Two years passed after the discovery of the grave before a ceremony worthy of a king was envisioned. Even after being rescued from his paltry plot, Richard could not rest in peace. As it has had since Richard’s death, controversy swirled about him as Leicester and York fought for the privilege of entombing him nobly. Months of media hype, letters to the editor, petitions from various groups, and even a lawsuit postponed the reburial of the last Plantagenet.

Most Ricardians favored York, a place where, as you have seen in the pages of this book, Richard felt most at home. The Minster and its governing body was ready to receive its “good king Richard.” But so was Leicester’s St. Martin’s governance. It was often expedient to bury a nobleman in the abbey or church closest to his place of death, and who could blame Leicester City Council for protesting they had already kept Richard safe for 500 years (albeit, in ignorance).

As anyone who was able to be at or watch on TV the beautiful and respectful week of ceremonies that culminated in Richard’s reburial in his own chapel inside St. Martin’s, Leicester put on quite a show. The city was unprepared for how many interested or curious people lined up for hours to file past his bier: more than twenty-thousand of them from all over the world. How fitting it was that his simple, but beautifully wrought coffin was made by Michael Ibsen, the very descendant whose DNA had revealed the bones as Richard’s. A comforting cocoon for Richard to lie in for eternity beneath the massive slab of Swalestone, with a deeply carved cross its only decoration.

I watched the funeral in my living room in U.S. at an ungodly early hour and marveled at the respect that Richard was finally accorded. His modern-day namesake, the duke of Gloucester—another Richard—read a prayer from Richard’s own book of hours, on loan from the British Library. Then, at the evocative words of England’s poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, spoken by Benedict Cumberbatch, I wept all over again. I knew then, this was the book I was meant to write.

My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,

a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,

emptied of history. Describe my soul

as incense, votive, vanishing; your own

the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie

a broken string and on it thread a cross,

the symbol severed from me when I died.

The end of time—an unknown, unfelt loss—

unless the Resurrection of the Dead…

or I once dreamed of this, your future breath

in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;

or sensed you from the backstage of my death,

as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.

Author’s Note

Author’s Note