In praise of … the search for Richard III

Whether or not the skeleton with the curved spine, gash in the back of his skull, and barbed metal arrowhead between the ribs is Richard III, the hunt for the last Plantagenet king has put Leicester on the map. Thousands queued around the car park under which the skeleton was found, before the hole is filled in this week and the cars return. The archeologists and geneticists of Leicester University are containing their excitement about the find, which would originally have been under a tomb in the choir of a monastery. Much can still go wrong in a search that the dig director Richard Buckley compared to playing battleships. But already the discovery of the skeleton has given a boost to The Richard III Society , which blames the "infamous" Tudors for rewriting history and Shakespeare for immortalising it. Richard III's revival – he achieved much in the one-and-a-half peaceful years of his reign – could well follow his reburial.