To think they should leave dead kings where they are?

[Goldmandra]

and other people who died a long time ago?

How long does someone have to be dead before it's OK to dig them up again?

[PicklesThePottyMouthedParrot]

I'd rather be moved than have a lidls on my head.

[Yellowtip]

I'd want to be dug up if I was buried under a social services car park, Leicester or not, king or not, murderous hunchback or not (etc.). He's in with a shout for Leicester cathedral. Good for him I say.

[TunipTheVegemal]

But now we know he is there, it would be very inconvenient and a possible healthy and safety hazard for the carpark users to keep having to deal with Richard III fanatics standing there communing with his spirit and leaving flowers where they need to park their cars.

[JumpingThroughMoreHoops]

Who in particular has caught your attention??

I don't personally hold with grave disturbance, it sits uneasy, but I suppose if the remaining tombs in th Valley of the kings weren't opened, or celtic burial mounds, we would know little about history. I'm never at ease with remains on display though

[EdithWeston]

I think I'd rather be dug up and reinterred rather than being the foundations of a car park.

And compared to how the bones and body parts of mediaeval saints were hawked around, it's positively respectful. DCs were a bit disappointed that St Chad's Head chapel in Lichfield Cathedral no longer had St Chad's head in it (I don't remember if the guidebook said where it finally finished up).

[TunipTheVegemal]

It would be terrible if there was an unseemly wrangle over who should get the remains, wouldn't it? Just terrible.

I like the suggestion of taking him back to Middleham Castle, but then there's Westminster Abbey to consider. Leicester Cathedral is really not that great and in desperate need of something vaguely interesting to pull in some tourists.

[Goldmandra]

jumping

Someone reckons they've found Richard III under a car park in Leicester.

[Yellowtip]

Two of my close relations were 'dug up' and moved back to their home country in Eastern Europe in 1994. I think they flew Lot. I'm sure they're happier there than in N.London though (they were by a very, very busy road).

[JumpingThroughMoreHoops]

thank you gold found the article

Also has spinal abnormalities and an individual form of spinal curvature, consistent with accounts of Richard III

Allegedly a Tudor myth. The Tudors had the first of 'spin doctors'. Richard III was superbly dissed by Henry VII when he took the crown at Bosworth. There was never any prior mention of Richard III being deformed.

I see the body is on the old Grey Friars site which is one of several supposed burial places of Richard III.

I wonder what ever happened to the Two Princes?

[Yellowtip]

Well when you say 'someone reckons they've found' Richard III: the bloke in question does happen to have an arrow in his back, curvature of the spine and was killed by a massive blow to the head which all fits with contemporary accounts of his mishaps in battle, physique and the manner of his demise. And this skeleton has been found in the church where Richard III was always believed to have been buried. Sounds plausible to me.

[qo]

"I'd rather be moved than have a lidls on my head"

hahahaaahahahaaaa!!!

[TunipTheVegemal]

Come and join us on the other thread here

[Yellowtip]

I'm guessing you're a Tudor then Hoops.

[KitCat26]

Sorry I find it fascinating so yabu.

And they will bury all the skeletons again probably after years of research. I thought they had already decided where they would reinterr Richard III if it turned out to be him?

Edith if your kids want to see a skull, go to St Gregory's in Sudbury, Suffolk. Simon of Sudbury's head is in there after he was beheaded by the mob during the Peasants revolt. Not a saint, but a Lord Chancellor.

[EdithWeston]

I thought I heard the skeleton showed signs of scoliosis - a progressive curvature of the spine which varies enormously in both rate of onset and degree of severity. It's a diagnosis which could cover a gradual change in appearance, and be a grain of truth underlying a monstrous hunchback myth?

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

He ought to be in Westminister Abbey with the rest of them!

[EdithWeston]

Kitcat26: thanks! We'll have a look if we're ever that way. They did have a macabre fascination with the shrunken heads in the Wellcome Collection.

[crackcrackcrak]

I'm sooooo excited about this. I'm from Leicester and I get v geeky about Richard III

[Viviennemary]

Well I wouldn't normally agree with this but it's not very dignified to be buried in a car park. Not for a King and I'm not even a royalist.

[Colyngbourne]

If Leicester doesn't have him, then York Minster should, and would be preferable IMO.

No way should he be in Westminster Abbey anywhere near Henry Tudor - and wouldn't have wanted to be in the south anyway. He was likely preparing York as his final resting place.

As the only King of England without a designated tomb, it's fair enough that they've tried to find his remains. As yet, it's not proven that these are they.

[JumpingThroughMoreHoops]

I'm guessing you're a Tudor then Hoops.

Norman as it happens - like anyone else who faffs about with family tree, I'm the 27/g/granddaughter of William the Conquerer - as are about 20 million other people in the UK! thats the trouble with a matriarchal line - girls are just so unimportant! 5 generations later, I haven't even got a princess as g/g granny let alone a Lady or a mere Right Hon!

[finduspancakes]

If you knew that place, you'd want to be moved too.

[SaggyOldClothCatPuss]

Henry Tudor had only a tenuous link to the throne. Bury HIM under a carpark instead!

[Goldmandra]

Am I alone in finding it a bit intrusive?

I was once given an impromptu tour of an archaeological dig and found myself looking straight down into a grave-shaped hole onto a full skeleton.

It felt like a gross invasion of that person's privacy and completely wrong to be poking around. The fact that they'd been there a while didn't make it feel any better.

They'll never know for sure if it was him or not so what's the point?

DH says he hopes the council are sending him a backdated parking bill

Are there many Richard III fanatics who would come to commune with his spirit and leave flowers?

[PatronSaintOfDucks]

I think it's a matter of how much one's alive compatriots see the issue. Lots of native American tribes (north and south) seriously mind their ancestors, even from a thousand years ago, being dug up and poked in labs and museums. They successfully fought some cases. Most people of European descent, however, don't mind a bit of morbid fascination if the deceased person is not their close relative and is removed from them by a couple hundred years. However, even we in Europe have boundaries - it's ok to put people from a couple of thousand years ago in museum, but somebody who's been in the ground for only a couple of hundred can be respectfully researched, but then must be put back in some tomb.

There is also got to be some kind of international legislation on this.