Leicester
The battle for the remains of Richard III (1452-85) heated up immediately after the University of Leicester ended months of speculation by confirming last month that a skeleton buried beneath a car park in Leicester was indeed that of the last Plantagenet king. Campaigns to reinter the monarch, the last king of the House of York, went into full swing in Leicester and York after the results of a DNA test were announced.
A statement from the Ministry of Justice says that Richard III’s burial place will be chosen by the university, in accordance with stipulations made in the exhumation licence. According to the website of the Richard III Society, the university’s vice-chancellor, Robert Burgess, and the bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, confirmed on 7 February (at the opening of an exhibition on Richard III) that the king will be reinterred in Leicester Cathedral. “The choice of Leicester Cathedral will disappoint some,” says the post on the society’s site. “However, it is important that the burial of King Richard III is not surrounded by controversy; his posthumous reputation has had more than enough of that over the past 500 years. We should all be grateful that his remains have been found and are now to receive the honour and dignity that is due to an anointed English king.”
