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Richard, one of England's most controversial
monarchs, was reburied at Leicester Cathedral in 2015 after his
remains were discovered under a local authority car park some
530 years after he was slain at the Battle of Bosworth Field in
1485.
Shakespeare depicted him in his play as a cruel, sadistic,
tyrannical hunchback responsible for one of the most notorious
crimes in English history - the murder of his young nephews,
"the Princes in the Tower".
His defenders believe his reputation as an enlightened king was
unfairly smeared by Shakespeare’s play which they say was a work
of propaganda by the Tudor dynasty that ousted Richard from the
throne.
Some 1,300 people have signed a petition to stop the production
at the cathedral, saying it was wrong to perform it so close to
his tomb.
"The staging of Shakespeare's defamatory play beside the king's
grave is not an appropriate or Christian act," said Philippa
Langley, a historian who played a key role in recovering the
dead king's remains in 2012.
However, David Monteith, the Dean of Leicester Cathedral
defended the decision.
"The play will be seen again in this cathedral in a world where
power continues to corrupt, where innocents are made victims and
the reputation of the good is maligned," Monteith said in a
statement.
Richard, who reigned for just 777 days, was the last of the
Plantagenets, the line of English kings that originally
descended from France.
Following the battle at Bosworth, his naked body was thrown on
the back of a horse, taken to nearby Leicester and buried in a
humble grave before his remains were found in what experts
described as one of the most significant archaeological finds in
English history.
(Reporting by Luke Bridges; editing by Michael Holden and Guy
Faulconbridge)
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