Ordinarily I have very little interest in monarchy except to hope for its swift abolition, even less so the ancient monarchy of a foreign country.
The dispute regarding the future burial of Richard III of England (Letters, February 27) has so far overlooked one central issue – Richard was a Catholic.
Despite the Church of England's eagerness to claim him, the reality is that Richard died almost half a century prior to its creation. Ironically, had Richard not been deposed the likelihood is that Anglicanism wouldn't exist at all.
The daughter of the King of Aragon is unlikely to have been married to a minor English aristocrat (as Henry VIII would have been), and so the 16th century Jeremy Kyle Show which became Henry's love life and eventually brought forth the break with Rome would have been avoided.
Assuming (as seems likely) that Richard made a confession before taking the battlefield at Bosworth and thereby repented of his apparent sins, then a familiar and contemporaneous Catholic funeral would be far more appropriate than an alien Protestant innovation which post-dated his death.
I would suggest the use of the Sarum Rite – a variation of the Roman Rite which was popular in England during Richard's lifetime and was the standard practice for English royal funerals of the day. I would also favour Richard's burial in an English Catholic site, possibly Westminster Cathedral.
Chris McLaughlin,
71b Braidpark Drive,
Giffnock.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article