THE Queen paid tribute to the “great national and international significance” of Richard III’s reburial, which took place in Leicester yesterday.

The reinterment service in the city’s cathedral began at 11.30am, two years after the Plantagenet king’s remains were discovered under a council car park just yards away.

The Queen sent a message for the service, paying tribute to the momentous occasion and thanking the University of Leicester, the church and the city’s authorities who made the occasion possible.

In the message she said: “Today we recognise a king who lived through turbulent times and whose Christian faith sustained him through life and death.”

The service saw the descendants of lords and dukes who fought alongside Richard at Bosworth, witness his coffin be lowered into a tomb in the cathedral’s ambulatory, between two chapels and the altar, by soldiers from regiments which can also trace their history back to Bosworth.

The Archbishop of Canterbury threw soil from Fotheringhay, Richard’s birthplace, Middleham and Bosworth on to the coffin.

The final decision to reinter his body in Leicester came with months of wrangling with campaigners who wanted to see the king returned to York. In his sermon, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, said Richard had the greatest following of any English monarch, except for the present Queen.

The service also saw actors who have portrayed Richard III witness his reinterment.

Benedict Cumberbatch read a poem written by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Called Richard, the piece included a plea to “Grant me the carving of my name.”

During the service, Bishop Stevens said: “People have come in their thousands from around the world to this place of honour, not to judge or condemn but to stand humble and reverent. From car park to cathedral...we come to give this king, and these mortal remains the dignity and honour denied to them in death.”


Poet Laureate’s tribute to Richard III

HERE is the poem Richard, by Carol Ann Duffy, which was read at the service by actor Benedict Cumberbatch;

My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time – an unknown, unfelt loss –
unless the Resurrection of the Dead …

or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.