AS the nation prepares for Thursday's re-burial of King Richard III at Leicester Cathedral, constitutional historian Dr David Starkey reckons York is "well off out of it".

Apologising to Sunday night's York Literature Festival audience for a Channel 4 live interview about "that weird event going on in Leicester" delaying his stage entrance, he later said: "I think you've got away bl**dy lightly!"

Dr Starkey was in York to give a talk on York's place in English history, but once the Grand Opera House event was opened up to questions from the floor, the elephant in the room soon raised its trunk. "Where is the right place for Richard III to be buried and why?", he was asked.

"Let's be rational; it's not York," said Dr Starkey, who pointed out the usual family burial place for Richard of York would have been his seat of Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire, where he was born.

"He put down strong roots in York, and Yorkshire appears to be the only place that liked him," he went on. "Murdered kings became the subject of saint cults but there was no trace of this with Richard."

As the king, Westminster Abbey would have been his rightful resting place but after Henry V's grand design it was full, explained Dr Starkey.

"Why Leicester?" he said, pausing for effect. "He simply died there." It was the course of history, he reasoned, before going on to dismiss Richard III as the "Gordon Brown of his time", pushing and plotting for his moment in the hot seat and then blowing it as a king so bad that within two years he lost the crown to someone with no claim.

"So being buried in a naff pseudo cathedral in Leicester, rather than the glorious Minster of York, is just about right," he concluded.

Before Dr Starkey addressed 800 people in the Cumberland Street theatre, he was the subject of a street demonstration – or "non-partisan community protest"– by eight protestors, gathered around placards outside the box office to "oppose David Starkey's racism and celebrate York's diversity".

"We feel that York Literature Festival's decision to allow David Starkey to speak unopposed means he has been given a platform to espouse these offensive views without any capacity for debate or challenge," their protest leaflet said.

Protest co-ordinator Nishma Doshi said they were not opposed to Dr Starkey giving a talk but the event should have been a broader platform with a diversity of speakers.