The Coffining

RICHARD BUCKLEY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF ULAS, TALKING ABOUT THE SCHOOL PROJECT TO MAKE LINEN BAGS FOR RICHARD'S BONES
"The thing I was really most pleased about, probably, was that we went to do a talk to the Richard III Primary School in Leicester, and we had this idea that it'd be really nice if the children could be involved in some way. So, we managed to get hold of some Irish linen, and Irish linen thread, and got them to make little bags to put the small bones in. So, that was that was really. Really pleased with that, that they'd engage with it and that side of things. And then, yes, packed with... with wool fleece to stop everything moving around, and all of the DNA sample remnants went in there as well."

JIM BUTLER, FORMER EVENTS LEAD AT UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER, TALKING ABOUT THE SCHOOL PROJECT TO MAKE LINEN BAGS FOR RICHARD'S BONES
"It had to be the Richard III school! We gave them materials that had to be used, like unbleached cotton, all that sort of thing that wouldn't impact on, or degrade the bones over time, so we had to be very specific in that sort of thing. But then the kids sewed these little bags together, and they put little emblems on, and it was like, for these six- to seven-year-olds. I mean, I'm not even sure if they remember it now, but at the time, it was the biggest thing going on."

SALLY HENSHAW, SECRETARY OF LEICESTERSHIRE BRANCH OF RICHARD III SOCIETY, TALKING ABOUT THE IDEA TO CREATE AN OEMBROIDERED CLOTH TO COVER RICHARD'S BONES
"And Richard Buckley got in touch with me at some point to sort of say, Did I think it would be a good idea if they had an embroidered cloth over the bones. They were going to do some little embroidered bags for the tiny bones, for the hands. And I said, yes, I think it's a brilliant idea, Richard, but it's no use looking at me because I can't even sew a press stud on! ….. So, I got in touch with Phil Stone, because as well as being the chairman of the society, and he was a radiologist by profession, he was also a keen embroiderer, and I knew he'd done some of the work at Fotheringhay on the kneelers. And he said, oh, I'll tell Elizabeth Nokes. ….. And then Elizabeth Nokes and Richard were put in touch with each other, and she did the cloth that went over Richard's remains. And I think some school children embroidered the bags for the hands."

MATHEW MORRIS, DIG SUPERVISOR, TALKING ABOUT THE COFFINING REHEARSAL
"And I remember we made a cardboard sort of mock-up of the full size one and then was…. We were also concerned about the preservation of the bones, so we made a cardboard mock-up, filled it with plastic bones, and padded it, and then sort of violently carried it around the building, up and down stairs at funny angles, and then unpacked it to see if things had moved around, so things like that."

JO APPLEBY, OSTEOLOGIST, TALKING ABOUT THE ROLE SHE PLAYED IN THE COFFINING CEREMONY
"From what I remember, I think Mathew was passing me the bones, and I was laying them out as I would do normally, if I was like…. I lay out skeletons quite often. You effectively are trying to create a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional human body. Because obviously you can't reconstruct the kind of… the height that things would usually be above the ground but basically having it as it would be a body lying down. ….The other thing we did was that we straightened out his spine for him. So, he's gone into the ground with his spine straight."

KEVIN SCHURER, HISTORIAN AND GENEALOGIST, REFLECTING ON THE COFFINING CEREMONY FOR RICHARD III
"And it was a very dignified and sombre occasion. It wasn't religious in that sense, but it was done with dignity and honour, a phrase that was often used in relation to Richard III, with just a relatively small gathering of what I term witnesses. You're here to witness this, and I wanted... And again, it will be in the Leicester University archives, I got them all to physically sign a document, afterwards, to say that they had witnessed the remains being placed into the coffin."

JIM BUTLER, FORMER EVENTS LEAD AT UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER, RECALLING WHAT HAPPENED TO THE COFFIN AFTER THE CEREMONY
"On that evening, the coffin was removed and, from its secure location, and placed in the University vault, which is on the ground floor of the Fielding Johnson building, so in a good location, ready for the... for the events of the next day. Now, so, he was placed in the vault, and he's secure in the vault, however, there were concerns that all these, all these scenarios played in everyone head, and was like, what happens if the lock breaks, what happens if we can't get into the vault on the day of the thing? We can't have that happen. So, it ended up, although he was placed within the vault, we then had to leave the vault slightly ajar, and we had a 24-hour security guard sat outside the vault, just to be sure."