King Richard III - the last Yorkist king of England - was most likely to have been killed by two fatal blows to the head and one to his pelvis, according to a new study.
The research led by the University of Leicester in the UK gives a blow-by-blow account of the injuries inflicted on King Richard III's body at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485.
Modern forensic analysis of the King's skeletal remains reveals that three of his injuries had the potential to cause death quickly - two to the skull and one to the pelvis.
The remains of King Richard III - the last English monarch to die in battle - were found under a car park in Leicester by archaeologists from the University of Leicester, and subsequently identified by a multidisciplinary team.
The forensic imaging team used whole body CT scans and micro-CT imaging of injured bones to analyse trauma to the 500-year-old skeleton carefully, and to determine which of the King's wounds might have proved fatal.
They also analysed tool marks on bone to identify the medieval weapons potentially responsible for his injuries.
The results, published in The Lancet journal, show that Richard's skeleton sustained 11 wounds at or near the time of his death - nine of them to the skull, clearly inflicted in battle and suggesting he had removed or lost his helmet, and two to the post-cranial skeleton.
"Richard's injuries represent a sustained attack or an attack by several assailants with weapons from the later medieval period. The wounds to the skull suggest that he was not wearing a helmet, and the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands indicate that he was otherwise still armoured at the time of his death," Sarah Hainsworth, study author and Professor of Materials Engineering at Leicester said.
The investigators, led by Dr Jo Appleby of the University of Leicester School of Archaeology and Ancient History, said that the postcranial injuries, including the potentially fatal one to the pelvis, might have been inflicted after Richard's death, on the basis that had he been alive he would have been wearing a specific type of armour worn in the late 15th century that would have prevented such wounds.
"The most likely injuries to have caused the King's death are the two to the inferior aspect of the skull - a large sharp force trauma possibly from a sword or staff weapon, such as a halberd or bill, and a penetrating injury from the tip of an edged weapon," Professor Guy Rutty, study co-author, from the East Midlands Pathology Unit at Leicester, said.
"Richard's head injuries are consistent with some near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which suggest that Richard abandoned his horse after it became stuck in a mire and was killed while fighting his enemies," he said.
