The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA (36 page)

  
9
. Joy Ibsen, personal letter, 13 November 2004.

10
. TNA, PCC Wills, Prob 11/884, ff. 161r-162v.

11
. TNA, PCC Wills, Prob 11/884, f. 161v.

12
. Curiously, given Barbara Yelverton's royalist ancestry, Sir Robert Reynolds was the Solicitor General under the Commonwealth. He purchased Elvetham from William Seymour, Duke of Somerset.

13
.  R. Furneaux,
William Wilberforce
, London 1974, pp. 165; 166.

14
. Furneaux,
William Wilberforce
, p. 162.

15
. J. Pollock,
Wilberforce
, London 1977, p. 159.

16
. Furneaux,
William Wilberforce
, p. 166.

17
. Pollock,
Wilberforce, p.
305.

18
. The only living descendants of Barbara Spooner [Wilberforce] are in through her sons: J. Ashdown-Hill, ‘A Granddaughter of William Wilberforce',
Genealogists' Magazine
, September 2004 (28:3, 2004), pp. 110–11.

19
.  E. Adams, ed.,
Mrs J. Comyns Carr's Reminiscences
, London 1926, p. 16.

20
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

21
. Joy Ibsen, 13 December 2005.

22
. A. Comyns Carr,
J. Comyns Carr – Stray Memories
, London 1920, p. 53.

23
. Adams, ed.,
Mrs J. Comyns Carr's Reminiscences
, pp. 13–14.

24
. Adams, ed.,
Mrs J. Comyns Carr's Reminiscences
, pp. 14–15.

25
. Joy Ibsen, 13 November 2004.

26
. Comyns Carr,
Stray Memories
, p. 21.

27
. Comyns Carr,
Stray Memories
, p. 2.

28
. Arthur was the eldest of the three Strettell children, born in 1845. Alice was born in 1850 and Alma in 1854.

29
. He died, at the young age of 36, on 24 January 1882 at Colorada Springs, though his will was not proved in England until 13 December 1890.

30
. Comyns Carr,
Stray Memories
, p. 112. Henry Irving made his debut on the London stage in 1866, where he was reputed the greatest English actor of his time. Born in Somerset in 1838, Irving began his acting career in the provinces. In 1878 he formed a partnership with Ellen Terry at the Lyceum Theatre, where he became actor-manager. The first actor in British history to receive a knighthood, Sir Henry Irving died in 1905.

31
. W.C. Homes, ‘An English Lady at Glen Eyrie, the 1902–03 Diary of Dorothy Comyns Carr',
Kiva, the Journal of the Cheyenne Mountain Heritage Center
, Vol. 4, no. 2 (Spring 2000), pp 3–11 (p. 4).

32
. Comyns Carr,
Stray Memories
, p. 8.

33
.  E. Terry,
The Story of my Life
, London 1908, p. 350.

34
. The portrait is now in the Tate Gallery.

35
. Comyns Carr,
Stray Memories
, p. 132.

36
. Consort of King Carol and, after September 1914, Queen Dowager.

37
. Comyns Carr,
Stray Memories
, p. 44.

38
. Homes, ‘An English Lady at Glen Eyrie', pp. 8–11.

39
. Homes, ‘An English Lady at Glen Eyrie', p. 4.

40
. Homes, ‘An English Lady at Glen Eyrie', pp. 3–4.

41
. Homes, ‘An English Lady at Glen Eyrie', p. 11.

42
. Dame Ellen Terry's memorial service was held at St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, in July 1928.

43
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

44
. Joy Ibsen, 2 July 2004.

45
.  His mother's second cousin; one of the two sons of Alice Strettell (Comyns Carr).

46
. Joy Ibsen, 21 May 2004.

47
. His will was proved on 5 January 1940.

48
. A.F.G. Stokes,
A Moorland Princess: A Romance of Lyonesse
(1904);
From Land's End to the Lizard
(1909);
From Devon to St Ives
(1910);
From St Ives to Land's End
[DATE?];
The Cornish Coast and Moors
(1912).

49
. Joy Ibsen, 11 August 2004.

50
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

51
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

52
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

53
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

54
. Joy Ibsen, 1 August 2006.

55
. Joy Ibsen, 2 July 2004.

16. The Future of Richard III

  
1
. W.C. Sellars and R.J. Yeatman,
1066 and All That
, London, 1930: ‘a memorable history of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates'.

  
2
. There is always an element of presumption in tracing patrilineal descent, since the paternity of a child can never be taken for granted. For this reason it would be impossible to absolutely guarantee that the Plantagenet Y-chromosome survives in the Somerset family.

  
3
. They were not, of course, ‘princes': either one of them was a king, or both of them were bastards.

Appendix 1: Richard III's Itinerary for 1485

  
1
. Taken from R. Edwards,
The Itinerary of King Richard III
, London, 1983.

Appendix 2: Calendar for 1485 (March to August)

  1. Solar eclipse, death of Queen Anne Neville.

  2. Feast of the Annunciation (Lady Day); the first day of 1485 according to the medieval English calendar. Burial of Queen Anne Neville.

  3. Palm Sunday.

  4. Maundy Thursday.

  5. Good Friday.

  6. Easter Sunday.

  7. Ascension Day.

  8. Anniversary of the death of Henry VI(?).

  9. Feast of Pentecost (Whit Sunday).

10. Trinity Sunday.

11. Feast of Corpus Christi.

12. Anniversary of Richard III's accession and start of his third regnal year.

13. Battle of Bosworth. Death of Richard III.

14. Feast of St Louis IX of France: burial of Richard III at the Franciscan Priory Church, Leicester.

Appendix 4: John Speede's Account of the Burial of Richard III

  
1
. From Speede,
History
, p. 725.

  
2
. It is not the case that all coins of the Emperor Caligula were destroyed.

  
3
. It is noteworthy that Speede does not say (as is usually reported) that Richard III's body was thrown into the river, but rather that it was reburied under one end of the bridge.

Appendix 5: DNA evidence relating to the putative remains of Margaret of York preserved in Mechelen, Belgium

  
1
. When the bones were found, the precise location of the original tomb was somewhat unclear. See De Win, ‘
Danse Macabre', Handelingen
, p. 63 (
Ric.
15, 2003, p. 55) & passim.

  
2
. Three skeletons found, one of them female; the latter aged between fifty and sixty, and 1.54m in height.

  
3
. Two skeletons found, one of them female.

  
4
. Partial skeleton (secondary burial?) with hair, belonging to a woman of about fifty.

  
5
. Information supplied by Dieter Viaene, Mechelen Town Archives, 29 June 2007.

  
6
. V812/2 appears to constitute part of the 1955 (Twiesselmann) remains. What appears to be another
part
of these same remains is stored under the number V812/4. Information supplied by Professor Cassiman and Dieter Viaene.

  
7
. For V812/1 and V812/2 only a partial DNA sequence was obtained.

  
8
. Taken from the femur of V812/2.

  
9
. All the other samples from V812/2 yielded at least one double reading (see below: Table 2).

10
. As has been stated, when analysing mtDNA it is standard practice to concentrate on a ‘control region' of four hundred nucleotide bases. In terms of its control region, Joy Ibsen's mtDNA is identical to that of the ‘clan mother' for haplogroup J. It follows that Margaret of York cannot have displayed mutations in the control region of her mtDNA which Joy Ibsen does not possess.

11
. Joy Ibsen has ‘C' at 146, whereas V812/3 is identical to the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) at this point. Also V812/3 differs from the CRS at three other points (16311, 152 and 228) where Joy Ibsen's sequence does not.

12
. It has been estimated than one mutation will arise in the control region of the mitochondrial DNA every 20,000 years (B. Sykes,
The Seven Daughters of Eve
, London 2001, p. 155). However, I know of no estimated chronology for mutations outside of the control region (which happens to be where the four mutations which distinguish Joy Ibsen's mtDNA and that of V812/3 are located). Since the ‘clan mother' of haplogroup J is estimated to have lived approximately 10,000 years ago, it follows that the last common maternal-line ancestress of Joy Ibsen and V812/3 must have lived less than 10,000 years ago.

