Oh, That We Were There

As a Leicester-born-and-bred granddaughter of a Yorkshireman who lived and worked in Bosworth I would have liked to join the crowds to pay my respects to King Richard III but had to be content with watching the ceremonies on TV. Today's service of reinterment was a dignified conclusion to the discovery of his remains three years ago.

I dislike the report that he was 'found in a carpark' as he was not: the carpark was built over his grave, in ground which, until the Reformation by King Henry VIII, belonged to the Greyfriars. But for the dissolution, his whereabouts might have been well known.

In Leicester the legend runs that, as Richard rode across Bow Bridge on his way to Bosworth, he clipped his foot against the parapet; an old woman, noticing, told him that on his return journey it would be his head, not his foot. And so it proved, his dead body slung over the back of a horse, that his head caught the bridge. Consequently we never believed the tale that he was thrown into the River Soar.

Huge thanks and congratulations to Philppa Langley, for her persistence in the pursuit of the maligned King, which  brought us to this historic day