A skeleton found beneath a Leicester car park has been confirmed as that of English king Richard III.

Experts from the University of Leicester said DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the monarch's family.

Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, from the University of Leicester, told a press conference to applause: "Beyond reasonable doubt it's Richard."

Richard, who died in battle 1485, will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral.

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Interactive: Twisted bones reveal a king
His skeleton had suffered 10 injuries, including eight to the skull.

The bones, which are of a man in his late 20s or early 30s, have been carbon dated to a period from 1455-1540.

Richard was 32 when he died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Details of the reburial ceremony have yet to be

 AustonT wrote:
There's no actual proof Richard III killed his nephews, they easily could have died of illness and were quietly buried. Although Occam's Razor typically applies, there is still the realm of possibility that for unknown reasons the children simply fell of the pages of histor without malice aforethought.


And also time travel.

 Snrub wrote:
So lemme get this straight... King Eddy the 5th karks it, at which point his broski, the goodly Duke Richo the 3rd, staches his nephews in the clink and swipes the throne for himself in a rather clever coup only to balls it all up by bum rushing Henry Tudor and his personal guard at Bosworth? (If that ain't perfect BBC drama material then i don't know what is. This should get at least 4 seasons.)

And we now know that the bones buried in yon park his and he was apparently beaten stupid shortly before his death?

That about sum it up?

Snrub wrote:So lemme get this straight... King Eddy the 5th karks it, at which point his broski, the goodly Duke Richo the 3rd, staches his nephews in the clink and swipes the throne for himself in a rather clever coup only to balls it all up by bum rushing Henry Tudor and his personal guard at Bosworth? (If that ain't perfect BBC drama material then i don't know what is. This should get at least 4 seasons.)

And we now know that the bones buried in yon park his and he was apparently beaten stupid shortly before his death?

That about sum it up?

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
So lemme get this straight... King Eddy the 5th karks it, at which point his broski, the goodly Duke Richo the 3rd, staches his nephews in the clink and swipes the throne for himself in a rather clever coup only to balls it all up by bum rushing Henry Tudor and his personal guard at Bosworth? (If that ain't perfect BBC drama material then i don't know what is. This should get at least 4 seasons.)

And we now know that the bones buried in yon park his and he was apparently beaten stupid shortly before his death?

That about sum it up?

Edward the IV (Richard's brother) was king until his death. Edward V (Richard's newphew) would have been king (Richard as Lord protector until that day) until the mystery in the tower. Was Richard innocent? Now that we have his skull, perhaps a necromancer could find out!

I may be wrong but Richard would probably have won Bosworth if the Earl/Duke Stanley? Hadn't switched sides.

Buy yeah, BBC should get their finger out and make a series about it. Wait, they already are

 Orlanth wrote:
Richard III usually dies of plague in York before anyone can get to him.

 Orlanth wrote:
Richard III usually dies of plague in York before anyone can get to him.

 LordofHats wrote:
They found the bones and did a DNA test with a distant still living relative to determine mitochondrial something or others I think.

 LordofHats wrote:
They found the bones and did a DNA test with a distant still living relative to determine mitochondrial something or others I think.

 generalgrog wrote:
Was there a ruined church that used to be on the parking lot or something?

GG

He was given a hurried burial beneath the church of Greyfriars in the centre of Leicester.....
...Greyfriars church was demolished during the Reformation in the 16th Century and over the following centuries its exact location was forgotten.

However, a team of enthusiasts and historians managed to trace the likely area - and, crucially, after painstaking genealogical research, they found a 17th-generation descendant of Richard's sister with whose DNA they could compare any remains.

Joy Ibsen, from Canada, died several years ago but her son, Michael, who now works in London, provided a sample.

The researchers were fortunate as, while the DNA they were looking for was in all Joy Ibsen's offspring, it is only handed down through the female line and her only daughter has no children. The line was about to stop.

Tomb plans
But the University of Leicester's experts had other problems.

