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| Why Richard III's final resting place matters | Why Richard III's final resting place matters |
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| Who says the Wars of the Roses are over? Five hundred years since the Battle of Bosworth, the Yorkist side is turning in on itself, and the Richard III Society may have finally met its match in the Plantagenet Alliance. | Who says the Wars of the Roses are over? Five hundred years since the Battle of Bosworth, the Yorkist side is turning in on itself, and the Richard III Society may have finally met its match in the Plantagenet Alliance. |
| The former, in association with the University of Leicester, kicked off last year's stunning exhumation of Richard III's body from a car park in Leicester, and Leicester is where it wants his final resting place to be. Now the latter, consisting of 15 living relatives of the king, say they are planning to use the law to insist he be buried in York instead. You might wonder what they're all getting so worked up about – and this Richard III business certainly defies all logical explanation. | The former, in association with the University of Leicester, kicked off last year's stunning exhumation of Richard III's body from a car park in Leicester, and Leicester is where it wants his final resting place to be. Now the latter, consisting of 15 living relatives of the king, say they are planning to use the law to insist he be buried in York instead. You might wonder what they're all getting so worked up about – and this Richard III business certainly defies all logical explanation. |
| In strictly scientific terms, there was no point in digging him up. Archaeologists thought he was under the car park – and indeed he was. Historians thought he had curvature of the spine – and it looks like indeed he did. | In strictly scientific terms, there was no point in digging him up. Archaeologists thought he was under the car park – and indeed he was. Historians thought he had curvature of the spine – and it looks like indeed he did. |
| It was the sensational and emotional impact of the discovery that mattered, and many professional archaeologists and historians – and indeed journalists – found that uncomfortable. Words like "trivialisation" and "stunt" were bandied about, especially after the Channel 4 documentary that dwelt as much on the players as the results. | It was the sensational and emotional impact of the discovery that mattered, and many professional archaeologists and historians – and indeed journalists – found that uncomfortable. Words like "trivialisation" and "stunt" were bandied about, especially after the Channel 4 documentary that dwelt as much on the players as the results. |
| The editor of History Today, Paul Lay, blames "the pernicious influence of the solipsistic celebrity genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?" for a demand for history to which we can "relate". Indeed, Plantagenet Alliance members are "relatives" of the king, no less. And no more, either. They can't claim to be his descendants. | |
| It's easy to mock the people who straightforwardly project their present concerns on to the past. As a curator, I've met endless people who feel a "special connection" with Anne Boleyn, or Victorian prostitutes, or various other unlikely candidates. | It's easy to mock the people who straightforwardly project their present concerns on to the past. As a curator, I've met endless people who feel a "special connection" with Anne Boleyn, or Victorian prostitutes, or various other unlikely candidates. |
| It's easy too, if you look back at the past, to draw connections between people's barmy obsessions and their own age. The Victorians were very taken with the idea that Henry VIII might have had syphilis, a disease that was central to their own health fears. Today the most modish explanation of the king's maladies is Kell's disease. If Henry VIII belonged to the rare Kell positive blood group, he would have found difficulty in fathering more than one child with any Kell-negative woman. The theory matches his reproductive history; but it's also the perfect solution to have arisen in our own age, when genetics appears to have all the answers. | It's easy too, if you look back at the past, to draw connections between people's barmy obsessions and their own age. The Victorians were very taken with the idea that Henry VIII might have had syphilis, a disease that was central to their own health fears. Today the most modish explanation of the king's maladies is Kell's disease. If Henry VIII belonged to the rare Kell positive blood group, he would have found difficulty in fathering more than one child with any Kell-negative woman. The theory matches his reproductive history; but it's also the perfect solution to have arisen in our own age, when genetics appears to have all the answers. |
| So I do have some sympathy with the professional historians and archaeologists who roll their eyes at the enthusiasts who stomp around fields on Saturdays in unconvincing costumes, complete with modern eyewear, or cry at archaeological digs. But ultimately if you push me, I'm always going to be on the side of the tearful. There seems to me to be something admirable, indeed noble, about the people arguing over Richard III. They're doers rather than naysayers, romantics rather than realists, people looking for meaning rather than numbness. And I do wonder what professional historians are beavering away for in their ivory towers, if not to have history become part of the common currency of life. | So I do have some sympathy with the professional historians and archaeologists who roll their eyes at the enthusiasts who stomp around fields on Saturdays in unconvincing costumes, complete with modern eyewear, or cry at archaeological digs. But ultimately if you push me, I'm always going to be on the side of the tearful. There seems to me to be something admirable, indeed noble, about the people arguing over Richard III. They're doers rather than naysayers, romantics rather than realists, people looking for meaning rather than numbness. And I do wonder what professional historians are beavering away for in their ivory towers, if not to have history become part of the common currency of life. |
| Of course, it's fun to point out the inaccuracies or sensationalism or elisions of historical drama, or history designed for public consumption. In another sense, though, it's self-defeating, because if you constantly deride the offerings of this whole industry that produces what the Americans call "public history", its customers will slip away to football, or Facebook, and leave us all the poorer. | Of course, it's fun to point out the inaccuracies or sensationalism or elisions of historical drama, or history designed for public consumption. In another sense, though, it's self-defeating, because if you constantly deride the offerings of this whole industry that produces what the Americans call "public history", its customers will slip away to football, or Facebook, and leave us all the poorer. |
| Even if emotion isn't your thing, look at the money. Whoever gets the final tomb of Richard III will have a new and possibly profitable tourist attraction on their hands. So I'm all in favour of a spot of Plantagenet controversy. There's only one thing worse for a subject than being talked about. It's not being talked about. | Even if emotion isn't your thing, look at the money. Whoever gets the final tomb of Richard III will have a new and possibly profitable tourist attraction on their hands. So I'm all in favour of a spot of Plantagenet controversy. There's only one thing worse for a subject than being talked about. It's not being talked about. |
| • This article was amended on 9 April 2013. The original said Richard III had no children. He had one legitimate son, who died as a child, and acknowledged two illegitimate children. |