It's confirmed!
It is Richard III. I am so...oh, I don't even know. Who knew it was possible to be so excited about a 500-year-old skeleton?
I couldn't watch the press conference in the end, as I was in a meeting - but I was keeping tabs on the live text throughout. The documentary is on TV tonight, so I'll be watching that, and I'll see if I can find the playback of the press conference on iPlayer later.
The burial will be sometime next year apparently, in Leicester Cathedral. I still think it should be York, since he was a Yorkist king and York was his power base and where he'd want to be buried, but I suppose Leicester were never going to let it be anywhere else, and it was their call to make.
But oh, this is just so amazing, so much new research, so much of history being overturned! I hope this gives impetus to new DNA tests for the supposed bones of the Princes in the Tower in Westminster Abbey. That couldn't confirm who killed him, I don't think it'll ever be possible to know that - but it could at least confirm if it is them and that they were murdered and didn't die naturally and perhaps when they were killed.
I'm so glad that Richard will finally have a resting place that befits a King. And the irony of it all is, because it took so long and because of the interest this has generated, his burial place will probably end up being the most visited and visible of all England's Kings.
I couldn't watch the press conference in the end, as I was in a meeting - but I was keeping tabs on the live text throughout. The documentary is on TV tonight, so I'll be watching that, and I'll see if I can find the playback of the press conference on iPlayer later.
The burial will be sometime next year apparently, in Leicester Cathedral. I still think it should be York, since he was a Yorkist king and York was his power base and where he'd want to be buried, but I suppose Leicester were never going to let it be anywhere else, and it was their call to make.
But oh, this is just so amazing, so much new research, so much of history being overturned! I hope this gives impetus to new DNA tests for the supposed bones of the Princes in the Tower in Westminster Abbey. That couldn't confirm who killed him, I don't think it'll ever be possible to know that - but it could at least confirm if it is them and that they were murdered and didn't die naturally and perhaps when they were killed.
I'm so glad that Richard will finally have a resting place that befits a King. And the irony of it all is, because it took so long and because of the interest this has generated, his burial place will probably end up being the most visited and visible of all England's Kings.