PART TWO

Duke of Gloucester, Warwick’s Man

Leicester, September 5, 2012—Eleventh day of the dig

At the trench, the DSP cameras roll as osteologist Jo Appleby bends down and removes a light covering of earth from the chest cavity and upper vertebrae. The spine has the most excruciating ‘S’ shape. ‘Whoever this was,’ she states, ‘the spinal column has a really abnormal curvature. This skeleton has a hunchback.’…

Are they saying this is Richard? If this is Richard, how can he have worn armor with a hump on his back? I flop down onto the spoil heap behind me. I feel as if I’ve been hit by a train. The others want me to be excited because it looks as though we may have found Richard, but all I can hear is the pounding in my ears and the awful word ‘hunchback’ in my brain….

(Later) At the 12 September press conference, the University of Leicester confirms the discovery…On initial examination…it is revealed that the skeleton had acute spinal abnormalities, confirming severe scoliosis—a form of spinal curvature. This would have made the right shoulder visibly higher than the left, consistent with contemporary accounts of Richard’s appearance. Finally, the skeleton did not show signs of kyphosis—a different form of curvature. The man did not have the feature sometimes inappropriately known as a hunchback, and he did not have a withered arm.

—Philippa Langley, The King’s Grave