Catholic King Richard III is to have an effective state funeral and will be reinterred in a Church of England cathedral more than 500 years after his death.
The only English monarch without a marked grave, his remains were found beneath a council car park in Leicester two years.
The remains of the Catholic king were identified using DNA analysis and other medical assessments.
The king, who reigned from 1483, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, in the final battle of the War of the Roses.
Richard had been hastily buried in the grounds of a Franciscan friary, which was subsequently dissolved in Henry VIII’s reign.
The reinterment service will take place at Leicester Cathedral on March 26, following a week of events in Leicestershire to honour Richard.
It will be invite-only, but will be broadcast live on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.
The remains will be transferred into a lead-lined coffin at Leicester University on March 22 and will travel by hearse to Bosworth for a day of events marking the king’s final movements.
The journey will see the hearse travel through villages that were significant to the monarch’s final days, ahead of a service in Bosworth.
The coffin will then return to Leicester Cathedral in the early evening where a service of reception will be attended by guests invited by David Monteith, the Dean of Leicester.
The monarch’s remains will then lie in repose, his coffin covered with a commissioned pall, for three days to allow for members of the public to pay their respects.
The reinterment comes after a battle between the Plantagenet Alliance – set up by descendants of Richard’s family who wanted him to be reinterred in York Minster as he was known as Richard of York – and Leicester organisations.
A UK court ruled earlier this year that Richard should be reinterred in Leicester – the city where he lost his life.
There had also been some commentators who argued Richard III should be given a Catholic funeral, as he was a Catholic and the Church of England in its present form did not exist at the time of his death.
Sources