How a Psychic Experience Led to the Body of Richard III
Philippa Langley, who is president of the Richard III society, had an overwhelming feeling she was walking on the grave of the late king in 2012. She was right.
Richard III was not treated kindly by history. He was murdered on August the 22nd in 1485 during the last major battle in the War of Roses, the Battle of Bosworth field. He was buried in a makeshift grave in a friary nearby. In 1538, the friary was dissolved and the grave was lost to history. Some rumors circulated that the body was thrown into the River Soar at the Bow Bridge, which was nearby.
In either case, the location of Richard III’s body has remained a mystery for over 500 years.
In 2012, the president of the Richard III Society was on a trip to Leicester where she was looking to find more clues as to the location of Richard III’s remains. Recently, they had found living descendants of Richard III and had DNA samples to make any connection they could find.
Some friends had recommended that Langley park in a parking lot, which was used by social services. When she was getting out of her car, she noticed something was strange.
I am standing on Richard’s grave.
Philippa Langley
A year later, Langley returned and the feeling was even stronger. Plus, for some unknown reason, someone had spray painted an R over the parking space.
After her initial shock, Langley convinced local authorities to dig underneath the parking space where they discovered a skeleton. The skeleton was not entirely normal because the individual suffered severe scoliosis, something that was not known about Richard III.
So when I was there again and they dug in that spot and the leg bones were first revealed, yes, I was overcome with emotion. Everyone else was looking at old bones, I was looking at the real man, and I was seeing the man.
On the exhumation day, that really got to me, because I was told that he was a hunchback, and that didn’t fit with everything we knew about this man … luckily, once they got him back to the lab, they realised that they were wrong.
Philippa Langley
However, the DNA results came back as conclusive. Richard III had been found, by nothing more than premonition. Langley said that she had spent so much time thinking about Richard III that she saw him as a living person rather than a historical figure. That may be good advice for any budding psychics out there!
