Richard III is my favourite king - but I'd still prefer to leave him buried beneath a car park

Few men have been as unfairly maligned as King Richard III, who was interred in Leicester’s cathedral today after being found buried beneath a car park two years ago.

For five centuries, thanks largely to William Shakespeare’s blood-curdling play, the last Plantagenet has been seared in the public’s mind as a supremely evil tyrant.

And that is exactly what his killers, the Tudors, and their descendants, who have sat on the British throne and been fawned over ever since, would want us to think.

Yet new research suggests that Richard III may have been one of our most popular, progressive and benevolent monarchs, doing more to help the lowly than any other.

Among his many achievements, he established a low-cost court to hear poor people’s grievances, improved bail conditions to protect suspects, banned restrictions on printing and selling books and ordered all laws to be translated from French into English so that more people could understand them.

For that reason alone, that makes him my favourite king.

Beyond that, he was the last of our monarchs to die on the front line after being killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field while aged 32 in 1485.

He should serve as a shining example to all subsequent sovereigns and prime ministers, who seem so keen to send other people’s sons to fight their wars.

It is also unlikely that Richard would have murdered his prince nephews, whose alleged remains cannot be DNA tested because our royal family refuse permission.

The real threat to his throne was Henry Tudor, not these Edward IV’s sons, who had been ruled illegitimate by the Clergy and could not have endangered Richard.

And, if he had murdered the boys, why did he not produce the bodies and claim they had died of illness?

Given 12-year-old Prince Edward was known to be a sickly child, it would have been quite plausible – and better than allowing secrecy to cause suspicions to rise.

Yet, for all that I consider Richard to have been unfairly treated by the victorious writers of history, I’d still have preferred him to have been left buried beneath the Leicester City Council car park where he was found in 2012.

There may even be an argument to display his bones in the British Museum – after all, it was good enough for Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra’s remains – although this would deny tourism to Leicester, a city as undeservingly maligned as Richard.

But, certainly, I object to witnessing a week of elaborate ceremonies, which culminated today with the former monarch being interred at St Martin’s Cathedral.

Firstly, why does his funeral have to cost £2.5million?

This sum would pay for at least 116 nurses or 13 houses in Leicester – and I’m pretty sure the Co-op could have organised it for a fair bit less.

But, mainly, I am irked by having to yet again witness my fellow Britons bowing, curtseying, genuflecting and forelock-tugging at any royal, even a long-dead one, that they clap their commoner eyes on.

This Serf-like behaviour is beneath us and the monarchy should have long ago been consigned to history – as a very interesting feature of our past, like France.

Royalist sycophants and more benign proponents of this outdated institution like to say the Queen and her kin have no real power and are an acceptable price for stability.

That ignores the influence they wield, with Prince Charles alone said to have met ministers at least three dozen times since the Coalition came to power in 2010.

Yet, unlike other communications with Cabinet Secretaries, his are still kept from the public eye.

The Queen, her children and grandchildren sit at the summit of state secrecy and are the only people in the land not covered by the Freedom of Information Act.

More was probably known about the finances of Richard III than the current royal family.

Allowing people – whether they are malevolent or magnificent – to inherit unlimited wealth and privilege undermines Britain’s claim of being a great democracy.

Of course, wealth and privilege are passed on by rich families in republics too, but they are not revered by the people or subsidised in perpetuity by the state.

I dearly hope the next royal farewell in this country will be to the institution of monarchy itself. And, if we did, I’d be happy to forgo any extravagant pomp.