloody battles all over England. To a time when two men fought each other in a muddy field for the honour of being called “King of England�.
People today acting out one of the battles from that time.
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The death of a kin
Picture the scene. It is 22 August 1485. A terrible battle is taking place near a town called Market Bosworth, in the centre of England. A man is thrown from his white horse. He is surrounded by enemy soldiers armed to the teeth.
He is the most powerful man in the country, King K n Richard III, but that does not save him. Ki 4
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The soldiers show no mercy. Someone strikes the killer blow. As one man lies dying, another man cheers. The king is dead. Now England has a new ruler, King Henry VII.
King Henry VII is crowned at the Battle of Bosworth.
* * * * It was a surprise victory for Henry and his followers. King Richard was the last English king to die in battle.
It is co common to use Roman numerals for kings or queens with the same name. Here, V = 5 and II = 2. So Henry VI VII = Henry 7th.
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Families at war What led to Richard’s cruel and shocking death? The two families fighting each other had been at war for about thirty years, in a huge power struggle about who should rule England. These struggles were known as the Wars of the Roses.
Henry was from the
Richard was from
House of Lancaster. This
the House of York,
family was represented
represented by a
by a red rose.
white rose.
On that summer’s day in Market Bosworth, King Richard and his army charged at Henry’s army. Rc Ri 6
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This map shows the parts of England that were controlled by these two families.
Richard believed he could kill Henry himself and end the battle quickly. He was wrong. He became cut off from his own men, and was surrounded and killed. The battle was over. But hundreds of years later, the mystery of his death lives on. • Who killed Richard? • How, exactly, was he killed? • And, most importantly, what happened to his body?
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