Paternity result from DNA study on Richard III skeleton raises doubts about royal family lineage

REMEMBER when they found the body of King Richard III buried under a car park? His DNA has big implications for the royal family.

FILE- This is an undated file photo released by the University of Leicester, England, showing a portrait of Britain's King Richard II who's skeletal remains were found underneath a car park in Leicester, England, in September 2012, after being missing for around 500 years. According to research published Tuesday Dec. 2, 2014, in the Nature Communications journal, scientists compared the skeleton’s DNA to predict eye and hair color of the long lost king. However samples from living relatives found no matches, a discovery that could throw the nobility of some royal descendants into question, including Henry V, Henry VI and the entire Tudor royal dynasty. But Kevin Schurer, pro vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester, said England’s current royal family does not claim Richard III as a relative and shouldn’t be worried about the legitimacy of their royal line. (AP Photo/Society Of Antiquities Of London via University of Leicester, FILE)

A DNA study confirming that a skeleton found in a carpark in 2012 was that of Richard III also found evidence of “false paternity” that raises doubts about the royal claims of centuries of British monarchs, researchers say.

The study said the remains matched the DNA of two descendants of Richard III’s sister, Anne of York, meaning researchers are certain “beyond reasonable doubt” that the skeleton is indeed the king’s.

But there was no match through the male line of the family, descended from John of Gaunt, the brother of Richard III’s great-grandfather.

That means that at some point there must have been a child whose presumed father according to the official genealogy was not his real father.

Royal mystery ... the remains of Richard III, which were discovered underneath a car park in Leicester in 2012. Picture: AP Photo/University of Leicester,

The skeleton of the king, who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, was found under a car park in Leicester in central England.

It is due to be reinterred in the city in March next year.

“A false paternity event (or events) at some point(s) in this genealogy could be of key historical significance,” said a paper in the journal Nature Communications by a team led by the University of Leicester geneticist Turi King.

At a press conference in London, Kevin Schurer, a deputy chancellor at the university, said: “What we discovered is that there is a break in the chain ... We don’t know where that break occurred.”

“We are not in any way indicating that Her Majesty (reigning Queen Elizabeth II) should not be on the throne,” he said, adding that the history of the British monarchy took “all kinds of twists and turns”.

The study said the result could question the legitimacy of Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI and “the entire Tudor dynasty” starting with Henry VII followed by Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.