The pretty well pointless Plantagenet petitions keep coming

A reconstruction of Richard III (Getty Images)

The argument over where to bury Richard III rumbles on. There are no fewer than 14 petitions on the Downing Street website put there by people with strong views on where and how the last Plantagenet king should be put to rest.

In that contest, York Minster is ahead of all the contenders, having attracted nearly 22,000 signatures, but the Chapter of York Minster has said that it would be more appropriate for him to be interred in Leicester Cathedral, near where his bones were discovered.

There is a rival petition championing the Priory Street Centre Car Park in York, but that is probably not a serious suggestion and has not picked up much support.

More seriously, the recently elected MP for Corby Andy Sawford is organising a campaign to have him returned to Fotherinhay, in Northamptonshirewhere he was born and where his father, the Duke of York, and one of his brothers are buried.

The government is wisely staying out of his one. Dan Jarvis, MP for Barnsley Central, asked in a Commons question whether they would consider burying him anywhere other than Leicester, but was firmly told by the Justice Minister, Helen Grant: “This is solely a matter for Leicester university, who were granted a licence to exhume buried remains which could have been those of Richard III.”

That reply makes all those signatures on all those Downing Street petitions pretty well pointless.

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• Michael Giliker

  Not that he’ll be bothered, but since he was a Catholic, how come Leics and York are in the frame anyway?

• http://www.facebook.com/robin.biddlecombe.9 Robin Biddlecombe

  if they hadn’t dug him up in the first place, would not be a problem, surely the guy got buried where he would have liked, put him back!

• clerkenwellman

  Yes his death and burial were ignominious. Moving him to York seems like an attempt to change that.

• clerkenwellman

  Well it depends on the battle a bit, but people who lost, from Harold through Richard III, Charles I and even OBL (sorry – couldn’t think of a better recent example), didn’t get the choice.

• bigfellakayn

  I found a “richard the third” in our local car park. Where should I bury it ?

• wisemanner

  He ordered the deaths of two young boys. Just dump him!

• johnheppell

  This is utterly unimportant.

• midnightblue

  Tricky. Option 1 – he wanted to be buried in York. Option 2 – alongside his wife in Westminster Abbey. Option 3 – where he fell, he was a soldier. All good choices. Actually I suspect the present unionist establishment would rather a Catholic King of England was not found at all; bit embarrasing. The Anglican cathedral in Leicester is not a bad choice; a memory of English manhood implanted to stiffen the spine of England and a potent symbol to the immigrant community of the common law tradition and religion which once unified a Plantagenet country. Been downhill since the Tudors.

• midnightblue

  York would be a snub to the capital and Westminster Abbey would probably oblige someone senior from (the constitutionally Protestant) Royal family attending the funeral. Infra dig if it is a Catholic service, and an obvious snub to Catholics if it is a Protestant service – bit tricky. So I believe it will be a Protestant service in Leicester where State can more easily disguise the insult to the ‘old’ religion. Anglicanism needs all the kudos it can get these days. I understand a Catholic priest will be given a ‘guest appearance’.

• creggancowboy

  Didn’t he say he wished to be buried in York? End of.