Richard III

My fascination with Richard III began when as a young girl I read Josephine Tey's 1951 detective novel,  Daughter of Time. Tey retells   the mystery of the fate of the Princes in the Tower through the eyes of a modern police officer who investigates the alleged crimes of King Richard. Tey's work challenges the long held belief that Richard did away with his nephews as they posed a threat to his tentative grip on the throne. Tey's work is compelling and I am only one of many readers who have found themselves persuaded by her arguments of Richard's innocence.
You are all familiar with Shakespeare's Richard III - the hunchback Medieval tyrant whose actions are Machiavellian even 50 years before Machiavelli wrote The Prince.  The real Richard III remains a mystery even today and the recent finding of his remains has only added to the mystery and not dispelled any of the myths. So we are now in Leicester to learn more.  The jury is still very much out on Richard, bu what is certain is that the recent discovery of his body and the reinterment in Leicester Cathedral have been a boon for the city.  In the 12 since his reinterment he has boosted tourism to the tune of 55 million pound and his grave is now one of the top 25 new places in the world to visit - up there with the Cern Laboratry in Switzerland and the world's fastest roller coaster in Abu Dhabi.

Richard's tomb is surprisingly moving in it's simplicity and elegance

In previous visits to England Leicester never featured in the itinerary but how things have changed since they unearthed Richard's bones, and more recently since the local football team unexpectedly won the English Premieer League this month.  For Australians unused to the complexities of English soccer than means they finished top of the ladder - that is a bigger deal here than at home.

The Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower, 1483 by Sir John Everett Millais, 1878. As a young girl I had this image of the young princes as a swap card. Poor Richard, forever considered as Shakespeare's hunchback monster has little hope when compared with the cherubic young princes