Philippa Langley | |
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Born | |
Nationality | British |
Education | Hummersknott School, Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College |
Occupation(s) | Writer and producer |
Organization | Richard III Society |
Known for | Discovery and exhumation of Richard III |
Notable work |
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Television |
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Spouse | John Langley (separated) [1] |
Children | 2 [2] |
Awards |
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Honours | MBE [5] |
Website | www |
Philippa Jayne Langley MBE (born 29 June 1962) [6] is a British writer, producer, and Ricardian, who is best known for her role in the discovery and 2012 exhumation of Richard III, as part of the Looking for Richard project, for which she was awarded an MBE. Langley has written books and appeared in film-length documentaries on the search for Richard III and was portrayed in the 2022 film The Lost King .
Langley was born in British Kenya and at the age of two moved with her parents to Blackwell, [7] in Darlington, England. [8] In Darlington, she attended Hummersknott School, [9] and Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, [10] and embarked on a career in marketing, eventually settling in Edinburgh. [11]
Langley's interest in Richard III began in 1998, when she read American historian Paul Murray Kendall's biography of the king, saying: "... it just blew me away. I thought, this is a man whose real story has never been told on screen, never". [12] [13] [14] Langley had been diagnosed with ME and had abandoned her job in marketing to write a screenplay about Richard III more aligned with historians such as Kendall. [2] [15] Langley formed the Scottish branch of the Richard III Society. [15] In May 2004, she visited various sites in Leicester associated with Richard III, including the three car-parks identified in 1975 as possible burial locations. [lower-alpha 1] [15] Langley entered the Social Services car park, and at the northern end felt a "strange sensation" come over her, saying "I knew in my innermost being that Richard's body lay there". [15] [2] In 2005, on completing her first draft, she returned to the car park and experienced the same feeling; when she looked down, someone had painted a reserved "R" over the space; [2] she recounted "it told me all I needed to know". [15] [19]
In 2005, Langley engaged with Dr. John Ashdown-Hill, who had traced Richard's mitochondrial DNA to a living descendant in Canada, thus enabling the identification of any remains. [20] [13] A 2007 dig that failed to find Greyfriars, a possible burial site, prompted further research by Langley, Ashdown-Hill, and independently by Annette Carson, which narrowed the location of Greyfriars to the Social Services car park. [20] [21] In February 2009, at the Cramond Inn in Edinburgh, Langley formed the Looking for Richard project to get the car park excavated, with Dr. David and Wendy Johnson, and later Ashdown-Hill and Carson, and chair of the Richard III Society, Dr. Phil Stone. [20] [22]
In late 2010, Langley won the backing of Leicester City Council (LCC) CEO Sheila Lock for a dig and television documentary to promote Leicester's association with Richard III; if any remains were found, they were to be buried in Leicester Cathedral. [20] [14] LCC would not provide direct funding, but as owners of the car park, they were able to approve and license the excavations, and introduce Langley to local state sponsors, particularly Leicester Promotions. Langley contracted the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) to do the excavations. [23] In August 2011, inconclusive ground penetrating radar results led to withdrawals of sponsorship. [13] Langley led an online crowdfunding appeal to worldwide Richard III Society members, who filled the gap and provided £17,367 of the £32,867 cost for the 2-week excavation. [lower-alpha 2] [20] On 25 August 2012, three days after the 527th anniversary of Richard III's death, [24] ULAS commenced the excavation and dug the first trench over the "R" mark, and after a few hours, discovered a skeleton that was later confirmed to be the remains of Richard III. [25]
On 4 February 2013, the University of Leicester presented their results to the world's press (they had funded a 3rd week of excavations, and led the DNA confirmation using Ashdown-Hill's work). [26] [27] Langley felt "sidelined" at the presentation, [2] [27] [28] while the University presented itself as "leading" the search (despite their earlier scepticism). [26] [29] ULAS kept Langley's name off the exhumation licence, even though she was their client; [2] this also gave the University of Leicester control of the remains but inadvertently enabled a legal action by the Plantagenet Alliance that lasted several years. [14]
In late 2022, the situation flared up with the release of The Lost King , a dramatisation of Langley's search. [2] [26] At the film's release, director Stephen Frears said: "They [the University] put a poster on the side of a bus saying 'We found the king!'", and "Well, Leicester University is a corporation and this is really about corporatism". [29] The University issued statements rebutting aspects of the dramatisation in the film, [26] while Langley, [2] [28] [18] [30] and the film's producers, [29] [27] issued their own rebuttals, [26] with Frears saying: "nothing has turned up yet which makes me think we got something wrong". [31]
The Richard III Society released a statement in support of the film, including the recognition of Langley and Ashdown-Hill's roles in the discovery, and the recognition of the importance of the financial commitment that worldwide members of the Society made to the success of the project. [21]
