The history of England is a long and complex affair. One the details of which I’ve managed to avoid for most of my life. Lists of kings going back 2 thousand years; who needs it? You just kind’a pick it up as you go along. A bit like geography. I learned the cities of our nation by the quality of their football teams. So Manchester, Leeds, Burnley and Coventry were BIG places because they had (then) First Division football teams. Whereas Plymouth, Oldham and Norwich were rubbish places with shitty lower league teams. Birmingham was a problem. Because Birmingham City were lowly, so didn’t count for nuffink, whereas Aston Villa and West Brom were big, but didn’t say where they were from. The best teams all came from London anyway, so it wasn’t THAT important. At the time. Nor now really.

While geography was football, history was more cricket. Because it was all about counties. Yorkshire, Lancashire, Essex. When they spoke of the War of the Roses I thought it had something to do with Geoffrey Boycott. And a box of chocolates.

Richard the 3rd was one of our many kings. In fact he was the last king of the house of York. Whatever that means. He was the last Plantagenet king. Again, no idea what one o’them might be. And he had a hunchback. Well, not a proper one but he suffered from scoliosis which curved his spine a bit. It was only when he was played by Kevin Spacey that he developed a proper hunchback. And an American accent. As if he didn’t have enough trouble already.

Richard (as I call him) died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was a proper king. He led his troops into battle. Not for him, shagging his way round the assorted blondes of the European capitals, flying a helicopter or going round insulting exotic people in strange distant lands. He led from the front. Setting the example for heroics and, well, stupidity really, for every subsequent monarch to avoid like the fucking plague. He was the last one to die in battle.

And because his team lost that war, he was not properly buried but merely dumped into a hole in the ground in a car park in Leicester. Not very regal. Neither Leicester nor the car park. Though it wasn’t actually a car park when they dumped him. NCP didn’t exist until 1593 with the first multi-storey horse park.

It was a church. At that time. Later a car park. And a couple of years ago they found him (what was left of him) identified him as Richard and moved him, with all due modern pomp and ceremony, to Leicester Cathedral. Which they opened to the public yesterday. Queues round the block. Richard 3rd t-shirts, key-rings, hats, ice creams (special bent cones). They paraded the coffin around, as one tweet said ‘like the FA Cup on an open topped bus’ en route to his final place of rest.

Because Leicester is a scummy place. Their football team are currently languishing at the foot of the Premiership and the city’s main reason for being there is to make Walker’s Crisps.

They should bring the poor man to Westminster Abbey. Where he’ll be treated with the respect he deserves. And the ice cream’s better down here.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx