LONDON — A 500-year-old mystery involving one of the greatest villains of Shakespeare’s plays has been solved. British academics said they have found the skeletal remains of King Richard III buried under a parking lot in the northern British city of Leicester, ABC News’s Tom Rivers reports. Like the great murder-mystery spun by The Bard, the truth has been now been uncovered thanks to 21st century science. “Beyond reasonable doubt, the individual exhumed at Greyfriars in September 2012 is indeed Richard III, the last Plantaganet King of England,” research team leader, Dr. Richard Buckley said in a press conference breaking the historic news. DNA from the skeleton matches a sample taken from a distant-living relative, a Canadian plumber living in the United Kingdom who was surprised to learn he was a descendant of Richard III, he said. In his play “Richard the Third,” William Shakespeare immortalized the king as a murderous hunch-backed usurper who left a trail of bodies as he shamelessly manuevered his way to the English throne. However, many historians disagree with Shakespeare, saying Richard III got bad press. They say Richard’s nearly three-year reign was marked by progressive reform but his reputation was sullied by the Tudors, the family that provided the kings and queens who supplanted him. The Tudors monarchs included Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Richard was the last English king to be killed in battle. He was killed in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, near the Leicester parking lot, and which ended the English civil war called the War of the Roses. The city of Leicester is heralding the discovery and has bought a building next to the parking lot to serve as a visitor center and museum. Richard’s bones will be interred in the city’s cathedral.
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 6:30 a.m.
