Today on Monday Mysteries we come to the culmination of a story I have been following on the blog for several years: the reburial of Richard III.
For the few of you who probably did not note the dates on their calendar, the start of the ceremonial reburial of Richard III’s remains began this past weekend. It will culminate on Thursday with his entombment in Leicester Cathedral. This involves all manner of high pomp and circumstance, including 15th century appropriate marching bands, processional guardsman, and even a knight on a horse leading the procession.
Here are a few links for you to explore:
- An article detailing yesterday’s procession, including a mention of how they remembered to lower Henry VII’s banner during the march across the Bosworth battlefield, where Richard met his fate 500+ years ago.
- Another article about it.
- Photos from yesterday’s procession and motorcade.
- An op-ed piece from a British newspaper on why its important to re-bury Richard III
- An article with 7 facts you might not know about Richard III.
That last article includes a photo of an actor dressed as Richard III. The actor is currently noted for playing Sherlock Holmes, though. Which led to all kinds of “the game’s afoot” type of thoughts and trying to tie that into this post.
But that doesn’t actually work out that well as an expression applied to Richard III, though: that the remains of Richard III were discovered missing his feet. That was a big mystery at first … and you can imagine there have been multiple conspiracy theories surrounding that fact. But it turns out that the real reason the feet are missing is a bit more prosaic, and not a mystery at all: an outhouse built during the Victorian era actually destroyed part of Richard’s unmarked grave, taking out his feet in the process.
That 7 facts article also talks about poor Richard’s multiple head wounds that resulted in his death. However, one article today concedes that at least one of Richard’s head wounds was not actually caused in 15th battle, but rather in a 21st century encounter with an over-enthusiastic archaeologist’s pickax.
Ah well. After the Battle of Bosworth Richard may have needed another hole in his head about as much as he needed, well, another hole in his head. But for that 21st century encounter with that pickax, he might never have had a modern re-habilitation of his legacy, and he almost certainly would never have had a ceremonial re-internment this week.
So oddly enough, in some ways I guess you could say that Richard III actually did need a (21st century) hole in his head after all. 😉