Today the burial rites for an English monarch began in the Midlands city of Leicester. The mortal remains are now lying in Leicester Cathedral awaiting interment on Thursday.
This is, of course, not Elizabeth II but Richard III, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland. He was originally buried in Greyfriars Priory in Leicester after dying on the field of battle in August 1485, the last English king to do so. With him ended the Plantagenent line. Today most know of him through the propaganda of the successor House of Tudor written by Shakespeare or the schoolboy mnemonic for remembering the colors of the spectrum "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain". A Tudor king, Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries including Greyfriars. The priory was demolished and the stone sold off for building work, including for the local parish church which is now the Cathedral.
Over the years, the site of the priory changed hands and was lately used for municipal buildings. After considerable research and fund raising by members of the Richard III Society an archaeological excavation of the site started. In the car park there was a space reserved for disabled drivers marked with an R. Acting on a feeling, the dig started there. The letter R represents the Latin "Rex" or King. Amazingly a skeleton was discovered bearing the marks of a violent death and with a distorted spine. Subsequent tests including DNA comparisons with a descendent of his sister confirmed the body as that of dead King. That descendant, a carpenter from Canada, made the coffin he now rests in. In a more extraordinary coincidence, the presenter of the Channel 4 TV program covering the rites has been found very recently to be another descendent from Richard's mother.
Richard remains a controversial king but today was a matter of returning the due honours and dignity that should have accompanied his original burial. Instead he was stripped naked, slung on the back of a horse and displayed to prove his death. Today, he was taken from Leicester University to Bosworth Field, the site of the battle where a 41 gun salute was given. From there he was taken to Leicester to be greeted by the mayor at Bow Bridge, the old city gates which Richard rode through on his way to his death and the place where his body was likely stabbed in the buttocks. Then it was on to the Cathedral though crowded streets where people thew white roses in the path of the cortege. At the Cathedral gates the University formally handed over the bones. They passed from an object of research to the remains of a mortal man. The coffin was taken into the church past two historians riding horses, all in armor contemporary to Richard.
To recognize that Richard was Catholic, the Archbishop of Westminster sanctified the coffin with incense and gave a sermon in the Anglican cathedral. On Thursday Richard's remains will be intered in the cathedral on soil collected from his birthplace in Fotheringhay Castle, the village he met his wife and from Bosworth Field.
The current Royal web site describes Richard as a "usurper" however it should be remembered that Parliament had declared his brother's sons illegitimate and that Richard was the right successor. Indeed, in that respect he was far less of a usurper than his own brother or indeed his successor. The Tudor propaganda has also concealed some significant political actions by Richard that we rely on today.
It was Richard who first ordered the laws of England to be written in English so that all could understand them. He introduced the concept of "innocent until proven guilty"; bail before trial was given for the first time and he introduced a scheme to allow the poor access to the law. There is of course the matter of the "Princes in the Tower". The Tudor accusations of direct involvement would almost certainly result in a not guilty verdict today. Richard was legally on the throne but there may well have been a movement to release them and re-install Edward V led by the boy's mother. That could well have precipitated their end.