This is a great article, and a great idea. Imagine what a terrific occasion that would be, great way for kids (and the rest of us) to immerse themselves in Shakespeare and late-medieval history.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/09/richard-iii-should-be-buried-in-the-north/
If this is Richard, what happens next? It was suggested at the press conference that he would be buried in Leicester Cathedral, but others now suggest a full state occasion in London and his burial in Westminster Abbey.
By all means, let there be a state funeral for Richard, but it should be a state funeral in the north.
The last Plantagenet King should lie in state and be buried in York minster. What better way could there be to relearn the history of England, and to realise too that it has not always a London-centred story?
Whatever Richard’s deeds or misdeeds, one final symbolic moment of reconciliation would enable us all to find out what the Wars of the Roses were about, and how much they shaped England, before the white and red rose became primarily, today, the symbol of a fiercely benign county cricketing rivalry between Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Every schoolchild once knew that Richard of York gave battle in vain. It is now to York that he should finally return, rest and remain.
Posted 9 years ago
