The Last Days of Richard III: the Book that Inspired the Dig

While admitting that contemporary sources can be often muddled and contradictory, "The Last Days of Richard III" (The History Press) by John Ashdown-Hill was written from a different perspective. Deliberately avoiding the traditional approach of analyzing the historical controversy about the pros or cons of England's last Plantagenet king, including the time worn issue of the fate of the two princes in the Tower, Ashdown -Hill concentrates on the minutiae of the last 150 days of Richard's life and his fate after death. The purpose of this methodology was ,firstly, to present a portrait of a robust king going about his daily business as both man and monarch as opposed to the dark, brooding individual, unsure of himself and the future, while caught up in grief over the loss of his wife and son and heir. Secondly, it highlights the fact that very little is known of the exact location of the Richard's remains.Details range anywhere from Richard's attempt to marry into either the Portugese or Spanish royal houses to his attempts to drum up support from his magnates against the upcoming show down with Henry Tudor to liturgical and gastronomic details.Clearly, this is not a complete biography. For those who are not familiar with the history of this period, this work would be a bit hard going. But for those who do possess some familiarity with the story of Richard III, this book provides interesting insights into his daily activities and mental outlook during the last period of his life.Of particular interest and pertinence is the discussion of what happened to Richard' s remains post mortem,Traditionally, the treatment of Richard III's remains have been seen as a sterling example of Henry VII's vindictiveness. Again, Ashdown -Hill dispenses with the traditional stance by pointing out that, as far as was possible on a battlefield, Richard III's remains were respected by Henry VII. On the issue of DNA analysis. Ashdown -Hill points out that finding the remains would enable us to determine what Richard III actually looked like and answer the questions concerning his possible physical deformities; an analysis which is looking more feasible as time goes by.With it's wealth of detail depicting life in the late fifteenth century, this short book presents an accessible and highly recommended addition to anyone's library.

After reading Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time," a mystery story cleverly involving the innocent Richard III as the chief murder suspect, I was and still am a Richard III aficionado. The discovery and identification of the King's bones in a Leicester car park was a positively riveting achievement. I couldn't wait to read more and luckily found "the book that inspired the dig.""The Last Days of Richard III" is sprightly and fascinating. Ashdown-Hill takes you right into Richard's personal life as he opens the story with the fatal illness of Richard's consort, Anne Neville. He describes the symptoms Anne would have exhibited as tuberculosis took over her frail body. On the very day of her death a menacing total eclipse of the sun terrified people everywhere and one can only imagine how Richard felt- he had lost his only son Edward a few months earlier. The author puts you in Richard's pocket and there you'll happily remain for the duration of the book.The text is accompanied with pictures of Richard's descendents from his sister Anne of York, the mitochondrial DNA "alive and well" into the twenty-first century. There's a photo of a Warwickshire chair that was supposedly made from Richard's bed and other unusual, titillating photos. "Last Days" is anything thing but dull.Richard would never have heard of the "Battle of Bosworth," the name is pure hindsight. His last half year was vigorously spent in pursuing his own agenda. The biggest item on the agenda was finding a new wife for Richard, one possibility being the Infanta of Portugal, whose ancestry was of the House of Lancaster. Richard (of York) would have found it expedient to unite the two houses and end the War of the Roses. Several other princesses were considered.A day in the life of Richard is examined in detail- what did he eat? where did he sleep? what did he wear? when did he worship? Finding out about this stuff is absolutely delicious. You'll love it! Remember, you are in Richard's pocket. Richard apparently was in the habit of taking his large bed with him. He supposedly slept in that bed in Leicester, just before Bosworth at an inn later conveniently named the "White Boar," Richard's emblem. He left his bed at the inn and the next night, the night before the battle (August 21 and 22) slept in the field in a camp cot under a tent. He was purported to have slept badly due to horrendous dreams, or perhaps the author remarks wryly, he may like many of us sleep badly in a strange bed. Anyway, it was reported Richard looked drawn, but then Richard always looked drawn, he had been through a lot.Richard at the head of his large army of 15,000 attacked when Richard spied Henry Tudor. But Henry's men did an extraordinary thing- they backed up and surrounded Henry with an impenetrable wall of pikemen. Richard's horse was killed under him and his helmet fell off leaving his head vulnerable and he was quickly dispatched yelling "treason, treason" against Stanley and other nobles who had betrayed him.We've all read the descriptions of Richard's body, which was slung naked over the back of a horse. However, the author believes Richard's body was possibly stripped of its luxurious clothing by looters who grabbed what they could before Henry Tudor even found Richard's body.In a simply stunning achievement author John Ashdown-Hill has managed to trace the female descendents of Richard's sister Anne of York to the current Ibsen family in Canada. When the DNA of Richard III became available, Ashworth-Hill obtained samples from the King's bones to compare to living women. Only mitochondrial DNA, inherited and passed on only by females could be measured in living persons to establish Richard's descendents. Mitochondrial DNA resides outside the nucleus of each cell in small bodies that help the cell regulate and control oxygen levels.A comment somebody left attached to a book review about Richard III said "I am so tired of people being soppy about Richard III!" If you read "The Daughter of Time" and if you read "The Last Days of Richard III" chances are you're going to be soppy. Mr. Ashworth-Hill describes his feelings when the archaeologists who resurrected Richard's bones and placed them reverently in a long white box asked him to carry the box to the waiting van for transport to the University of Leicester. He also requested the Dean of Leicester Cathedral, where Richard's final resting place will be, that a Catholic liturgy be included in the service for the sake of Catholic Richard and for the sake of the Catholic author as well.

