There is something almost magical about the excitement that reports of the discovery of the bones of an English king, dead for centuries, produces. Despite the almost tumultuous reception given, in early 2013, to the confirmation that the remains of Richard
There is something almost magical about the excitement that reports of the discovery of the bones of an English king, dead for centuries, produces. Despite the almost tumultuous reception given, in early 2013, to the confirmation that the remains of Richard III had been found in, the frenzy that greeted the news in January 2014 that bones probably belonging to Alfred the Great had been discovered in a box tucked away in a local museum for decades was still a surprise. There might be more of a debate over where Richard’s bones should be laid to rest but Alfred’s possible remains are as big a find – and will be arguably as big a tourism draw – as those of Shakespeare’s great villain. Suddenly, England’s long dead kings have got the X factor.
The fact that Alfred and Richard were very different monarchs with very different reputations only underlines the fact that it’s royal history, not necessarily personalities or past representations of them, that is drawing in fans from around the world. Richard became the greatest villain in royal folklore while Alfred remains the only English king to be called ‘the Great’ but both have 21st century followers aplenty, waiting eagerly for the next instalment in their still unfinished stories. The massive interest in the discoveries of their remains (both trended on Twitter while Richard III has several Facebook pages dedicated to him now) only underlines how big a box office draw kings and queens of centuries past really are in 2014.
To have a king or queen buried in a location will bring global interest. Many of Britain’s past monarchs and consorts, not to mention heirs and spares, are all neatly accounted for. A quick trip to Westminster Abbey or Windsor Castle will provide a good overview of British royalty in the last millennium and offer enough chances to read memorial stones to fill any historical day out. But a surprisingly large number of royal resting places remain unknown, or at least disputed, and the quest to find them and then claim them is well worth pursuing.
Richard and Alfred’s stories are two great examples of how easy it is to lose track of where the once greatest lord in the land is lying. Many were buried in abbeys and monasteries and when Henry VIII began his programme of tearing them down in the 1530s, the bones of several of his predecessors disappeared in 