On the trail of a king

I talked last week about research. Last weekend I had a really good time doing some.

It began with a romantic suspense that I have about  a quarter completed, but which got overtaken by life and stuff. I'd actually got to a bit where the heroine is spending a few days exploring the UK before facing something big and rather traumatic - but I'm not telling you about that, 'cos it's a major spoiler!

Anyway, I was thinking about the places she might go and at the time the re-interment of Richard III at Leicester was in the news and I had a light bulb moment - well, maybe a small candle, but still a moment. So - having picked up a copy of Josephine Tey's  Daughter of Time - which, incidentally, is the book that made me a Ricardian - my heroine decides to visit some of the sites related to Richard.

The romantic suspense got gummed in the works at about that point, but I knew that if and when it ever re-started some on-the- ground research would be called for. I'd been to York and seen locations there, but I wanted the Bosworth battle site where he fought and died, and the brand new stuff for the king they rediscovered buried under a municipal car park. I put organising that in the forward plan. Sometime.

Then, when I was beginning to wonder about the story again, and if and how I was going to restart work on it, the question of that necessary research came up. And  I found that the Travelsphere company was offering the exact weekend that I needed. So I spent last weekend in Leicester, in the company of eleven lovely ladies and one brave gentleman, and ably and enthusiastically led by Min, the tour manager, looking at all the places my heroine is going to visit. And, of course, talking pictures. These are a few of them.

The banners of Richard III and Henry VII on the hill overlooking the battle field.

A view down to where it is now thought the battle of Bosworth, where Richard died, took place. 

The new tomb - 

- which is in Leicester Cathedral

Commemorative stone on display at the visitors' centre where you can see the excavated grave site.