King a little over-praised
Like the majority of Leicestershire people, I am pleased King Richard lll's remains have been discovered and will eventually be given a suitable reburial in hallowed ground.
Congratulations are due to all involved in this enterprise.
Unlike recent correspondents, I do not think the public deserves the right to view his remains.
These remains are, after all, of a dead person, albeit a king.
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He deserves the right to be reinterred without being used as a museum exhibit. Another correspondent, Grahame West, of Australia, ("Richard helped to give us our freedoms", Mailbox, February 25) credits Richard with giving us the first printed books, but this is incorrect.
William Caxton produced the first printed book in England in 1477, six years before Richard came to the throne.
In his letter, Mr West writes of the ordinary people paying the price of their masters' misdeeds and praises Richard for being the most revolutionary monarch in history.
A little over the top, I fear, for someone who reigned for only a little over two years.
When Edward IV died suddenly, aged 39, in 1483, he left six surviving children, the eldest of whom was Prince Edward, the rightful King Edward V, and the second eldest was Richard, Duke of York.
These two boys aged about 12 and 10 were to become known as the Princes in the Tower.
Soon after the death of their father, they were both taken to the royal apartments at the Tower of London and kept there in seclusion.
Richard instigated a campaign to bring his dead brother Edward IV's marriage into question and to bastardise his children, claiming the union with Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV's queen, was bigamous.
Richard put himself up as the legal heir to the throne.
However spurious the argument, Parliament accepted it and, on July 6, 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was crowned King Richard lll at Westminster Abbey.
The two young princes were never seen outside the Tower of London again.
The skeletons of two boys of corresponding age were discovered during repair work at the Tower in 1674, and Charles II had these buried at Westminster Abbey.
Although there can never be proof after all this time that Richard had the princes murdered, he certainly did everything in his power to make sure the young Prince Edward never had the chance to fulfil his potential as the rightful King Edward V of England.
Frank Barrett, Hinckley.
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