Yorkists still fight to do right by king

WE pro-Yorkists have been accused of being fanatical about this and ‘we should let King Richard lll be reinterred in peace’’ and should let the matter drop now.... but how can we?

We have this one opportunity to do right by this King who in life did right by his citizens, who passed laws all in the favour of the common man, who upheld law and justice above all else.

He honoured the fallen at Towton, he prayed for the souls of his soldiers who had died in his battles, he reinterred his father and brother to their home at Fotheringhay, he respected the wishes of his brother at Windsor and King Henry Vl.

Take a look at where most of the post-Conquest Kings are buried, the list reads Westminster, St George’s Chapel, medieval cathedrals, great abbeys... why should Richard III not be accorded the same honour? Richard was commissioning a great Chantry Chapel at York Minster, he had given them exquisite gifts, he had paid for essential repairs and he chose to make his home in Yorkshire as Lord of the North and as a married man, investing his only son in York Minster as Prince of Wales.

No, we will not give up this golden opportunity to lay King Richard in the county he so obviously had great connection to and had plans for.

No, we will not give up this opportunity to at last give respect to King Richard and honour him in a way he did not have at his death. No, we will not give up this opportunity to right the wrongs of over 500 years and lay him in a place of Royalty and honour instead of the place he was “most cruelly slain and murdered”.

From: Arthur Quarmby, Underhill, Holme.

RICHARD III was the lastk King from the House of York. Richard was also the last English King – after him came Welsh Tudors, Scottish Stuarts, then Orange, Hanover and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Richard’s nephews, known as the Princes in the Tower were no threat either to Richard or his son Edward, Prince of Wales. But had any of these survived then the Tudors could never have claimed the throne.

In the year of his death Richard ordered the body of his murdered predecessor Henry VI removed from Chertsey Abbey to a fitting tomb in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.

A pity that history could not have returned that compliment. Shakespeare has much to answer for in the way in which he pandered to the Tudors by blackening Richard’s name.

From: Elizabeth Titley, Spring View, Luddendenfoot, Halifax.

THE judges may have handed down their decision, but that does not mean that the thousands of people world-wide have rolled over. Letters are being written to MPs and the Shadow Minister for Justice, who, unlike the present holder of the office of Lord Chancellor at least has a legal background.

Roman post was first class

From: Mrs E Bird, Miller Avenue, Sandal, Wakefield.

I READ the letter from Dr Frank Lefley (The Yorkshire Post, May 31) whose letter took 10 days to arrive at its destination.

I just happen to be reading Fifty Things in World History by Hugh Williams and read that post travelled faster in Roman times than some post today. The poet Ovid who lived in Rome after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44BC said he received a letter from Brindisi in nine days.

In Britain, a coach and horses could only manage an average speed of 10 miles per hour by the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. Whereas the Roman postal system, the cursus publicus, could travel at very high speeds. The Romans knew how to build roads, as we all know.

Written in 
the stars

From: Canon Michael Storey, Healey Wood Road, Brighouse.

ON June 1, someone on TV told us that summer started that day and lasted until the end of August and that the other three seasons had similar dates. On whose authority?

For all of my 77 years the seasons have changed in relation to the phases of the moon and the place of the sun. For example, June 21 is the summer solstice, the date for the start of summer. Solstice is made up from two Latin words: Sol=sun and stice= to stand still. Hence seasons change quarterly; this year on March 21, June 21, September 21 and December 21.

Truth about Blair’s war

From: Raymond W Geldard, Skipton Road, Steeton, Keighley.

IF the whole unredacted truth of the farcical Chilcot report had exonerated Tony Blair, would he not now be burnishing his reputation with it? The real truth is already on film when he said: “We will stand shoulder to shoulder with America.”

As for his conversations with George W Bush being “private”, that’s rubbish. They were public servants discussing war for heaven’s sake – not fixing up a round of golf.