Don't select this book if it's your first dip into the world of Richard III. It is definitely better to take this book alongside other books that cover the same topic. This is because, read in isolation, you may end up grasping not only the wrong end of the stick, but also grasping an entirely different stick! It provides an interpretation of history that is complex to untangle from the obscuring fog. My personal conclusion was that the fog was deliberately placed, and this reduces my respect for the writer. This is a shame, as the author is clearly a very competent and diligent historian who has some interesting opinions about history.The book is insightful and well-researched, but suffers from a challenging literary style which means you need to stand back to digest. There's nothing wrong with bias, all historians have their personal opinions to voice, but be warned that the written style of this book seems to mask the bias very well.I personally find the style almost impossible to read, and found myself reading a few pages, then pausing to work out what the bare bones of what those pages actually were. The author has an infuriating habit of inserting quotations from other historical works using quotation marks, in exactly the established manner of quoting a contemporary source. So you'll read a quotation that appears to support a statement the author has made and you'll think 'oh how interesting'...only to realise (by stopping to check the oodles of notes) that you've actually just read a quotation from someone writing in the 1990s about the same thing. After a while this made me discount pretty much everything that appeared in quotation marks, because I simply could not be bothered stopping all the time to check the notes. It also leaves me feeling like the author is deliberately trying to obscure when something is a genuine contemporary source. Another good practice of the historian that this author declines to follow is to clarify from the start how certain nouns and names will be adopted throughout the work, to avoid confusion. (An example is the variations of Matilda and Maud that are used to differentiate between two separate prominent figures in 12th century English history.) The author therefore feels gleefully compelled to put inverted commas around the word Tudor every time it is written. There are valid reasons for saying 'hey this isn't really the right name to use, and it might be an invented historical name anyway', but by the time you get halfway through the book, it feels like the author is being childishly petty every time he writes the word Tudor. A number of times, I had to put the book down and chunter out loud in frustration!The difficult text and overly partisan bias of the author really mucks up what is otherwise a good book. His research into the period is second to none. His ability to unearth fact is wonderful. His contribution to history (in support of the rediscovery of the body of Richard III in Leicester) is unquestionable. And for all these reasons, I refused to be beaten and put the book down. Hats off to the author for his talents, but unfortunately putting his findings into words is not his forte. The result is a highly biased series of thoughts and opinions which are not substantiated by clear or logical evaluation of the facts and limited source material from the period.If you are a serious student of the period, then this book is an essential read.

