Canadian in battle over monarch’s bones
Descendant of King Richard III
The Canadian-born man whose DNA was critical to identifying the newly unearthed remains of King Richard III is at the centre of a truly royal court battle over whether the monarch’s bones should be buried in Leicester — the English city where his grave was discovered last year by archeologists — or 150 kilometres to the north in York, reputedly the place where Richard himself planned to be interred.
A British judge ruled Friday that the Plantagenet Alliance group of 15 of Richard’s “distant relatives” can proceed with its legal challenge against the proposed placing of the king’s bones in a tomb at Leicester Cathedral, part of a planned $1.5-million upgrade of the historic church.
The alliance members have argued that the entire project — from last summer’s discovery of skeletal remains at the Leicester dig, to this February’s announcement that DNA tests had proven the bones were Richard’s, to the subsequent unveiling of the cathedral entombment plan — has unfolded without adequate public consultation.
But London, Ont.-born Michael Ibsen, a 56-year-old furniture maker now living in the U.K., says he strongly backs the proposed Leicester reburial of his 17th generation great uncle’s remains.
“I’ve followed the Richard III project from the outset and was involved in the University of Leicester’s analysis of the DNA evidence,” Ibsen said in a statement issued Friday by the university. “I support reinterment in Leicester Cathedral as entirely fitting and appropriate.”
The Leicester plan also calls for a $6-million heritage tourism attraction in the city to showcase the 15th century monarch’s life and the sensational archeological investigation that solved a 528-yearold mystery about the last Plantagenet ruler’s long-lost resting place, which turned out to be a humble grave beneath a city parking lot.
But in his ruling on whether to allow the Plantagenet Alliance case to proceed against the University of Leicester and the U.K justice ministry — which had approved both the excavation and the proposed reburial in Leicester — High Court Judge Charles Haddon-Cave stated, “It is plainly arguable that there was a duty at common law to consult widely as to how and where Richard III’s remains should appropriately be reinterred.”
And while warning against an “unseemly, undignified” battle over the king’s skeleton and urging the two sides to “avoid embarking on the legal War of the Roses Part 2,” the judge ruled that a full hearing on burial options is warranted because “The archeological discovery of the mortal remains of a former King of England after 500 years is without precedent.”
The alliance, which launched a national “King Richard Campaign” earlier this year to win public support for a York reburial, argues on its website that “There are many expert historians of his life and times who agree that King Richard III may well have been intending York Minster to be his mausoleum. It is fitting and respectful and in keeping with all of our national customs regarding treatment of the dead, to bury this king in a place ‘appropriate to him’ — that place is York.”
The University of Leicester said its officials were “digesting” the ruling. But it insisted Richard III, famously portrayed as a scheming, villainous hunchback by William Shakespeare, should be buried “in the magnificent holy setting of Leicester Cathedral, near where his remains had lain for centuries and where they were finally discovered as a result of what the court described as ‘the inspired, determined and meticulous work’ of the university and members of the Richard III Society.”
The university’s statement said “statistically, it is expected there will be at least a million relatives of Richard III alive today.” Then the university played its own next of kin card, highlighting the fact that “We have received messages of support” from relatives of the king, “including Michael Ibsen, whose DNA, together with that of another direct descendant of Richard’s sister, was key to identifying the remains found at Greyfriars in Leicester.”
Richard III reigned for 26 months before he was killed in 1485 by forces loyal to the future Henry VII at the Leicester-area Battle of Bosworth Field.
British historian John Ashdown-Hill — author of The Last Days of Richard III — was key to creating the opportunity for a DNA match with the bones unearthed last year. He had earlier traced the king’s maternal lineage to British-born Joy Ibsen — a retired Canadian journalist and Michael Ibsen’s mother — in 2004.
“It’s just unbelievable,” Michael Ibsen, formally identified as the 17th greatgrand-nephew of Richard III, told Postmedia News after the skeleton was discovered in September. “You couldn’t have written a movie script better than this. They find a skeleton with an arrow in its back, a spine with scoliosis and a head wound from a sword. They might as well have found him with a plaque saying HERE I AM.”