This street was the heart of medieval Leicester - it is the street where Richard III spent his last night alive.
Showing posts with label Richard III. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard III. Show all posts
Leicester Oral History Trail 9: Highcross Street
This street was the heart of medieval Leicester - it is the street where Richard III spent his last night alive.
The unanswerable case for the canonisation of Richard III
Our text for this evening is 2 Kings 13:21
And Elisha died, and they buried him. And the bands of the Moabites invaded the land at the coming in of the year. And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.Miracles have long been associated with royal bones. So it is natural to see a connection between the reinterment of Richard III at Leicester Cathedral and Leicester City's miraculous winnig of the Premier League.
Just look at the evidence.
Richard was laid to rest in the cathedral on 26 March 2015 - I had been to pay my respects to the old boy the day before.
And how does Wikipedia describe subsequent events at the King Power stadium?
Despite the club being marooned at the bottom of the table for four-and-a-half months between late November and mid-April, the Foxes managed to put together a run of seven wins from their last nine fixtures to survive comfortably.And they haven't stopped winning since.
To be canonised takes two miracles, so if count last season's survival as the first and this season's victory as the second, then Richard is home and dry.
A reader asks: Canonisation, eh? What about the Princes in the Tower? I don't call that very saintly.
Liberal England replies hurriedly: I'm afraid that's all we have time for.
King Richard's Well, Shenton
This is King Richard's Well where, legend has it, Richard III drank before the Battle of Bosworth. You can find it close to Shenton station on the Battlefield Line.
The plaque reads:
Near this spot, on August 22nd 1485, at the age of 32, King Richard III fell fighting gallantly in defence of his realm & his crown against the usurper Henry Tudor.
The Cairn was erected by Dr. Samuel Parr in 1813 to mark the well from which the king is said to have drunk during the battle.
It is maintained by the Fellowship of the White Boar."Near this spot" may be optimistic: modern scholarship place of the battle a mile or so to the south west of Shenton and the Battle of Bosworth visitor centre.
The Battlefield line in West Leicestershire
Yesterday I visited the Battlefield Line in the west of Leicestershire. Some heritage lines are preserved and polished to within an inch of their lives: this one is not like that.
Its slightly homely nature gives you an idea of what branch lines must have been like in the last days of their operation.There were no steam locomotives running yesterday - just a couple of ill-matched diesel multiple unit cars.
It was good to see the building from Leicester Humberstone Road station in its new home.
And it was sad to see 45015, which I remember hauling St Pancras expresses through Market Harborough, mouldering away beside the line at Shackerstone. (It is not owned by the Battlefield Line people themselves.)
Thomas Denny's stained glass windows for Richard III
After last night's events I had to go into Leicester today.
I cannot claim there were remarkable scenes, but the commemorative Leicester Mercury was selling out as fast as they could print it. This is the first time I have seen people queuing to buy a local paper.
So I went to the Cathedral to thank Richard III, the man behind it all. Since he was reinterred there, Leicester City have not stopped winning.
I found they were flying the club's flag. More than that, I found a former boss of mine from Golden Wonder in clerical garb. I was impressed that she recognised me from almost 30 years ago.
And I also found the wonderful new stained glass windows by Thomas Denny, which depict the life of Richard.
The Leicester Cathedral website will tell you all about them, but the illustrations in that PDF do not do justice to their wonderful, soft, crayon-like colours.
Richard Reburied Revisited
That was Richard III, whose coffin lay in Leicester Cathedral for three days before its burial.
To mark the anniversary the city council is staging a series of events under the title Richard Reburied Revisited.
