In Competition No. 2787 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered by the ghost of Richard III reflecting on the discovery of his bones in a Leicester car park.
The last Plantagenet king is, it seems, even further from the psychopath conjured up by Shakespeare’s pen than previously thought. Psychologists who have spent 18 months studying historical records from the period spanning the monarch’s life have come up with the rather unglamorous alternative diagnosis of ‘intolerance to uncertainty’ syndrome.
The rollcall of unlucky losers is long: Caroline Gill, Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead, John Renwick, Neil McEwan and Godfrey Ackers narrowly missed the cut. Those printed below earn £25, except Alan Millard who takes £30.
An ‘R’, upon a Council car-park writ,
Condemns my broken bones to Leicester’s light
Where Fox’s Glacier Mints aromas mask
The bloody stench of Bosworth’s battleground;
I am not in a living frame today
Yet framed I am, in dust disturbed by trowels,
The last Plantagenet, once planted deep
In flower-filled gardens, purchased from the friars,
Where warring roses fought the march of time
Till tarmac sealed them in the grave we share.
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