A Fitting Tribute

Photo:Adam Hodges

April showers didn't deter visitors from queuing outside Leicester Cathedral today in order to pay their respects to Richard III's tomb. 

I joined the queue inside the nave but it soon stretched outside the door and around the front of the Cathedral in a crowd containing children out of school on their Easter holidays.

Cathedral visitors are welcomed with a quote from Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy

Visitors entering the cathedral were quickly reminded of last week's reinternment service with a quote from Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's 'Richard' poem. It was at the reinternment service where Oscar nominee, and distant relative to Richard III, Benedict Cumberbatch, evocatively delivered Richard to the congregation.

Rays of sunlight shone through the Cathedral's stained glass windows on to today's congregation who gathered in the ambulatory to see the tomb. I was allowed to place my hand upon the Swaledale fossil-stone tomb but an usher prevented a couple from taking a 'selfie' beside Richard III's final resting place. The modest North Yorkshire stone is cut with a Christian cross and rests upon a dark Kilkenny-marble plinth etched with Richard III's name, life dates, White Boar emblem, royal coat of arms and motto. 

The deep-cut cross on Richard III's tomb (Photo: Adam Hodges)

The last time I had visited the Cathedral was to see Richard III's coffin a day before the reinterment service  and it was then adorned with a funeral pall, crown and Holy Bible. The funeral pall and crown are now on display in the Cathedral for visitors to examine the embroidery of artist Jacquie Binns depicting events in Richard III's lifetime and his discovery.

Richard III's funeral pall on display (Photo: Adam Hodges)

The crown was commissioned by historian John Ashdown-Hill and placed on the coffin by nine-year old brownie, Emma Chamberlain, during the Service of Repose on March 26 2015. A day which saw thousands, including myself, line the streets of Leicester to see Richard III return to the city.

Spotlights underneath the glass display-case in Leicester Cathedral made the rubies, emeralds, sapphires and plated-gold sparkle on the coronet which resembled the one Richard III adorned on Bosworth Battlefield almost 530 years ago.

The queue to view the tomb stretches outside the cathedral (Photo: Adam Hodges)

Richard III's reburial in late-March brought the world's spotlight on Leicester. The crowd outside the Cathedral and items in the Cathedral giftshop, such as a teddy of a Greyfriar who originally buried Richard III, indicate that many more from around the world will visit the king and his final resting place.