Richard III

Most of the findings – that Richard III died violently in a battle at Bosworth on a particular date and was buried at Leicester friary – was well known already.

If he suffered from scoliosis, hitherto attacked as Tudor propaganda, it strengthens the case for crediting the other allegations made about him.

Small size, slender and effeminate build contrast with his forceful and even militaristic reputation.

The implication is some sort of physical crisis early in life that needs pinpointing in time.

To find that he suffered from internal parasites and ate a lot of fish is not recorded but always likely if we thought about it, which we did not.

Today sees the reinterment of King Richard III at Leicester Cathedral.

Many of you will have read my low-down on the events in Tudor Life magazine, but here are some of the events happening today and links to keep you updated on them:

10.30am (some say 10.45am) – Procession of significant guests from Leicester Guildhall to Leicester Cathedral.
11.30am - Service of Reinterment of the Remains of King Richard III in the presence of the Most Right Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and senior clergy from both dioceses, and other Christian denominations alongside representatives of the World Faiths. Invitation only. It will be broadcast line on the UK's Channel 4.
5.15pm – Solemn Choral Evensong at York Minster, York. The Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, Dean of York Minster, explains “On the evening of the re-interment of King Richard III it is right that the people of York and Yorkshire will have the opportunity to gather in the Minster to pray and to remember the death of the King at the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The service of Choral Evensong will include a prayer composed for the service by the Dean of Leicester. I am glad the cathedrals of both York and Leicester will take the opportunity of the re-interment to give thanks for the peace of our realm and to pray for reconciliation for those who are caught up in conflict in our own day.”
7.30pm – Requiem Mass in the style Richard III would have known at St Catherine’s Church, Stanifield Lane, Farington, Leyland, PR25 4QG. Sung High Latin Mass with Singers of the Laeta Cantoribus Choir, followed by a light Buffet with wine. For further details telephone 01772 421174 or Mobile 07533 029622.

UK viewers will be able to watch live coverage on Channel 4 but the King Richard in Leicester website is also covering the reinterment on their site and on Twitter - http://kingrichardinleicester.com/the-reinterment-of-king-richard-iii-live/ and https://twitter.com/KRIIILeicester

Those outside the UK can listen to proceedings on BBC Leicester at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/bbc_radio_leicester

The Telegraph is also giving regular updates at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11495617/Reburial-of-Richard-III-live.html

As is the BBC at http://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-england-leicestershire-32021350

And the Leicester Mercury is also covering it - http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/King-Richard-III-reinterment-Live/story-26212527-detail/story.html and http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/richardIII

Orders of service can be found at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Richard-III-reinterment-Order-service/story-26235881-detail/story.html and http://kingrichardinleicester.com/orders-of-service-print-off-and-follow-along/

Richard

My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time – an unknown, unfelt loss –
unless the Resurrection of the Dead …

or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.

LEICESTER, England — For an English monarchy that has lasted more than 1,000 years, there can have been few more improbable occasions than the ceremony of remembrance here on Thursday for the reburial of one of the most bloodstained medieval sovereigns, King Richard III, who was slain in battle seven years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World.

After three days of viewing by thousands who lined up for hours to file past the bier in Leicester’s Anglican cathedral, Richard’s skeletal remains, in a coffin of golden English oak with an incised Yorkist rose and an inscription giving the sparest details of his life — “Richard III, 1452-1485” — were removed overnight from beneath a black cloth pall stitched with colorful images from his tumultuous times. The remains of King Richard III, lost for more than 500 years, are carried in procession on Sunday for a later reburial at Leicester Cathedral. With the solemn ceremony laid down for monarchs through the ages, the coffin was borne to a marble tomb adjacent to the cathedral’s altar by a party of 10 British Army pallbearers wearing red sashes over their khaki uniforms and rows of glinting medals attesting to their service in the country’s most recent wars, in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the tomb topped by a black marble plinth, the king’s remains, in a lead-lined inner coffin, were then lowered into what the Anglican prelates presiding at the service described as his final resting place. That placed him barely a stone’s throw from his ignominious grave for the past 530 years, in ground beside the cathedral, where frightened Franciscan friars disposed hastily of his corpse after his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field outside Leicester on Aug. 22, 1485.

That first grave lay in oblivion for centuries, unremarked until it was discovered beneath a municipal parking lot beside the cathedral in September 2012, in what has been hailed as one of the most astonishing archaeological hunches in modern history. The acknowledged good fortune of the archaeologists, who found what proved to be Richard’s bones within hours of their digger making its first cut in the buried ruins of the Greyfriars priory, was followed by what others in the field have described as an exercise of extraordinary scholarship, involving a closely knit team of experts in archaeology, engineering, forensics, genetics, geology, history and medicine, many of them from the University of Leicester.

Their work confirmed “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as the Leicester scholars have described it, that the bones were those of Richard. Critical to their findings was that the nearly complete skeleton included a deeply curved spine, evidence of the bone disease known as scoliosis that prompted later accounts that Richard was a hunchback.