The burial of a king began with the words of a Queen.
Her Majesty did not attend the service to reinter one of her most divisive predecessors but her 142-word message to Richard III greeted the congregation as they arrived at Leicester Cathedral.
As tributes went, it was hardly glowing. Her words, printed in the order of service, spoke not of honouring Richard III, but “recognising” a king “who lived through turbulent times”.
But then this was not a funeral. It might have featured the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, a poem composed by the Poet Laureate and members of the royal family, but it was technically a service of reinterment. For the king had already been given a funeral, presided over by Franciscan monks in the days after he died on the battlefield at Bosworth in 1485. » | Tom Rowley, Special Correspondent, in Leicester Cathedral, video from ITN | Thursday, March 26, 2015
