The University of Leicester and Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society, are starting an archaeological dig to find the remains of King Richard III, the only English monarch whose resting place remains unknown.
On Saturday 25 August 2012 – five hundred years after King Richard III was buried in Leicester – the historic archaeological project will begin with the aim of discovering whether Britain’s last Plantagenet King lies buried in Leicester City Centre.
Richard was killed in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth (the last significant battle of the War of the Roses that pitched Richard’s Yorkists against the Tudor Lancastrians), just up the road from the City of Leicester. His body was brought back and publicly displayed, then interred by the Grey Friars, a local order of Franciscan monks. A few years later, a tomb was erected within the Grey Friars’ church. Meanwhile the victor of Bosworth, Henry Tudor, was crowned King Henry VII – then in 1538 his son, Henry VIII, split from Rome. Across the land monasteries were demolished and dissolved, and the Grey Friars were no exception.
Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net