RICHARD III's BED

 

 RICHARD III's BED 

.
 The English City of Leicester has had a Blue Boar Inn since the Middle Ages.

While the latest inn is a micropub down a side street, the original Blue Boar Inn was a much grander affair.

 The first Blue Boar Inn was a medieval equivalent of a luxury hotel.
It was situated along Leicester’s Medieval High Street, where it offered food and accommodation to the ordinary townsfolk, wealthy travelers - and even royalty.

 On 20th August 1485, Richard III began his journey to Bosworth field from Nottingham.
Rather than travel the distance in one day, he decided to pause and spend the night in Leicester.

Richard had visited Leicester several times as the town’s Castle was part of the Royal estates.

Richard and his entourage commandeered the best inn in Leicester...........Blue Boar Inn.

 The name of the inn at the time was actually The White Boar.

Whether this was by coincidence or design is not known, for the white boar was also Richard’s personal emblem.....

 Although each room was large enough to accommodate four people, naturally King Richard had to have one all to himself.

It was the best room in the house.

It had a view of the street, a large fireplace and its exposed rafters were painted with red, black and yellow scrollwork, rather than left bare.

 King Richard, however, did not use the furnishings provided by the inn.
He was very fussy about where he slept.

So, his own bed, which travelled with him was assembled and made up in his appointed room.

Here he spent the night before riding out of Leicester the next morning.

 Expecting to return after the Battle of Bosworth, the King left his bed behind - as well as a secret.
Legend claims there was a hoard of treasure hidden within the bed.

Richard never slept in his bed again.
He spent the night of 21st August, camped outside Bosworth.

Then, on 22nd August, he was killed in battle.

 Later that day, the last Plantagenet monarch did indeed return to Leicester.

He didn't return as a victorious king though, instead he returned as a naked, mutilated, corpse that was left on public display in the Church of St Mary of the Annunciation.

 Meanwhile, the Landlord of the White Boar Inn was conscious that it wouldn’t do to associate closely with the defeated king.

He set about repainting the white boar blue - and changing the Inn’s name.

The White Boar became The Blue Boar, after the symbol of John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford - the general of the new King, Henry VII.

 The bed and treasure remained at the inn long after the kings death - eventually leading to the murder of the Blue Boar’s landlady in 1604.

Whispers started of a fortune in gold and silver was hidden somewhere in the bed, that the doomed King had left behind.

Countless people checked and were disappointed.

Then, sometime around the turn of the seventeenth century, the treasure was reputedly found....

 The Inn’s then landlord, Thomas Clarke was reputed to have found King Richard’s gold in a false bottom of the bed.

The locals reasoned the treasure was the only way Thomas and his wife Agnes, could have become affluent enough for Thomas to be appointed Lord Mayor of Leicester.

 By 1604, Thomas was dead, and Agnes was running the Blue Boar Inn alone.
One night, a petty criminal called Thomas Harrison stopped at the Inn.

While there, he heard the legend of King Richard’s treasure, and the Clarke’s good fortune.

Sensing an opportunity, he decided to stay on for a few days and find out more......

This would lead to the death of Agnes Clarke, and begin one of Leicester’s strangest ghost stories.

But thats a story for another time 

The Tudor Intruders (and more)

.

 Source~historycollection.
.
 Richard III's bed, now at Donnington Le Heath Manor, Leicestershire.