13
. For the female bone samples examined, carbon-14 dating produced death dates of approximately 1245 and 1367 [De Win,
‘Danse Macabre', Handelingen
, pp. 80-1 (
Ricardian
, pp. 65-6)]. These dates appear to refer to the Steurs and Winders bones, though sadly the confusion over the remains found in the 1930s means that it is unclear which date refers to which bones.

14
. Personal communication from Dieter Viaene, 29 June 2007.

Appendix 6: Richard III's Epitaph

  
1
. p. 149.

  
2
. pp. 217–18.

  
3
. See below, note 31.

  
4
. There is no reason to assume that Buck's published punctuation is authentic. As we shall see, the extant manuscript copies of the epitaph contain no punctuation.

  
5
. Arguably, Sandford's text may reflect the original tomb inscription more closely than Buck's, but as we shall see, there is no great difference in the meaning.

  
6
. Buck 1647:
Richardi.

  
7
. Buck 1647:
ad.

  
8
. Buck 1647:
Sti.

  
9
. These words are not given by Sandford. Presumably they did not form part of the original inscription, but were in the nature of a heading, supplied by Buck's manuscript source (since it seems unlikely that Buck himself would have chosen to apply to Henry VII the adjective
sanctus
).

10
. Sandford:
multa.

11
. Buck 1647:
Richardus.

12
. Sandford:
Nam patrie tutor.

13
. Buck 1647 and Sandford:
patrius.

14
. Buck 1647:
duntaxat.

15
. Buck 1647:
Aetatesque;
Sandford:
Estatesque.

16
. Sandford:
non.

17
. Buck 1647 has a marginal note here:
Annos 2 &
51
dies.
Buck 1619 has
Annos
2
et 52 dies.
This misinterprets the text, which gives the length of Richard's reign as ‘two summers and fifty-eight days' (it actually lasted two years and fifty-seven days).

18
. Sandford:
merito.

19
. Buck 1647:
dicaras.

20
. Buck 1647 and Sandford:
quatuor.

21
. Buck 1647:
quinq.;
Sandford:
quinqζ.

22
. Sandford:
tricenta.

23
. Buck 1647 here inserts a marginal note:
Anno Domini 1484.
Buck 1619 sets this note next to the preceding line. Both texts seem to take the convoluted date as referring to the Battle of Bosworth.

24
. Buck 1647:
antique;
Sandford:
anteqζ.

25
. Buck 1647 has a marginal note at this point reading
Die 21 Aug.
Buck 1619 has
Die 22 Augusti
. The latter is clearly the correct reading.

26
. Buck 1647 and Sandford:
Redideram.

27
. Sandford:
rubre.

28
. Sandford:
debita iura.

29
. Sandford:
rose.

30
. Buck 1647:
precarem.

31
. Buck 1619:
levat;
Sandford:
pena fienda.

32
. Curiously, Nichols published a composite text containing elements of Buck 1619 (which was not published in his day) and Buck 1647. Nichols also noted the variant readings of Sandford. Despite occasional errors, Nichols notes more of Sandford's variant readings than does Kincaid in his edition of Buck 1619.

33
. W. Hutton (with additions by J. Nichols),
The Battle of Bosworth Field
, second edition, London, 1813 (reprinted Dursley, 1974), pp. 220–22. The translation may indeed be by Buck, but curiously it does not figure in the published editions of Buck's
History of Richard the Third.

34
. This is an error, the Latin text does not say this.

35
. The year date is incorrectly given in this translation.

36
. J. Nichols,
History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester
(4 vols, London, 1795–1811), vol. 1, part 2, p. 298.

37
. J. Weever,
Ancient Funeral Monuments
, London, 1631, p. 475; London, 1767, pp. 253–54.

38
. Weever,
Funeral Monuments
, 1631 edition, p. 476; 1767 edition, p. 254. For the positioning of this epitaph around the top of the tomb chest, see R. Marks and P. Williamson,
Gothic; Art for England 1400–1547
, London, 2003, p. 83.