Appendix 4

John Speede’s Account of the Burial of Richard III¹

The slaine body of the usurping Tyrant, all tugged and torne, naked, and not so much as a clout left to cover his shame, was trussed behind Blanch Seint-Leger [sic] (or White Bore, a Pursevant at Armes,) like a hogge or Calfe, his head and Armes hanging on the one side of the horse, and his legges on the other, and all besprinckled with mire and bloud, was so brought into Leicester, and there for a miserable spectacle the space of two days lay naked and unburied, his remembrance being as odious to all, as his person deformed and loathsome to be looked upon: for whose further despite, the white Bore his cognizance was torne downe from every Signe, that his monument might perish, as did the monies of Caligula, which were all melted by the decree of the Senate:² Lastly his body without all funeral solemnity was buried in the Gray-Friers Church of that city. But King Henry his Successor, of a princely disposition, caused afterward his Tombe to bee made with a picture of Alablaster [sic], representing his person, and to be set up in the same church, which at the suppression of that Monastery [sic] was pulled downe, and utterly defaced; since when his grave overgrown with nettles and weedes, is very obscure and not to be found. Only the stone chest wherin his corpse lay is now made a drinking trough for horses at a common Inne, and retaineth the onely memory of this Monarches greatnesse. His body also (as tradition hath delivered) was borne out of the City and contemptuously bestowed under the end of Bow-Bridge.³