England's King Richard III, or at least his bones, has received royal treatment at last. You may recall that his bones allegedly were unearthed from underneath a parking lot ("car park") in 2012. How Richard, who died in battle in 1485 in Bosworth. traveled to a municipal parking lot in Leicester is probably as improbable as his journey 530 years later from the car park to Leicester's cathedral.
It is said that the bones most assuredly are bone-fide those of Richard, based on carbon dating and DNA analysis of a remote great nephew. However, despite all the pomp and circumstance of the re-interrment, one author argues that the evidence in inconclusive. To enable carbon dating results of the bones to include 1485, the findings had to be adjusted for a so-called fish factor--Richard ate a lot of fish, which must have increased the scale. DNA findings also were challenged. "So, as we prepare for a week of royal spectacle, the sort England always does stirringly well, it is worth pausing during the pageantry to wonder if it is indeed King Richard III being given such a glittering reburial, or whether his cold, battle-scarred Plantagenet bones still lie out there, undiscovered and unrecognized."*
Regardless, the bones traveled in a cortege to Leicester's cathedral, to lie in state and to be re-interred with much ceremony on March 26. It was reported that one pub served a Plantagenet dinner of pottage and mead while another offered King Richard ales served by wenches. A gift shop near the cathedral was selling Plantagenet refrigerator magnets.** As one author summarized it, "To judge by the brouhaha, the re-interrment of Richard is the most exciting thing to have happened in Leicester since the king's death at the nearby Battle of Bosworth over 500 years ago." *** On the other hand, a retired vicar put it this way: "It's all faintly idolatrous, as if monarch bone worship had come into fashion."**
Despite all the pomp, there apparently remains much controversy over whether Richard was a good guy. One author believes he was much maligned by Shakespeare's play. The author states that Richard was an innovative king who instituted legal reforms and "had a genuine commitment to fair play in the judicial system, his actions and proclamations stressing that his laws were to be administered impartially without delay or favour."****
On the other hand, another author has stated that Richard "was, in modern terms, a psychopathic serial killer who eliminated his imagined enemies: friend and foe, adult and child." "Next week we may be burying a King in Leicester, but we are also interring a common criminal."*****
Whatever, Richard will be celebrated in a new musical expected to open in October in London. It is called "RichardRocks." According to its website (rechardrocks.com), the show is "a rock opera based on Shakespeare's most infamous villain." Therefore, if you missed the funeral, you can still catch the music.
So, Richard III may be buried again away from your eyes, but he still can be music for your ears.
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* Selwood, Daily Telegraph, March 21,2015,p.25
** Mills, Sunday Times, March 22,2015,p.17
*** Symons, Daily Telegraph, March 21,2015,p.T16
**** Stone, Daily Telegraph, March 21,2015,p.25
***** Jones, Daily Telegraph, March 21,2015,p.25
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