OLD foes have united in the battle to shed light on the fate of England's last Plantagenet King.

The warring factions of York and Leicester joined forces to carry out the definitive tests that show remains found underneath a municipal car park really are those of Richard III.

Despite arguments between the two cities over where Richard should be laid to rest, academics from the universities of both Leicester and York have been involved in DNA studies to prove beyond reasonable doubt that his burial place in the medieval Greyfriars site in Leicester has been found.

And the hunch-backed king was probably blond haired and blue eyed, unlike the well known portraits of a dark haired and dark eyed man.

The team was led by Leicester's Dr Turi King and included members of the Department of Biology at York, and carried out key parts of the analysis in York.

Dr King said: "Even with our highly conservative analysis, the evidence is overwhelming that these are indeed the remains of King Richard III, thereby closing an over 500 year old missing person’s case."

The research used DNA from seven of Richard III’s living relatives and looked at several genetic markers, from both the maternal and paternal lines, comparing results from the skeleton to the living relatives.

While the paternal line markers differ between the skeleton's remains and the living relatives - something the scientists say in unsurprising after so many generations - the maternal results show a genetic match.

The genes have also given the researchers an idea of Richard's appearance - and show he most probably had blond hair and almost certainly blue eyes - as he is depicted in the oldest surviving portrait.

Ancient DNA expert, Professor Michi Hofreiter, an Honorary Professor of Biology at York, added: “It’s amazing how much we can deduce from ancient DNA today. Making inferences about hair or eye colour of a person just from some DNA snippets obtained from a skeleton would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.”

York's Professor Mark Ormrod added: “The University of York is immensely proud of its contribution to the Richard III project. These exciting results are testimony to the positive collaboration between two great historical cities associated with Richard - Leicester and York – and the crucial part they have played in identifying and commemorating England’s last Yorkist king.“

The research team now plans to sequence the complete genome of Richard III to learn more about him.