A Historical Hero - by Kate Walker

A long long time ago – too many years ago than I care to remember, I  first started to  get to know some of the history plays of Shakespeare.  There was a  television  series called  An Age of Kings  in 1960, one that lasted for 15 weeks, and which showed all  Shakespeare’s history plays one after the other.  One of those plays was Richard III  where Richard was shown as a violent,  cruel and conniving character.  That was how I first thought of him.  But of course Shakespeare was writing the sort of play that would please the royals of his time – the Tudor  dynasty who had  hated Ricard and fought to drive him from the throne.

Then two things happened – one was that I read a book by Josephine Tey called Daughter of Time in which a modern day detective, confined to bed in hospital, set out to investigate the case of those  ‘murdered’ Princes in the Tower as if it was a current day crime. His conclusion was that Richard of Gloucester was not guilty of the crime everyone thinks he committed. 

Then I went to the London Portrait Gallery  -  there I found a painting of the man himself. Richard didn’t look anything like the cruel and violent killed of Shakespeare’s portrayal . His portrait showed a man who was too old for his real years -  Richard was only  32  when he died. That’s the sort of age of so many of my heroes when they are really just beginning their adult lives.   This painting  also made  the  king look like a man worried by life, taking a lot on his shoulders.   He didn’t look like the monster he was painted. 

As a result, for years I’ve been fascinated by this intriguing character.  I read  so many other books – fiction like Sunne in Splendour, We Speak No Treason,  and  factual books  to try and get as cl

ose to the truth as I could.  I even joined the Richard III Society – and when I met my husband, I found that he too was a member of that group, someone who believed that Richard had been maligned.
Daughter of Time in which a modern day detective, confined to bed in hospital, set out to investigate the case of those  ‘murdered’ Princes in the Tower as if it was a current day crime. His conclusion was that Richard of Gloucester was not guilty of the crime everyone thinks he committed.

Back then we never expected that the exciting discovery of ‘The King in The Carpark’ would ever actually happen. We were excited  when the archaeological dig in  - of all places  - a Leicester carpark discovered the remains of  a man, buried there long ago. Even  more exciting, tests and DNA examination proved that this was in fact the skeleton of  Richard III himself,  killed at the Battle of Bosworth and buried hastily in an ancient abbey.  They even managed to do a facial reconstruction to show what he might well have looked like in  life

Last year there was a ceremonial funeral for this long-lost king. He was buried in Leicester Cathedral with the sort of ceremony he never had  back in  1485.   Because of my interest in his story, and my fascination with the man I promised myself – and my husband – that one day we would go and visit the tomb in Leicester Cathedral.  So that’s where I’m going today. 

All those years ago, I never expected that the  king’s remains would be found – the story was always that his body had been thrown into the river and washed away.  So it will a poignant moment to actually see where he is buried. It won’t give me any further evidence as to the truth of who really actually murdered the

Princes in The Tower (if in fact they were actually murdered ) but it will be a special sort of a pilgrimage and a suitable closure to a story that has fascinated me for years.

I am so looking forward to it

Do you have a historical character who fascinates you like this?  Or something that you have  long wanted to do that you have finally managed to achieve? 

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