A Tomb, a Tomb, My Kingdom for a Tomb

A Tomb, a Tomb, My Kingdom for a Tomb

 

      Last Friday, the British Royal Court of Justice issued its decision that the remains of King Richard III would be buried at Leicester Cathedral.

      Richard III, the last English king to die in battle, fell to the forces of Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth fought in 1485.  His remains were interred at the Greyfriars Friary in Leicester.  Their exact location was lost when the monasteries and friaries were suppressed under Henry VIII.

      Richard’s grave was ultimately relocated in 2012.  The permit under which the search for his grave had been undertaken provided that the remains would be reinterred in Leicester.  However, after their discovery, a self-appointed group of purported descendants (all indirect; Richard had no children of his own), asserting that he would have preferred to have been buried in York, bought suit challenging the Leicester reburial.

      The British Courts have now rejected that assertion, and directed that his remains be reinterred in the Leicester Cathedral.  That is expected to happen later this year.