Countdown: 20 days to go to King Richard III’s reinterment.
As the big day nears, a number of people have made interesting and meaningful contributions towards the reinterment of King Richard III:
- Michael Ibsen, a cabinet-maker by profession and King Richard III’s seventeenth-great-nephew, made his oak coffin.
- The lead ossuary for King Richard III was hand-made by a seventh-generation Leicester businessman, Jonathan Castleman, and he will also seal it.
- Richard III Society member, author, historian, and member of the Looking for Richard team, John Ashdown-Hill, created King Richard III’s crown, based in part on the only known surviving English crown from the Middle Ages, Margaret of York’s wedding crown. Ashdown-Hill also donated a rosary for Richard’s coffin.
- The altar cloths being used by Leicester Cathedral for the reinterment have been
stitched by a woman from Queensbury, New York. - King Richard III will be once more reunited with his book of hours, which he apparently had with him the night before he was killed. The book of hours will be placed on top of his coffin during the reinterment service. It is now held in the collection of the Lambeth Palace Library.
- Children from King Richard III Infant School in Leicester are making bags to hold the remains of King Richard III.
Finally, any flowers brought to the cathedral should be natural and not covered in cellophane, tissue paper, or ribbon.
A Canadian Ricardian's Pilgrimage to Leicester 