@izzythepush,
Man, these people have an inordinate amount of time on their hands, don't they. Someone should tell them to get a life.
Today is the day of the funeral, better late than never I suppose.
Quote:Thousands of people are expected to descend on Leicester as the reburial of King Richard III gets under way later.
The cortege will pass places in Leicestershire associated with the former king, who died at Bosworth in 1485, with the coffin set to reach Leicester Cathedral at 17:35 GMT.
The king will be reinterred on Thursday at the cathedral with a ceremony led by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
Richard's skeleton was found in 2012, in an old friary beneath a car park.
A special morning service was held at the cathedral and a vigil was staged by a local re-enactment group at the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre earlier.
The reburial procession starts at Fenn Lane Farm, believed to be the closest spot to where the king was killed, at 12:30.
Ceremonies are due to take place as the cortege travels towards Leicester, including at Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre and Bow Bridge, the medieval city boundary.
The city council has announced disruption to roads and car parks for Sunday.
After a service at St Nicholas Church, the coffin will be transferred to a horse-drawn hearse before arriving at the cathedral via High Street and Grey Friars.
The council said the best places to see the cortege would be High Street, Gallowtree Gate or outside Curve Theatre.
Screens will be up at the Clock Tower and Jubilee Square showing the procession live.
City Mayor Peter Soulsby said it would be a "breathtaking event" and encouraged people to use public transport.
"We are expecting large numbers of people to want to pay their respects in a dignified manner to King Richard and the journey of his cortege into the city will give people the chance to do that," he said.
There will be rolling road closures along the A47 Hinckley Road and drivers have been asked to use other routes. There will be disruption to Newarke Street, Rutland Centre and St Nicholas car parks.
Footpaths and cycle paths will remain open as normal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-31990721<br />
I did see some of the funeral yesterday, only some mind you. The funeral was carried out as per his requests with his choice of hymns and that. I think he might be a trivia question in the future being the only Plantagenet monarch to have had his funeral televised.
People are coming from far and wide to see the coffin lying in state.
Quote:More than 5,000 people have visited Leicester Cathedral to view Richard III's coffin on the first day.
The last Plantagenet king's remains arrived after a cortege through Leicestershire and there were long queues on Monday with a four hour wait.
The king's skeleton was found under a car park in 2012.
A requiem mass has also taken place at Holy Cross Church in Leicester, led by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England.
The reburial ceremony will be held on Thursday, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
Further viewing times are Tuesday 09:00-12:30 / 14:00-17:00 / 19:15-21:00 and Wednesday 09:00-12:30.
Liz Hudson from Leicester Cathedral said the amount of people visiting had been "remarkable".
"We would have liked for people not to have waited three to four hours but everybody has got through," she said.
"It is the only chance we will ever get to do this and we are expecting even more people on Tuesday with the longer opening times."
Richard, the last English king to die in battle, was killed at Bosworth Field in 1485, at the end of the Wars of the Roses.
In the queue outside the cathedral Rebecca McCole, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, said: "I was one of the lucky ones to get an invite so how could I not come to see this all.
"I have always been interested in history, especially in the British monarchy.
"This visit has been really inspiring and everyone has been so helpful and delightful."
Throughout Richard's turbulent upbringing - two periods of exile and the death in battle of his father - he proved himself a capable and loyal follower of his eldest brother, who became Edward IV.
However on Edward's death, Richard seized and imprisoned his young sons. They were then disinherited on the grounds Edward had a previously unheard-of marriage contract with another woman.
Richard passed a number of laws, including an early version of legal aid and making courts use English, which benefited the common man.
Despite this, his taking of the crown, the disappearance of Edward's sons and the execution of several leading nobles, lead to discontent and rebellions.
At Bosworth, Richard's larger army failed to crack Henry Tudor's troops while the king's reserves did not move to his aid.
The blackening of his reputation by Tudor historians started debate about his personality and legacy which is ongoing to this day.
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John Wesseldine, from Barwell in Leicestershire, said he had taken sons Jayden and Jenson, aged 10, out of school to view the coffin.
Jayden said: "School wasn't going to do a trip to visit the cathedral so dad said he would bring us to see the King's coffin.
Mr Wesseldine said: "This is part of their history and is a chance to see a real King. It is a chance they will never get again so we made the effort to come down."