In 2014, Langley started a project to locate the remains of Henry I of England, who was buried at Reading Abbey, but which later fell into ruin, [32] which became the "Hidden Abbey Project". [33] [34] [35] In 2020, Langley said that she believed that the grave of Henry I was beneath the western car park of the former Reading gaol. [36] In 2021, Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer joined the crowdfunding programme to begin excavating the site. [37] [38] In 2023, Langley was raising the estimated £55,000 needed for an excavation of the car park, which ironically contained a space marked with a "K". [39]
In 2022, Langley led a "Missing Princes Project" to discover the fate of the Princes in the Tower. [11] [40] [41] [42] In 2023 she claimed to have discovered new evidence that disproved the theory that Richard III was responsible for the deaths of the princes. Along with Rob Rinder, she hosted a Channel 4 programme called Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence, in which she revealed her own theories. [43] Although praising Langley's discoveries, The Spectator's reviewer called the programme "a calculated insult to the viewer". [44]
From August 2011 to February 2013, Langley acted as associate producer of the Channel 4 documentary film, Richard III: The King in the Car Park. [26] [45] It won the 2013 Royal Television Society award for History, [4] and was nominated for the 2014 BAFTA award for Specialist Factual. [46] The film was the highest rated specialist factual documentary in Channel 4's history, [47] and led to the follow-up short-documentary film, Richard III: The Unseen Story. [26]
In 2013, Langley co-authored with military historian Michael K. Jones, The King's Grave: The Search for Richard III (the first edition was published in New York with the title The King’s Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds [48] ). [49] [19] [50]
In 2013, it was reported that Langley hoped her completed screenplay on Richard III would become a film, with Richard portrayed by English actor Richard Armitage. [49] She had titled her screenplay, Blood Royal, and based it on Bosworth 1485: Psychology of a Battle, by Michael K. Jones. [8] [51]
In 2014, Langley detailed the years of research behind the Looking For Richard project that took her to the northern end of the car park in Leicester in search of the church and grave in Finding Richard III: The Official Account of Research by the Retrieval & Reburial Project. The co-authored work includes chapters from Looking For Richard project members, John Ashdown-Hill and David and Wendy Johnson, and was edited by Annette Carson. [52]
In 2022, Langley and Jones re-wrote and expanded their 2013 book under the new title, The Lost King: The Search for Richard III. It was released alongside the film, The Lost King , with Stephen Frears, Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope writing the screenplay, and Sally Hawkins playing Langley. [26] [29]
Prior to the discovery, Langley was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), which meant that she had to spend days building up her "sleep-bank" before making excursions to Leicester while researching locations for Richard III's remains. [2]
She was married but later separated from her husband, John Langley; they have two sons. [2] In 2022, Steve Coogan, who plays John Langley in The Lost King said "... they've got a very interesting relationship because they're not married anymore, but they both still love each other, and they're still in each other's lives", and "I've never seen that depicted on screen before ... and I wanted to just show that." [1]
Richard III was king of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.
The Princes in the Tower refers to the mystery of the fate of the deposed King Edward V of England and his younger brother Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, heirs to the throne of King Edward IV of England. The brothers were the only sons of the king by his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, living at the time of their father's death in 1483. Aged 12 and 9 years old, respectively, they were lodged in the Tower of London by their paternal uncle and England's regent, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, supposedly in preparation for Edward V's forthcoming coronation. Before the young king could be crowned, however, he and his brother were declared illegitimate. Gloucester ascended the throne as Richard III.
Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York was the fourth surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. Like many medieval English princes, Edmund gained his nickname from his birthplace: Kings Langley Palace in Hertfordshire. He was the founder of the House of York, but it was through the marriage of his younger son, Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, to Anne de Mortimer, great-granddaughter of Edmund's elder brother Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, that the House of York made its claim to the English throne in the Wars of the Roses. The other party in the Wars of the Roses, the incumbent House of Lancaster, was formed from descendants of Edmund's elder brother John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, Edward III's third son.
Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, was the sixth child and second son of King Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville, born in Shrewsbury. Richard and his older brother, who briefly reigned as King Edward V of England, mysteriously disappeared shortly after their uncle Richard III became king in 1483.
