Richard III laid to rest at Leicester Cathedral
Source: express.co.uk
King Richard III was today laid to rest at Leicester Cathedral - more than 500 years after his death in battle.
The monarch, who reigned from 1483 to 1485, was the last of the Plantagenet dynasty.
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch read a poem by Carol Ann Duffy during the service. Also in attendance was Robert Lindsay, who played Richard III in a version of the Shakespeare play on the man in 1998, as well as the Countess of Wessex and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.
King Richard had been named Lord Protector of the realm following the death of his brother King Edward IV, until the next in line for the throne, 12-year-old Edward V, came of age.
However, when it was found the marriage of Edward V's parents was invalid he was declared illegitimate and ineligible for the throne.
Richard III's short reign was ended when he was killed at the Battle of Bosworth, making him the last English king to die in battle.
He was buried in Leicester but the tomb was believed to have been destroyed, with his remains lost for five centuries.
An excavation uncovered his skeleton in 2012 in a car park once home to Greyfriars. Radiocarbon dating and a DNA comparison with descendants of Richard III's eldest sister confirmed it was him.
Although a dividing figure, thousands lined the streets as Richard III's coffin was taken on a procession through Leicestershire on Sunday, while more than 20,000 queued for hours to view the coffin once it arrived at the cathedral.
The Dean of Leicester, the Very Reverend David Monteith, said: "There are no mourners. Instead it's much more of a hello, a welcome, a recognition of our history."
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Richard III reburial: From car park to cathedral, our last warrior king's moving tribute
By Camilla Tominey | express.co.uk
AS 70,000 headed to Leicester to pay their respects to Richard III, Royal Editor Camilla Tominey reports on a tale that has touched us all.
From far and wide they travelled to Leicester to witness the reburial of a 562-year-old king.
It is not every day a medieval monarch is dug up in a car park and the tens of thousands who flocked to the city last week to pay their last respects became a part of Richard III's extraordinary journey.
From Bosworth Field, where he became the last king to die in battle in 1485, to Leicester Cathedral, where his mortal remains were reinterred just a stone's throw from where his skeleton was discovered in 2012, Thursday brought to a close one of the most remarkable historical revelations of modern times.
The Right Reverend Tim Stevens, Bishop of Leicester, had to rewrite his sermon for Thursday's service in light of the outpouring of grief for the much-maligned monarch, depicted as an evil hunchback by Shakespeare.
"We expected a lot of people but not 70,000," he said.
"At points it was very emotional and I felt my sermon had to reflect that so I rewrote it at the weekend."
He told the congregation: "Many amongst the crowds who have thronged to see the casket came bearing their own burdens of grief; others came to contemplate the reality of their own mortality.
"All have confounded the sceptics by their respect for the remains of an anointed king and a baptised Christian whose lot it was to live and die at a turning point of our history."
Also sitting in the pews was Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, who explained why the "car park king" had captured British imaginations: "We are a nation of historians and our island's history is incredibly important to us.
"Yes people will take to this film or that television show but here we are talking about the discovery of the skeleton of a crowned monarch who was the last of our medieval dynasty.
"The Plantagenets, who dominated the Middle Ages during the Wars of the Roses, are mesmerising.
"Here is the last reigning member of this war-torn but somehow romantic and glamorous dynasty before the crown and the country moved into the more grown-up modern era of business and profit and all the other things Henry VII understood the importance of; he was the beginning of modern England and that's why people are so interested."
Opening the order of service, the Queen's tribute to Richard III as "a king who lived through turbulent times and whose Christian faith sustained him in life and death," was said by an aide to "speak for itself" in terms of the interest Her Majesty has taken in the rediscovery of her long lost ancestor.
Fittingly she sent in her place two of the keenest historians in the Royal Family.
Prince Edward's wife Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, is a devourer of military history books and according to a Palace aide was "kept up to date with developments surrounding the finding of the bones and the ceremonies which culminated in the events in Leicester".
The Queen's cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, who shares the same title Richard held before he became king, is patron of the Richard III Society and praised the "technical skill" of those who have brought "more clarity to an important story in the long history of the Monarchy", adding: "Although such study cannot verify the stories that have been handed down to us over the centuries it can at least give us a clearer picture of the man for whom there have been many varied judgments, both biased and otherwise."
For the Society's front-woman Philippa Langley, who masterminded the excavation that led to the discovery of Richard's skeleton under a social services parking bay marked "R" two and a half years ago, the commemorations mark the end of a painstaking search dating back to 1992.
"I'm going to sleep for 1,000 years after all this," she joked.
"When we started the Looking for Richard project we always asked ourselves: What will we do if we do find him?
"We envisaged a private ceremony and maybe a second more public celebration but we never for one minute imagined that the whole of Leicester Cathedral would be redesigned around his tomb at a cost of £2.5million.
"People have connected with Richard because this is a story about our history and our heritage.
"A lot of people view history as this dusty thing way off in the past but his rediscovery has brought history alive.
"There has been a sense that we have all been watching something that we have never seen before and that is what makes it so special."
Like many spectators, Leicester-born Sylvia Copson, 73, "just wanted to be a part of it."
She arrived at 7am on Thursday for a front row seat outside the cathedral at what no one was calling a "funeral" even when the Archbishop of Canterbury "asperged" the coffin, sprinkling holy water and a sprig of rosemary, saying: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
Sylvia said: "It is a fitting end for Richard to be buried with dignity in Leicester.
"It's been a fantastic exercise with all the people involved in terms of everyone working together: the historians, the archaeologists, the Richard III Society, the county, and the church.
"It is a wonderful example of what can happen when all the disciplines work together.
"It has furthered our knowledge of Richard for future generations and hopefully we will carry on finding out more things about him."
News presenter Jon Snow led last week's coverage for Channel 4 and like the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who read a poem dedicated to Richard III written by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy during the service, Snow found out he too is related to the king.
While Cumberbatch is a third cousin, 16 times removed to the king he will play in the forthcoming BBC series The Hollow Crown: The Wars Of The Roses, Snow is even closer.
He said: "When I was a child my father had a family tree hanging in his study which started with John of Gaunt.
"I never really thought about it until a friend asked me whether we could be related.
"I went to see my cousin, Peter Snow, who is better at these kinds of things and through the help of genealogists we discovered that we were indeed related, making us the first cousins 17 times removed of Richard III."
"Search. Find. Honour," was the simple motto of the team behind the rediscovery of Richard III.
From car park to cathedral, the nation has reconnected with a king whose chequered history has been usurped by the promise of a reinvented future.
Source: express.co.uk
