14 January 2014 – The Good Funeral Guide

Richard III’s reinterment remains unresolved

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Will Richard III’s DNA-approved descendants scupper this May’s planned reinterment of his remains during a televised, Anglican ceremony at Leicester Cathedral? Having objected to Leicester’s claim to the last Plantagenet monarch, there’s now to be a judicial review in March aiming to annul Leicester’s license. Will the case merely postpone reinterment, or result in a new venue: Westminster Abbey, perhaps, where the king’s wife, Anne, is buried? Or Richard of York’s beloved York Minster?

In the event of victory for the relatives, will they even call for a Catholic reinterment for a Catholic king? The reason why he was discovered under a car park in Leicester in 2012 is because the newly Anglican Tudors destroyed his original resting place, Greyfriars Church, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Several other Plantagenet monarchs have also been rudely disturbed in their resting places, resulting in their remains being lost. Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their son Richard I, were all buried at France’s Abbaye de Fontevraud in Anjou, which was sacked and pillaged by the Protestant Huguenots in 1562. Richard’s heart was buried separately at Rouen Cathedral, which survived vandalism.

Wives have, on the whole, fared far worse than their regal husbands. While Henry III lies in Westminster Abbey, his Queen Consort, Eleanor of Provence, was buried at Amesbury Abbey in Wiltshire, destroyed in 1539. There was a similar fate for the remains of Edward I’s wife, Eleanor of Castile, when her viscera tomb at Lincoln Cathedral was smashed by Roundheads during the English Civil War, but since rebuilt during the Victorian era.

The tomb of Edward II’s wife, Isabella of France, was at the Franciscan Church at Newgate, London, which didn’t survive the Dissolution. The remains of Henry IV’s wife, Mary, were also lost when the Church of St Mary of the Annunciation in Leicester was destroyed. And the remains of Henry VI’s wife, Margaret of Anjou, were scattered when Saint-Maurice Cathedral in Angers was destroyed in the French Revolution in 1794.

Back to Richard III via the murdered Princes in the Tower. The bodies of two children were discovered during repair work in the Tower of London in 1674. Assumed to be those of Richard’s nephews, Edward and Richard, Charles II had them interred at Westminster Abbey, where they remain. If Uncle Richard ends up at the Abbey, let’s hope his tomb isn’t next door to those of the young princes.

Candlepower

If you’re out in Soho on a Saturday night chances are, as you reel from one nightspot to another, that a fresh-faced young person will greet you with the somewhat discordant question, “Would you like to light a candle in a church?”

Being idealists, these gentle, big-eyed souls are used to being rebuffed by all manner of derision, indifference and obscenity. But they keep going because they know that, sooner or later, someone’s going to say yes.

When they do, they are conducted to St Patrick’s church where they duly light their candle and either sit in the calm for a bit or even read a bit of scripture. They pop in for a moment, all sorts of people, some maybe for a bit of a laugh, but they often stay for up to an hour. By the end of a typical evening, more than 300 candles are dancing and flickering.

Those who come are not sold religion. The space is as soothing for atheists as it is for holy folk. For them the church is a haven of serenity, somewhere to enjoy a time out from bustle.

The project is called Nightfever. It started in Germany in 2005 and is catching on over here.

You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Yes, let’s take it further. What a good idea it would be if churches of all denominations were to offer this invitation to bereaved people: Would you like to come inside and light a candle in memory of someone in our church?

Funeral directors could offer the same invitation.

And have you noticed how crematoria are happy to offer you somewhere to stash your flowers, but nowhere to light a candle? They should do it too.

Yes, yes, fire risks, terribly dangerous, insurers won’t have it, etc.

But if churches can, crems and undertakers can. Do it. Lighting a candle in memory of someone who has died is a powerful thing to do. And there is fellowship in all those dancing flames.