"The climax will come on Thursday when the Archbishop of Canterbury comes to join us - and the eyes of the world will be on us," the Bishop of Leicester, the Right Reverend Tim Stevens, said.
On Sunday, Richard's coffin left the University of Leicester where it had been kept since the discovery of his remains in 2012.
It was accompanied by the team who made the find to Fenn Lane Farm in the village of Dadlington, the site believed to be the closest to his death.
More than 35,000 people lined the route of the cortege as it travelled through Leicestershire and then back into the city for a service at the cathedral.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-32014296
There's been a lot of coverage in Canada about the coffin maker
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/21/europe/richard-iii-leicester-coffin/
Not much coverage of the funeral itself.
@ehBeth,
Certain events suddenly get shown live in their entirety on BBC News 24. Normally speeches by politicians or state funerals. Compared to Thatcher's this was a small provincial affair.
Ahh, yes:
Conscience is a word that cowards use to keep the strong in awe. Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law
Good to keep in mind
@neologist,
There was a member of the Richard III society on the radio today. (Yes such an organisation exists.) They were railing against that play, which is great drama, but pure fiction. Richard III was quite a decent king when judged next to his contemporaries, but the Tudors did a magnificent job stitching him up that so many people feel compelled to set the record straight.
The Richard III society's membership is global.
http://www.richardiii.net/
@neologist,
Aw, he got a bad rap from Shakespeare.
@izzythepush,
But it is a memorable statement
@neologist,
Nobody is denying it's a great play, just that it's not at all historically accurate.
@izzythepush,
You are right, of course.
But even history is not historically accurate.
Great line, though.
@izzythepush,
And I got excited about a bare bodkin.
@InfraBlue,
InfraBlue wrote:
Aw, he got a bad rap from Shakespeare.
He got a bad rap from everybody during the Tudor and Steward eras. But the truth was always suspected by some. See, for example, one of my favorite novels by mystery writer Josephine Tey,
Daughter of Time
I saw the revival of this thread the other day but had no time to respond, so for what it's worth, here's my take on the matter.
Richard 3rd was definitely no Saint, but was pretty much par for the course for Monarchs and powermongers of that era.
His life falls into two halves really, the first being a loyal servant to his older brother, Edward 4th, and the second when he was Protector and eventually King, during which time he displayed a remarkable capacity for decisive and utterly ruthless action.
By the time he was only sixteen or seventeen, he was a leading figure in the civil war, commanding the (Edward's) army at the crucial battles of Barnet (just up the road from me) and Tewkesbury, where on both occasions, the Lancastrians were thrashed.
He was then given the North to govern, and by all accounts made a fair job of it.
He ended the Scottish threat, recapturing Berwick and occupying Edinburgh.
He basically gave his brother's regime some much needed military success.
Richard was not a charismatic man, and he stayed away from Court as he didn't care for much of the intrigue that went on there.
This caused him to be a bit of an outsider, politically speaking, so when his brother died, Richard very soon found himself in a very difficult position.
The successor to the throne, his brother's son (Edward fifth), had basically been raised by his mother and her family, the Woodvilles.
The Woodvilles were after keeping their power, and did not like the threat that Richard posed one little bit.
Richard knew that if they were to gain control over the new child King, then it would spell disaster for him. He had been made Lord Protector over the young king, but guessed correctly that the Woodvilles would do their utmost to remove him from this post, one way or another.
The Woodvilles therefore wanted young Edward crowned as quickly as possible so that he could reign in his own right, and set up their own ruling Council, ordering the coronation of Edward to take place as soon as he arrived in London from Ludlow (which was the then seat of The Prince of Wales, Edward's then current position as heir to the throne).
Lord Hastings warned Richard of the goings on in the Woodville camp, so Richard intercepted Edward on the way to London and arrested the Woodville leaders.
Edward's mother, Elizabeth Woodville, sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey along with Edward's younger brother (another Richard).
The leaders of the Woodville clan were then executed without trial.
The young Edward was taken to the Tower of London (which was a Royal Palace as well as a Prison), where he was later joined by the aforementioned younger brother.
Our Richard then called a meeting of the full Council of the Protectorate in the Tower, where he accused the astounded Lord Hastings (the guy who tipped him off about the conspiracy in the first place) of treasonable conspiracy along with the Woodvilles. Lord Hastings was executed immediately, without trial.
The Coronation for Edward was put on hold as Richard sought to have the two boys declared illegitimate on the grounds that Edward 4th had been contracted to marry another woman before marrying Elizabeth Woodville in secret.
Parliament accepted this, declared Richard King and he was crowned soon after.
The two boys were never again seen outside the Tower, and it was widely accepted that they had been "disappeared". The main culprit was considered to be Richard 3rd, but it must be said that the then Duke of Buckingham and Henry Tudor both had claims to the throne and would have also benefitted from the death of the Princes.
If they could somehow do the foul deed and at the same time shift the blame onto Richard 3rd, then they could kill two birds with one stone.
In 1674, nearly two hundred years later, the bones of two young boys were found at the foot of a staircase in the Tower and were reburied in Westminster Abbey, as the remains of the Princes in the Tower.
Richard's first year as King saw the betrayal by his main supporter, The Duke of Buckingham, who changed alliegance and joined an alliance composed of the remaining Woodvilles and Henry Tudor.
Buckingham was executed.
He was also betrayed by Lord Stanley and the Earl of Northumberland at the battle of Bosworth.
His crucial mistake had been to narrow his power-base and rely solely on his old Northern followers, thus alienating key nobles.
He died tryimg to cut his way through to kill Henry Tudor, as he knew that that would be the only thing to save him.
Richard had fathered up to seven illegitimate offspring before he married Anne Neville, but his one legitimate son had died aged nine, paving the way for Henry Tudor to inherit the throne.
Like I say, he was about par for the course, although I do wonder how things would have turned out had the Woodvilles not been so power mad.
He was totally loyal to his brother in early life, and I would like to think that he would have been just as loyal to his brother's son, given the chance.
If ifs and ands......
Very good for tourism though, all this burial kerfuffle amd nonsense.
I would go and have a quick shufti if I was in the neigbourhood, it must be said.
This just keeps going on.
Quote:Descendants of some 20 families who fought at the Battle of Bosworth, that ended the reign of Richard III, are to meet for the first time.
Researchers who identified the king using DNA from his distant family used the same techniques to find descendants of those who fought in the battle.
They will meet family members directly related to the last Plantagenet king at a reception in Leicester later.
The pro-vice chancellor at the University of Leicester, Prof Kevin Schürer, who conducted the research, said it was "challenging" but had "thrown up some interesting stories".
Among those identified by Prof Schürer are relatives whose ancestors include:
◾ Marmaduke Constable who survived at Bosworth and later fought in the Battle of Flodden, aged 71, but died after swallowing a frog while drinking a glass of water.
◾ Sir John Babington of Dethick, Derbyshire who had been Sheriff of Derby and Nottingham and is reported to have fought for King Richard's cause.
◾ Samuel Spriggs a Leicestershire man who accompanied Richard to battle and is reputed to have been made an esquire of his body.
◾ John Hardwick who knew the local terrain and advised Henry of Richmond on the best battle positions thus being credited as "the architect of Richard's defeat".
◾ Sir Reynold Bray from Worcester who is credited with having found Richard's golden crown on a hawthorn bush on the Bosworth battlefield and handing it to Lord Stanley who placed it on Henry's head.
◾ Simon Digby from Leicester who was knighted and given the manor of Coleshill, Warwickshire for his part in the battle.
◾ Thomas Iden who fought for the Lancastrian cause and subsequently served as the Sheriff of Kent in 1500.
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Prof Schürer said: "The stories are a mixture of continuity and change, with a fair measure of fame and glory thrown in.
"The inter-relation between some of the families from Bosworth is another interesting feature - in some regards it truly was a battle of cousins.
"Bringing together these families for the first time in over 500 years will be a remarkable event."
King Richard's reburial ceremony will be held at Leicester Cathedral on Thursday, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Some have flown from Australia, South Africa and Canada for the occasion.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-32038621
This is my favourite bit, and a distinctly Medieval death.
Marmaduke Constable who survived at Bosworth and later fought in the Battle of Flodden, aged 71, but
died after swallowing a frog while drinking a glass of water.
@izzythepush,
The frog was the first thing I spotted.
What the heck was a Frenchie doing anywhere near the place?
Maybe they could re-enact the battle, with descendants taking each side and running over each other with their mobility scooters.
I love a silly saga. So British.
@Lordyaswas,
Lordyaswas wrote:What the heck was a Frenchie doing anywhere near the place?
Probably complaining about the food and the weather and shouting, "Priorite a droite."
