Richard III: Campaign gains strength (From The Northern Echo)

Richard III: Campaign gains strength

4:27pm Wednesday 6th February 2013 in News By Mark Foster

SUPPORT is continuing to grow for the campaign to bring the newly-discovered remains of Richard III back to the region where he grew up.

Thousands of people have now put their name to an on-line petition calling for his skeleton to be re-interred in York Minster – not Leicester Cathedral as is currently planned.

In the space of just 24 hours it attracted an avalanche of signatures – it now stands at well over 6,000 and rising.

And the Twitterverse is still buzzing with similar calls as the enormity of the find under a Leicester car-park continues to grip the world’s imagination.

City of York Council, tourism chiefs and at least one MP all plan to lobby the Crown and the Ministry of Justice over the future of the bones - which must currently be re-buried in Leicester under the conditions of the exhumation licence.

Although born in Northamptonshire, the last Plantagenet king spent many of his formative years at Middleham near Richmond. He also has strong ties to Sheriff Hutton, near York, where his son, Edward the Prince of Wales, still lies in the village church.

Even Scarborough Borough Council has joined in the calls, insisting Yorkshire is the “only fitting” resting place for the long-dead monarch.

Leader Tom Fox said: “He was the last monarch to enter Scarborough Castle, residing in the castle in 1484 while assembling a fleet to fight the Tudor forces, and his death the following year was a great blow to Scarborough.

“The charter he’d previously given to the town in 1485, propelling Scarborough’s status to that of a county ‘in and of itself’, was revoked by Henry VII, ushering in a new era of economic hardship.”

He added: “To be perfectly blunt, the people of Leicester misplaced him for more than 500 years – would we really wish to entrust his remains to them again? I think not.”

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