The new film The Lost King is about one of the most important historical discoveries in recent years: the unearthing of the bones of Richard III underneath a car park in Leicester in 2012. It’s also the story of a remarkable woman, Philippa Langley, and her efforts to find the king’s remains against all the odds.
Played by Sally Hawkins, with Steve Coogan as her former husband, Philippa is shown facing ridicule as she becomes fascinated by Richard and determined to change the perception of him as the evil hunchback we know from Shakespeare’s play.
For almost a decade, Philippa, a mother of two who had to quit her job in advertising when she was diagnosed with ME, painstakingly researched his possible burial location. After Richard’s defeat by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, when he was killed by Tudor soldiers, some historians thought his body had been dumped in the River Soar, while others maintained it had been buried in Greyfriars church in what is now Leicester city centre.
Philippa’s findings led her to believe the latter was true – and during a trip to Leicester, she stood in the adult social services car park and felt a strong intuition that he was there. She battled to rally academics, council officials and fellow supporters of Richard Plantaganet – known as Ricardians – to the cause of digging up the king whose grave was thought to have been lost forever.
On August 25, 2012, she was vindicated when Richard’s remains were found, attracting worldwide interest and breathing new life into research of his life.
Here, Philippa, 60, tells Polly Dunbar what motivated her inspiring search and how it feels for the new film, directed by Stephen Frears and co-written by Coogan, to finally put her story centre stage.
Q: When did your fascination with Richard III begin?
A: In 1992, when I bought a book about Richard. It was based on contemporary source materials from his own lifetime, and there was overwhelming evidence for him being loyal, brave, pious - just the complete 180 to who I thought I was going to be reading about, which is the Shakespearean character. That really got me hooked, because I couldn't understand. Why do they keep telling that story the whole time?
Q: What else did you learn about Richard that surprised you?
A: He introduced three legal principles that we still rely on today: the presumption of innocence, blind justice, and clear title to property [proof of ownership].
Q: So how did the view of him as hunched and scheming become so entrenched?
A: The victors write the story. It was quite necessary for Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII, to ensure that Richard was seen as being less, because he wanted to portray himself as a saviour. And then Shakespeare went with that narrative. I think if Shakespeare hadn't written a play about him, it might have been a bit different.
Q: He’s perhaps best known for murdering the two Princes in the Tower: his 12-year-old nephew Edward V, who was expecting to crowned king following the death of his father, Edward IV, and nine-year-old Richard. What do you believe happened?
A: There's no evidence for any murder, whether by Richard or anyone else. There's loads of rumour, hearsay and gossip but no evidence. I'm working on a huge research initiative called The Missing Princes Project and next year, there will be a major announcement.
Q: What was it that made you work so hard to find Richard’s grave?
A: I had a rather unconventional start to the journey by having an intuitive experience in the car park in Leicester. I was standing beside this letter R, which was clearly for reserved parking, but had the strong feeling that I was walking on his grave. And it was that area where my research strongly suggested the church and grave were - and that area that he was found.
Q: In the film, people clearly think you’re very eccentric. Did you experience that in real life?
A: No, not really. Because the intuitive experience, I kept hidden for quite a while, because I knew how that would be interpreted.
I wasn't a professor or a doctor, and I was a female who was interested in Richard III. I used to get asked why are you in love with Richard III? I thought, if I was Philip Langley, would you ask me that question? It is insulting. It diminishes and it demeans, and it has to stop.
Q: How hard was it to raise the money needed for the dig?
A: It was really tough, because at the time in Leicester, nobody believed that Richard would be found. It was a really difficult sell. Everyone just felt it was a wild goose chase, and I was a bit mad to be doing it.
Q: It took enormous energy for you to do this – how did you manage it while suffering from ME?
A: It was absolutely huge. I lived in Edinburgh, which was a long way from Leicester, so I had sleep bank before I went. You feel like a human battery, you have to be fully charged so that you can be absolutely normal, and not present any symptoms. And then when I got back from Leicester, I would sleep bank again, in order to get over having to do it.
In the film, the Philippa character says, “I've got ME”, but I couldn't let anybody know because it was taboo. You were seen as a bit mad, it's all in your head, pull yourself together. It was a really odd thing to have. So I had to hide it.
Q: Once the digging began, led by archaeologist Richard Buckley, how quickly were the remains found?
A: As the client, I was very clear that the northern end of the social services car park was my key area, so that’s where we started. And we found leg bones on day one. The archaeologists felt they belonged to a friar, so I had to pay extra money to get the rest of those remains exhumed. They were exhumed on day 12 and they were him.
Q: How did you feel when you first saw the bones?
A: It was a shock, because he was hunched in the grave, and the osteologist quite rightly said, “This looks like a hunchback”. [Ricardians believed the stories of his hunched back were propaganda to make him appear monstrous.] But what they discovered when they got him back to the laboratory was that the grave had been cut too short for him, hence why he was hunched. He had a scoliosis instead, which would have given him one shoulder slightly higher than the other.
Q: What kept you going in spite of all the hurdles?
A: Richard wasn’t a usurper, but a legal king – we have the Act of Parliament to prove it, even though Henry VII tried to destroy it. So I wanted the story to change. But also, he was an incredibly brave soldier who died on the field of battle, and I wanted to bury him with dignity and honour and respect. That was the end game. We got that. Truth matters across the board, and where we have documentary evidence and facts, at every point, they must counter rumour, hearsay, and gossip. What is really heartening for me is that young historians contact me quite regularly and say that they are now questioning. They're not just repeating what they've been told. And that's all we can ask. Because if they question, they're going to make their own discoveries, for sure.
Q: Why did you feel sidelined after Richard was found?
A: As you see in the film, for the big press announcement when Richard was identified – the big reveal - I wasn't allowed to sit on the panel. I was put into the audience. And I was only allowed to speak last at the very end when the news feed had been cut. So I did feel marginalised and sidelined and then the university's big PR machine kicked in and said it had led the search for Richard III. And they didn't. I did.
Q: How important is it for you to set the record straight about your part in the story?
A: When Steve [Coogan] contacted me and said he was interested in my search for Richard, he said, “We saw you in the documentary about it in 2013, but then you seem to have disappeared. Why was that?” I said, “I don't know.” I think Steve thought, well, that's not right. When he understood the eight-year journey I had, he said, I think we need to tell this story.
For me, it’s really important because I don't want this [sidelining] to happen to another Philippa Langley. If somebody is not a doctor or a professor, but has done research and looked into something, they should be taken seriously, and be afforded the generosity of keeping them in the story and not diminishing them. I hope with this film, it won't happen again.
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