The Cathedral Church of Saint Martin, Leicester, commonly known as Leicester Cathedral, is a Church of England cathedral in Leicester, England and the seat of the Bishop of Leicester. The church was elevated to a collegiate church in 1922 and made a cathedral in 1927 following the establishment of a new Diocese of Leicester in 1926.
Kings Langley is a village, former manor and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, 21 miles north-west of Westminster in the historic centre of London and to the south of the Chiltern Hills. It now forms part of the London commuter belt. The village is divided between two local government districts by the River Gade with the larger western portion in the Borough of Dacorum and smaller part, to the east of the river, in Three Rivers District. It was the location of Kings Langley Palace and the associated King's Langley Priory, of which few traces survive.
Ricardians are people who dispute the negative posthumous reputation of King Richard III of England. Richard III has long been portrayed unfavourably, most notably in Shakespeare's play Richard III, in which he is portrayed as murdering his 12-year-old nephew Edward V to secure the English throne for himself. Ricardians believe these portrayals are false and politically motivated by Tudor propaganda.
Blackwell is a suburb in the borough of Darlington and the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is situated towards the edge of the West End of Darlington, beside the River Tees. Blackwell consists of large 1930s style semi-detached and detached houses, and private, newly built homes. Blackwell Grange is an 18th-century country house converted into a hotel.
Paul Murray Kendall was an American academic and historian, who taught for over 30 years at Ohio University and then, after his retirement, at the University of Kansas.
Hummersknott Academy is a secondary school in Darlington in the north east of England. It schools approximately 1,250 pupils aged eleven to sixteen.
Richard III of England has been depicted in literature and popular culture many times. In the Tudor period he was invariably portrayed as a villain, most famously in Shakespeare's play Richard III, but also in other literature of the period. Richard's life was not much depicted again until the 20th century when the "Ricardian" movement sought to restore his reputation. Much of more recent creative literature has portrayed him in a positive light. However his reputation as a hunchbacked villain has remained a familiar historical cliché within popular culture.
The year 2012 in archaeology involved some significant events.
Greyfriars, Leicester, was a friary of the Order of Friars Minor, commonly known as the Franciscans, established on the west side of Leicester by 1250, and dissolved in 1538. Following dissolution the friary was demolished and the site levelled, subdivided, and developed over the following centuries. The locality has retained the name Greyfriars particularly in the streets named "Grey Friars", and the older "Friar Lane".
The remains of Richard III, the last English king killed in battle and last king of the House of York, were discovered within the site of the former Grey Friars Priory in Leicester, England, in September 2012. Following extensive anthropological and genetic testing, the remains were reinterred at Leicester Cathedral on 26 March 2015.
David Baldwin was a British historian, author and former university lecturer, who lived near Leicester, England.
Louis John Frederick Ashdown-Hill MBE FSA, commonly known as John Ashdown-Hill, was an independent historian and author of books on late medieval English history with a focus on the House of York and Richard III of England. Ashdown-Hill died on 18 May 2018; he had had motor neurone disease for some time.
Turi Emma King is a Canadian-British professor of Public Engagement and Genetics at the University of Leicester. In 2012, King led the DNA verification during the exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England. She is also known for featuring with Stacey Dooley on the BBC Two genealogy series, DNA Family Secrets.
King Richard III Visitor Centre is a museum in Leicester, England that showcases the life of King Richard III and the story of the discovery, exhumation, and reburial of his remains in 2012-2015.
Annette Josephine Carson is a British non-fiction author specialising in history, biography and aviation, with a particular interest in King Richard III. Since 2002 she has also been an advocate for UK state pension parity for UK expatriates.
The Lost King is a 2022 British biographical film directed by Stephen Frears. Written by Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope, it is based on the 2013 book The King's Grave: The Search for Richard III by Philippa Langley and Michael Jones. It is a dramatisation of the story of Philippa Langley, the woman who initiated the search to find King Richard III's remains under a car park in Leicester, and her treatment by the University of Leicester in the claiming of credit for the discovery. Coogan and Harry Lloyd also feature in the cast.
A team led by Philippa Langley, who found the skeleton of King Richard III under a car park in 2012, have uncovered what they believe to be clues to the survival of Edward V in the Devon village of Coldridge....
Langley's invaluable contribution to the investigation is undisputed; she envisioned, facilitated and drove it for years. Her confidential, breathy, diary-style chapters recreate the immediacy of the dig for the reader . . . The Search for Richard III makes for compelling reading"
In sum, this is a short but scholarly book, well written and packed with facts: perfect for anyone who wishes to understand the background to research for Richard III without the media sensationalism.