There have been a few references on The Legionnaire of late to the Going Medieval podcast, available from History Hit, to which I have been listening for some time.  While on my walk today, I listened to an episode featuring an interview with Philippa Langley (Sally Hawkins).  Had it not been for her drive to locate the remains of the once disgraced King Richard III (1452-1485), I would not be writing this review.  Before embarking on this academic quest, she worked in marketing, was the mother of two boys, and did not stand out in any significant way.  Yet, she felt a calling, and the rest is figuratively and literally history.  It was not a religious one, though this Catholic could not help but notice the Faith in the background of these events.  Still, finding the former monarch of England is not really the point of this remarkable story.

When it comes to stories about The Lost King, prior to the 2012 rediscovery of Richard III’s (Harry Lloyd) remains, the common perception of him came from William Shakespeare’s play named after the monarch in question.  One evening after an exhausting day at work (more about this later), Philippa takes one of her sons to a performance of the Shakespeare production.  The way Richard III is depicted moves her, but instead of seeing her as the villain he is portrayed as, she feels sorry for him.  Her feeling, and she has lots of these, causes her to buy every book she can on the man.  As her research begins, she starts regularly seeing an image of the king.  It is one with whom she can interact, but it is not accurate to call it a ghost.  It also takes the form of the man who played him in the play.  Whatever it is, he becomes a muse for her that inspires her to keep going.  There are challenges.  Her family situation is strained.  Philippa is separated from her husband, John Langley (Steve Coogan).  He is around and they are friendly, but he lives in a different house.  Thus, they need two incomes in order to provide for their two sons.  This would not be an issue if not for the fact that the more she gets into Richard III, the less time she spends at work.  Indeed, she conceals, at first, joining the Richard III society and taking trips to Leicester, the city closest to the Bosworth battlefield where the ruler was killed.  The search becomes about locating Richard III’s final resting place, though she soon learns there are two theories on this matter.  The first and most widely accepted possibility is that his body was thrown into the River Soar, and thus could never be found.  The other is that he was buried somewhere in Leicester.  That town, though, is not a small place.  Even so, Philippa is given some insight from medieval historian John Ashdown-Hill, who had written on Richard III and had recently been able to sequence Richard III’s deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).  Aside from being able to match any remains to the actual person, John suggests that if they were to be found, they would be in an area that was still open.  Because of Richard III’s royal status, and due to him being Catholic, if he was not dumped into a body of water, then he would have been interred in a holy place.  Since he was not in Leicester Cathedral, that left the no longer standing Greyfriar’s church.  That is a whole other Catholic discussion for another time and place.  Now having a more concrete geographical spot to investigate, Philippa approaches the Leicester City Council to get the permissions and funding to dig.  This is important because the target site is a parking lot behind a government building, though they use the appropriate British terms to describe it.  On hand to hear Philippa’s pitch is Richard Taylor (Lee Ingleby), who represents the University of Leicester.  He is incredulous of the work of an amateur, but Philippa gets the support she needs from Sheila Lock (Amanda Abbington), chair of the Leicester City Council.  It should also be noted that John agrees to move home to help with money and watching their sons while she focuses on the work.  With all this, she still has to convince Richard Buckley (Mark Addy), a local archaeologist with the University of Leicester, to help with the project.  Like others, he is also suspicious of Philippa.  However, when the school threatens cutting funding to his department, he realizes he must seek revenue from outside sources.  Hence, Buckley circles back to Philippa, but stresses that the profession of archaeology is not about going after bodies but buildings.  For him, it becomes about finding Greyfriar’s church.  Unfortunately, the ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey they do of the area does not turn up anything significant, and almost all their financial backers pull their funding.  In desperation, Philippa turns to the Richard III society, and money pours in from around the world.  Thus, the project begins putting in their trenches.  Ironically, under a section of the lot marked with an “R,” they immediately find bones.  Buckley is not as enthusiastic about these findings, claiming they likely belong to a monk.  It is John that reminds Philippa that she is the source of the funding, and she uses this influence to demand that they excavate the rest of the body.  To everyone’s astonishment, including Philippa’s, they turn out to be Richard III.  Sadly, the story does not end at this point.  In the aftermath of the find, Taylor attempts to take all the credit for the discovery for the University of Leicester, including leaving Philippa off the panel that revealed it to the world.  Another argument arises with Taylor when she learns that they are going to not give Richard III a royal coat of arms on his tomb, preferring to still think of him as a usurper.  As such, instead of attending the banquet celebrating the momentous occasion, she opts to give a lecture about the experience to elementary aged students.  The movie ends with the re-internment of Richard’s bones in Leicester Cathedral, and how she regained some of the recognition owed her.

Actually, it is more accurate to say that Philippa is trying to regain recognition for The Lost King.  From reading my synopsis, you might think her only motivation is the sympathy she feels for the way Richard III is remembered through sources like Shakespeare.  This is suitable, even laudable, but there is also an aspect of empathy for her.  Philippa suffers from myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a condition largely characterized by bouts of extreme lethargy most often brought on by stress.  She is often judged in terms of her condition, though she is aware of her limitations.  It is how God created her, and no matter her abilities, she is worthy of the dignity due to all His creations.  Though it is never put in Christian terms, I argue that it is this desire for the same kind of dignity to be afforded Richard III that is at the heart of her actions.  As stated earlier, Richard III was viewed as a usurper.  When his brother, Edward IV, died, the previous king left behind two young sons that should have been heirs to the throne.  Though there is no proof of this, the rumor soon spread that the princes’ uncle, Richard of York and the future Richard III, had them killed in the Tower of London before taking the crown for himself.  It is stories like that which get magnified by Shakespeare, who turned Richard III into a villain symbolized by a hunched back.  My intention here is not to give you a definitive answer as to Richard III’s character.  Indeed, it is John that points out that all of us have bad and good traits, which aligns with Christian thought on the human condition.  What Philippa comes to believe is that Richard III was not the tyrant that everyone believed him to be.  To be sure, there have been historical figures worthy of vilification.  Certain authoritarian leaders come to mind, and I will leave it to you to fill in the blanks.  What makes those easier calls is historical evidence.  For the rest, we have to remember to give people the grace that God intends for each one of us.  For Richard III, instead of evidence, we have relied on hearsay and plays written over a hundred years after the fact.  Coming to negative conclusions about our brothers and sisters in Christ without concrete knowledge is not Christian behavior.

Of course, I cannot say that watching The Lost King would also be Christian behavior.  It is a good movie, but I can imagine most people being turned off by the subject.  That is a shame because it is a historical redemption story for two people.  Because of that, I say go for it.