Amidst all the kerfuffle about "that" car park attendant this little gem seems to have failed to get the attention it deserves. Prior to his fateful meeting with Henry Tudor at Bosworth, Richard is said to have spent his last night on earth as any proud English man should - down at the local. In his case it was the Blue Boar Inn in Leicester, the site on Highcross Street now home to a Travelodge, and which local legend claims was actually called The White Boar at the time, the white boar being one of Richard's emblems. The landlord, on hearing the news from the battlefield, is said to have done a hasty paint job on the sign outside and the Blue Boar was born. It became a notable tourist venue in its own right over the centuries thanks to this royal connection but by 1836 had become almost derelict and it was decided to demolish it.



Fortunately for posterity a local architect Henry Goddard made detailed studies of the timbers in the pub before this act of sacrilege and these drawings, contained in a personal notebook, remained in the Goddard family after his death.

Richard Buckley - who has played a leading role in the team who found the skeleton now being claimed as Richard's - has also enrolled the architect Steffan Davies to employ his considerable CAD skills in recreating, thanks to this incredibly detailed information from Goddard, this ancient landmark. A film of his progress as of mid-December 2012 can be seen below.



It is important to note of course that much of the association between Richard and the Blue Boar is based on folklore - while an inn did exist on the site the documentary and archaeological evidence has not as yet established that Richard and the inn as described by Goddard ever existed at the same time.

I would love to see the CGI show the landlord running out with his tin of blue paint and a ladder.

And there are other Blue Boar pubs . One near here is late 14th - so must have had another name but a few years on it was The Blue Boar - for our wedding reception, anyway. Hedging its bets during the Roses unheavals the town also had a Warwick Arms.

The history of the Blue Boar Inn and the haunted bed Richard is purported to have slept in can be read here:

Blue Boar Inn

It wasn't haunted by him, though, but by the ghost of an unfortunate widowed landlady who in the 17th century was murdered in it (for money of course) by her wicked maidservant and her monstrous lodger boyfriend. The bed is now believed to be lost. 

But forget Richard of Gloucester’s lost bed – we’ve found Henry Tudor’s!

The tabloid press made much of the fact that when Henry’s bed was found it was ‘in a car park in Chester’. This was reference to it having stood briefly in the car park of a Chester inn while awaiting collection by its new owner. Unfortunately for the vendors, they had no idea of the value of what they had just sold:

Marital bed of Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York

The article also features an excellent video on the provenance of the bed.

Vizzer, when I read your message for the first time, I misread "your" "Elizabeth of York" with "our" "Margaret of York"...
I mentioned her recently in another thread...what a woman...what a life...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_of_York

In my innocence I did a rapid research about the relationship between "Elizabeth" and "Margaret"
https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/elizabeth-of-york-a-tudor-of-rare-talent/
And yes "my" favourite Alison Weir in the article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Weir
https://www.amazon.com/Eleanor-Aquitaine-Ballantine-Readers-Circle/dp/0345434870
https://www.amazon.com/Captive-Queen-Novel-Eleanor-Aquitaine/dp/0099534584

Vizzer, "young", you don't know what you initiated to me. As our Royal family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is not an easy one to do research about, it has no comparison with the British one...sigh...
Even in that search I came on the "Princes in the Tower" as other conspiracy theories, if I recall it well even about an uncle with a special interest in a niece? nephew? I already forgot it...
Ended it...my head hurts...
And yes my question to the "connoisseurs" at the end: what is now the relationship between Elizabeth and Margaret of York?

Kind regards, Paul.

Margaret of York became Margaret of Burgundy when she married Charles the Bold. She was the sister of Edward IV and so was his daughter's (Elizabeth of York) Auntie Maggie. The Princes in the Tower, Elizabeth's brothers, were Margaret's nephews. She was also, of course, the sister of Richard III: she never believed for one moment that this brother had murdered their little nephews.

Margaret LOATHED Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII of the bed mentioned above - the loathing was mutual.

Happy days remembered - that old Elizabeth of York thread on the BBC Board. Gosh, it grew and grew and grew...

Temperance wrote:

Margaret of York became Margaret of Burgundy when she married Charles the Bold. She was the sister of Edward IV and so was his daughter's (Elizabeth of York) Auntie Maggie. The Princes in the Tower, Elizabeth's brothers, were Margaret's nephews. She was also, of course, the sister of Richard III: she never believed for one moment that this brother had murdered their little nephews.

Margaret LOATHED Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII of the bed mentioned above - the loathing was mutual.

Happy days remembered - that old Elizabeth of York thread on the BBC Board. Gosh, it grew and grew and grew...

 
Temperance,

you are really a walking encyclopedia about British royalty. In nearly one long sentence you explain, as if it is nothing, all what I more than an hour was painstacking seeking for. And then I forgot still your to the point comments ...

Kind regards, Paul.

PS: And as you can see it, those royals were really a European network ...Dear Temperance, I couldn't resist ...Even the one always seeking for fairness has also his little bias...perhaps...it is always difficult to see it about yourself...and even more difficult to admit it... (No, PPS and PPPS today, lack of inspiration or was it time. Our 9 o'clock happy hour nearing?)