Shropshire firm's role in burial of Richard III
As the remains of Richard III were given a burial befitting a king, one Shropshire company revealed that it had played a small but significant role in the slain monarch's last journey.
The antique nails used to make the plinth on which Richard's coffin was transported to Leicester Cathedral came from J A Milton Upholstery Supplies, of Ellesmere.
Joan Milton, managing director of Milton Upholstery, said the company was contacted by the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre.
"They wanted to buy some 19 millimetre antique upholstery nails. When they told us what it was for we said we would donate the nails. We were so pleased to be involved in such an important historical event."
Mrs Milton said coffins were one of an upholstery maker's jobs in days gone by.
"The coffins for the rich were always beautifully unholstered, lined and padded, inside," she said.
Crowds gathered in Leicester as the king's coffin received a royal burial inside the city's cathedral.
Royalty, religious leaders and actors who have played Richard joined archaeologists and members of the public for the service.
An Army guard of honour bore the king aloft to his final resting place, watched by 700 people, including his distant relative Benedict Cumberbatch and fellow actor Robert Lindsay, and presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.
In a foreword to the order of service, the Queen said she recognised the "great national and international significance" of Richard's reburial.
"Today, we recognise a king who lived through turbulent times and whose Christian faith sustained him in life and death," she said.
She expressed her wish that Richard, slain at 32, would "now lie in peace in the city of Leicester in the heart of England".
The final chapter of the Plantagenet king's story unfolded in a solemn and reflective service, and the Countess of Wessex, attending along with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, was among many wearing black.
Also watching was Philippa Langley, who had campaigned for years to mount a dig in the spot where the king was discovered by University of Leicester archaeologists in 2012.
His new grave is only 40 yards from the hastily-dug hole where he had lain for centuries. The coffin had lain inside the cathedral since a procession on Sunday, attended by 35,000, through Leicester's city and countryside.
The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, resplendent in purple and gold, delivered his sermon for the last Yorkist king who, he said, seemed to have "stepped from the pages of history into the fullest glare of the world's attention".
He said the world had been captivated by Richard's story, sparked by the "astonishing discovery" of his remains in the ruins of Greyfriars church under a council car park.
"Whether we are Ricardians or Shakespeareans, whether we see through the eyes of Olivier, McKellen or Cumberbatch, whether we recognise a warrior or a scholarly pious thinker, today we come to accord this King, this child of God, and these mortal remains, the dignity and honour denied them in death," he said.
Mr Cumberbatch read a specially-commissioned 14-line poem by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
"Grant me the carving of my name," he read. "These relics, bless."