Dr Turi King, project geneticist, said there had been concern DNA in the bones would be too degraded: "The question was could we get a sample of DNA to work with, and I am extremely pleased to tell you that we could."

She added: "There is a DNA match between the maternal DNA of the descendants of the family of Richard III and the skeletal remains we found at the Greyfriars dig.

"In short, the DNA evidence points to these being the remains of Richard III."

In August 2012, an excavation began in a city council car park - the only open space remaining in the likely area - which quickly identified buildings connected to the church.

Note to developers, maybe have a poke around before you start paving eh?

 d-usa wrote:
but it seems that every time we are digging somewhere we find left over bombs.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Depends on the heritage of the site and if that particular tribe is still in existence, that type of thing. Me personally I understand where the tribes are coming from on that score. I'd be pretty livid if they started exhuming graves in Arlington just to have a look see.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Depends on the heritage of the site and if that particular tribe is still in existence, that type of thing. Me personally I understand where the tribes are coming from on that score. I'd be pretty livid if they started exhuming graves in Arlington just to have a look see.

Didn't something like that happen in the civil war? I'm sure I read somewhere that the Union guy who ran Arlington blew up Robert Lee's country residence and dug up his dead relative who were buried there! I may be wrong...

The property was confiscated by the federal government when property taxes levied against Arlington estate were not paid in person by Mrs. Lee. The property was offered for public sale Jan. 11, 1864, and was purchased by a tax commissioner for "government use, for war, military, charitable and educational purposes."

Arlington National Cemetery was established by Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, who commanded the garrison at Arlington House, appropriated the grounds June 15, 1864, for use as a military cemetery. His intention was to render the house uninhabitable should the Lee family ever attempt to return. A stone and masonry burial vault in the rose garden, 20 feet wide and 10 feet deep, and containing the remains of 1,800 Bull Run casualties, was among the first monuments to Union dead erected under Meigs' orders. Meigs himself was later buried within 100 yards of Arlington House with his wife, father and son; the final statement to his original order.

The federal government dedicated a model community for freed slaves, Freedman's Village, near the current Memorial Amphitheater, on Dec. 4, 1863. More than 1,100 freed slaves were given land by the government, where they farmed and lived during and after the Civil War.

Neither Robert E. Lee, nor his wife, as title holder, ever attempted to publicly recover control of Arlington House. They were buried at Washington University (later renamed Washington and Lee University) where Lee had served as president. The couple never returned to the home George Washington Parke Custis had built and treasured. After Gen. Lee's death in 1870, George Washington Custis Lee brought an action for ejectment in the Circuit Court of Alexandria (today Arlington) County, Va. Custis Lee, as eldest son of Gen. and Mrs. Lee, claimed that the land had been illegally confiscated and that, according to his grandfather's will, he was the legal owner. In December 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, returned the property to Custis Lee, stating that it had been confiscated without due process On March 3, 1883, Congress purchased the property from Lee for $150,000. It became a military reservation and Freedman's Village ceased to exist; however, the gravesites that were once part of the village remained on the grounds of the reservation.

 d-usa wrote:
I don't know if we are finding lots of dead royals in our parking lots in Germany, but it seems that every time we are digging somewhere we find left over bombs.

 Snrub wrote:
So lemme get this straight... King Eddy the 5th karks it, at which point his broski, the goodly Duke Richo the 3rd, staches his nephews in the clink and swipes the throne for himself in a rather clever coup only to balls it all up by bum rushing Henry Tudor and his personal guard at Bosworth? (If that ain't perfect BBC drama material then i don't know what is. This should get at least 4 seasons.)

Steve steveson wrote:

 Snrub wrote:
So lemme get this straight... King Eddy the 5th karks it, at which point his broski, the goodly Duke Richo the 3rd, staches his nephews in the clink and swipes the throne for himself in a rather clever coup only to balls it all up by bum rushing Henry Tudor and his personal guard at Bosworth? (If that ain't perfect BBC drama material then i don't know what is. This should get at least 4 seasons.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Adder