Will the guy get a proper funeral after all these years?
Will they rebury him where they find him or elsewhere?
Who gets to decide?
Maybe they’ll carry on looking for his horse nearby.
I think they would bury him in Westminster Abbey next to his wife. I would hope there would be a nice, but small, service too. Not a state funeral, but something dignified, maybe with the Duke of Gloucester there.
We could cast him as Yorick in Hamlet.
Let’s assume that the bones are confirmed as probably him. It’s not as if they will have to be 100% sure as any epitaph could hedge its bets.
It is rather unlikely that he’ll be buried exactly where he was found, as that’s the car park of the council offices. Also, the site is sufficiently cramped and the surrounding buildings sufficiently old that it would be difficult to redevelop the site as a tourist attraction. But Leicester Cathedral is literally just around the corner, so the obvious thing would be to rebury him there. Money isn’t going to be a problem, as the Richard III Society is loaded and its members will be overjoyed to chip in.
But I can easily imagine some in the Richard III Society demanding that he gets reburied instead in Westminster Abbey. That would cause an immense fuss, which will, of course, be the main reason for those demands. But there are several practical problems with that idea. The Abbey’s official policy is that they no longer allow burials there, as it is simply too crowded. (Ironically, the last burial was Laurence Olivier.) But perhaps this could be considered an exceptional case. Then there would be the problem of where to bury him within the Abbey. The obvious idea would be to bury him with his wife, Anne Neville. But the exact location of her grave isn’t known and its general location, right next to the high altar, is one that it would be most inconvenient to let visitors see up close. Then there’s the whole issue as to whether it would actually be appropriate to bury him there at all. Should a child-killer be buried in the same church as his victims? (Yes, I know…).
One less obvious option would be to bury him next to his parents at Fotheringhay, which, as it happens, isn’t a million miles away from Leicester.
I can imagine that there will also be a fuss from some as to whether he should be buried anywhere that is not currently a Roman Catholic church.
The archaeologists will have carried out the excavation under licence from the Home Office and that will have required them to have had some sort of plan as to what they would do with any human remains. The usual practice would be to give them a Christian burial, not necessarily on the original site. In this case, this would doubtless be done after consultation with the local council, the diocese of Leicester and English Heritage. The archaeologists, doubtless with any eye to even more publicity, have also said that they’ll be consulting with Buckingham Palace.
Do they know for sure where his son with Anne Neville is buried? Perhaps there if they can’t squeeze him in Westminster Abbey.
Well, if ever he was made for sportive tricks, he certainly ain’t now …
No, it’s not known for certain where Edward of Middleham was buried. And it’s not even certain that the monument at Sheriff Hutton commemorates him, rather than one of his Neville uncles.
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For anyone else who was confused, a skeleton was discovered on 9-13-12 that may be Richard III. There’s an article here.
If not Westminster Abbey, what about York Minster?
Put his skull on a stick and use it as the totem behind which the House of York can regather. It’s never too late to get an old family feud rekindled, IMHO.
That’s what I was going to say. I think that would be perfect. And I really hope these remains. do turn out to be those of Richard III.
I too had thought of that. But any decision is going to have to contend with strong lobbying from Leicester to keep him there. The people of Leicester aren’t going to want to lose a potential tourist attraction without a fight. One could just about imagine that argument being disregarded so that he could be buried with the other English kings at Westminster or with other members of his family. But otherwise why bury him elsewhere, albeit somewhere strongly associated with him, when he can just as easily be buried in Leicester? (Mind you, I’ve just checked and see that none of the Leicester parliamentary constituencies are especially marginal!)
It should be said that the trend in England is now for major archaeological discoveries to remain in the area where there were discovered. There was a time, not so very long ago, when finds as important as the Staffordshire hoard or the Frome hoard would have ended up in the British Museum, but those will go to local museums. It’s not that anyone consciously decided to change this policy. Partly, it’s been a by-product of the National Lottery. However, it’s also been because national museums have become more sensitive to local feelings. What to do with a royal corpse raises slightly different issues, but I would be surprised if that same sentiment doesn’t end up being the decisive consideration in this case.
If he is to be re-interred anywhere, I’d suggest in Leicester Cathedral, under this memorial tablet (which might need to be amended slightly). It has the great advantage of being in the same parish.
I’m a bit confused. Just how likely is it that the first set of bones they find in a medieval graveyard belong to a particular named individual?
:golfclap:
My understanding is that it is not a graveyard but the site of the church he was buried inside of.
I do, too, and I wonder if they can tell, after all this time, how bad the problem with his back was.
Slight nitpick with the OP. He (whoever he is) had had a proper burial in the first place in the Greyfriars church.
I really don’t know. Was it a funeral befitting a King of England?