‘Car park king’ starts final journey

LEICESTER: Dug out of a municipal car park five centuries after his battlefield death, England’s Richard III began his final journey Sunday before finally receiving a burial fit for a king this week.
Some 530 years after he was killed in 1485, the last English monarch to die in battle will be laid to rest on Thursday in Leicester Cathedral, central England, across the street from where his remains were found in 2012.
In an unprecedented event, the medieval king will be reinterred in the presence of royalty in a service broadcast live on national television.
Five days of events leading up to the burial got under way Sunday when his coffin was seen in public for the first time before being taken by hearse to a spot near where he was killed during the Battle of Bosworth.
Archaeologists who worked on excavating Richard III’s remains and his descendants laid white roses — the symbol of his royal house — on the coffin before it set off.
The Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, said Richard’s death marked an “extraordinary moment” in English history.