Other reviewers have said that John Ashdown-Hill has a difficult writing style and is hard to understand but I found the book very easy to read, in-fact, simpler than I expected, judging by the other reviews.It sucks you in right from the start, giving an account of the illness and consequent death of Richard's wife Anne but that's where the homely narrative quality ends. It starts reading like a court case - someone said this event happened but... then Ashdown-Hill goes on to explain why the statement is wrong and boringly drones on with a doggedly opposing view - about everything. This happened, so history says but... I say, it can't have because, blah, blah, blah. It becomes a bit tiresome after a bit. He states an established theory then proceeds to shoot it down, repeatedly.Of Richard himself, you'll find very little that was not known already, ie: not much at all! More is known about his 'right-hand' man, the Duke of Norfolk and he is often quoted, his belongings listed and his comings and goings related. Richard's brother, Edward IV also features heavily, with Richard himself a shadowy, background figure of whom there seems to be little solid evidence of his daily life. It almost feels as if he was a mythical figure, rather than a real person, such is his lack of presence in the book. It's always; he may have done this or that, he may have worn this or that, he may have acted this way, he may have acted that way, he may have attended such an event, he may not, but probably did, etc. This is the general narrative of the book and try as you might, it's not easy to glean anything solid about Richard III himself, just things typical of the lives of people at that time.As for the rest of the book - the part after his death - that's another matter. Everything IS known about this and you are not wading through more of conjecture but facts, evidence and solid, doggedly persistent research.Basically, as other reviewers have said, it could have been condensed into a book half the size but I suspect the author was striving to pad out the narrative in preparation for what I call the 'second' part of the book, the reality part; in short, a vehicle for his painstaking genetic research, which is admirable and worthy.

Enjoyed the book, felt I learnt a lot about Richard III and how they came to find his body. Sometimes found the narrative a bit smug and very dismissive of other academics/researchers in this field. Interestingly I have also just seen the film, The Lost King, where this author appears a few times. Not sure who was really the lead in finding the body, the author or Philippa Langley.

A great read and extremely well-researched by an expert historian and genealogist. The author's finding and contact of a living relative of Richard III's sister, Anne of York (1439-76) - 17 generations in the female line, is a splendid achievement. So is the discovery of Richard's body below the famous car park in Leicester and the University of Leicester's excellent work, thanks largely to Dr. John Ashdown-Hill's tracing of living descendants who could provide mitochondrial DNA samples, which is also quite astonishing. Surely one of the great archaeological/genealogical triumphs of the 21st century, certainly in the UK. As for the personality of Richard, it is still hard to gauge the man. Dr Ashdown Hill takes a sympathetic view and says the facts are still uncertain and we still do not know who ordered the killing of the Princes in the Tower. Even so, there can be little doubt that Richard was a driven and ambitious man who took his main chance and usurped the throne and by so doing, even if not directly responsible for the murders, brought about the Princes' early and tragic demise. Sure Richard was brave....but also slightly crazy to charge off as he did at Bosworth field, thereby ensuring his own early demise at 32 years of age and his replacement as King by Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, later Henry VII. Whatever the truth about Richard's act of usurpation, the fact that Richard was legitimate and the Princes illegitimate, according to the logic of the times, is all a load of (white) hog wash....if I can be allowed to use the expression. In the end, did it really matter who was sitting on the throne, so long as they ruled wisely and fairly and abided by the laws of the land. After all, Prince Edward, Edward V as he briefly became, was the King's son and alas, became a victim of inter-family feuding, rivalry and power-lust. He may well have done a very fine job as king...had he been given the chance and not been robbed of it by his wicked uncle. You only have to look at the Royal Pedigree in J.H. Plumb's 'The Plantaganets' to see how weak family affections were, many of the players being murdered in cold blood by their own kith and kin. So much for ideas of Hamiltonian kin selection....that is, selection in favour of one's nearest and dearest because they share very many genes in common with you! On the contrary, having such close genetic affinity was often a one-way ticket leading to early extirpation, however innocent you were of any rivalry or pretensions with regard to replacing the ruling person and dynasty.

This was a interesting book. If, like me, you have been a faithful Richardian for decades, this book does fill in some 'blanks'. I still can't work out how Richard could have lost Bosworth, even with the traitorous Stanleys and Northumberland. He had a far superior force. But, as we all know, he did lose. I was enlightened to learn that Henry VII actually did set up a monument for Richard - but thank goodness he didn't have his bones put into the tomb. No matter how many times I have to read the way Richard's body was treated post mortem, and it was nothing out of the ordinary - I still can not fathom how Henry could have treated a King's body this way, but then I am writing in the 21st century and not the 15th!!! I loved the DNA facts, although I had to read them several times, because it did get a bit confusing to a mere, ordinary person.