In the last few years we’ve seen an astonishing and exciting thing here in our country: a relatively small, minority interest group dismissed by some as a gathering of eccentrics, has been triumphantly vindicated in the most extraordinary way. And the Ricardians‘ journey has drawn with them a city, a nation, the sweep of English history, and something powerful that has touched our spiritual roots.
The group is of course the Richard III Society – whose existence I first heard of 15 years ago whilst viewing an exhibition during my walk along the York City Walls – and the triumphant vindication is the discovery of the remains of Richard III, their authentication through a thrilling blend of science and history, and the captivation of millions by Richard’s story, and by the solemn and beautiful ceremonial with which his remains were received into Leicester Cathedral.
I’ve written about Richard III on this blog before, after visiting Bosworth Battlefield myself, and also after reading and reviewing John Ashdown-Hill’s excellent book The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA. Now I expect that this book, along with the tourist industry in Leicester and the economic fortunes of that city, will be given an enormous boost by the last few days’ events.
IN my former blog post about Richard III, I wrote this:|
“I cannot read of a historical figure like Richard III without seeing the parallels between his story and fate, and our own experience in this life.
For the basic principles of life do not change.
Nothing and no-one can guarantee any particular outcome for us. Not vice, not virtue. Not piety, not betrayal.
But of one thing I now feel assured by Ashdown-Hill’s book: where there is integrity and focused persistent research, and rigorous dedication, as in the painstaking work of the best historians and genealogists, truth, ultimately, will out.”
How many people must have watched Channel 4’s coverage of the events surrounding and including the reception of the body of Richard III into Leicester Cathedral, with a mix of emotions? Among us there would have been those who were amused, astonished, partly disbelieving, fascinated, excited, uplifted, moved. It was poignant, dramatic, dignified, graceful and solemn.
Certainly we are seeing “a fusion of everybody’s beliefs bound up in a very English moment which allows us to transcend the present moment and is big enough to accommodate all of us.”
Richard III represents and illustrates once again the “what ifs” with which British history is so liberally scattered.
As I watched the coverage of Richard’s remains travelling through the streets of Leicester, packed with onlookers, I saw many people throwing white roses onto the carriage. And I thought that with every white rose thrown, each person was somehow connecting with, claiming their place, inhabiting a story which expresses all the unaccountable mutations of life.
scskillman.com 