Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field, which is in Leicestershire. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty.

Before I came to cruise.co.uk in April 2011 I worked in Leicester for 1st4cruising, the company who went into liquidation in March 2011. Although I was home based for 90% of the time I did go to our offices in Leicester several times a month and little did I realise that the digging in the car park across the road was the burial  place of a king !

The skeleton was excavated in Leicester last September under Greyfriars car park,  and showed all the signs of being the king, including a curved spine, a skull that appeared to have suffered a severe blow and an arrowhead embedded in its back. .

The Channel 4 documentary on the archaeological dig was fascinating and I would recommend anyone who hasn’t seen it to do so when you get the chance. One fascinating fact was the way they proved beyond doubt that the remains were those of Richard using DNA from a direct descendant of the king, the son of a Canadian, Joy Ibsen,  who died several years.

In August 2012, an excavation began in a city council car park – the only open space remaining in the likely area – which quickly identified buildings connected to the old church of Greyfriars. The bones were found in the first days of the dig and were eventually excavated under forensic conditions.

It has now been decided, by the Richard III Society, that the body will be buried in Leicester Cathedral in a sepcially designed tomb, a fitting resting place for the king. What a wonderful piece of history to have witnessed by us all.