As if there were not enough mysteries surrounding the discovery of the body of Richard III beneath a Leicester car park, a new one has emerged: why was he buried surrounded by women?
The question was raised after experts opened a lead coffin close to the site of Richard’s hastily dug grave at the Grey Friars friary. Inside the coffin, which was discovered inside a much larger limestone sarcophagus during a second excavation of the site, archaeologists found the skeleton of an elderly woman.
Academics at the University of Leicester believe that she could have been an early benefactor of the friary, as radiocarbon dating shows she might have been buried not long after the church was completed in 1250, although analysis shows her death