Plantagenet Alliance

In 2013 and 2014 the group campaigned to have Richard re-interred at York Minster, believing that, as his collateral descendants,[note 1] they knew his wishes.

The Alliance's activities included initiating a judicial review of decisions taken by the Ministry of Justice relating to the proposed re-interment in Leicester.

[3] The Ministry of Justice announced in February 2013 that the university had the authority to determine the location of Richard's reburial under the terms of the licence it had been granted to carry out the archaeological exhumation.

[5][6] According to the BBC report and Rozenberg, Nicolay formed the group with other "collateral [non-direct] descendants" with the aim of having Richard buried at York Minster.

[5][6] However, Vanessa Roe, another member of the group, told Prospect Magazine, in an interview, that the Plantagenet Alliance came about as a result of her contacting York City Council after she had seen a Channel 4 documentary about the exhumation and identification of Richard III's remains.

[9] Vanessa Roe, who runs a small farm near York and works with young people with disabilities,[7] is a 16th great-niece of Richard III.

We believe that such an interment was the desire of King Richard in life and we have written this statement so that his inferred wishes may be fully recognised.

[16] The BBC referred to the group feeling "an almost supernatural bond" with Richard[5] and Charles Brunner called it an "ancestral memory".

[19] In 2013, the Plantagenet Alliance commenced judicial review proceedings, complaining that they had not been consulted on Richard's place of burial thereby violating their human rights, and which resulted in a court hearing in May 2014.

"[15] At a preliminary hearing in August 2013 the court gave permission to the Alliance to proceed with the judicial review and granted them a full "protective costs order".

The judges said there was no "legitimate expectation" that Richard's "collateral descendants would be consulted after centuries in relation to an exhumed historical figure".

[25] Chris Grayling, on the other hand, criticised the Plantagenet Alliance for bringing the case, saying that it was "a group with tenuous claims to being relatives of Richard III" and that he was "frustrated and angry" that they had "taken up so much time and public money.

[16] Mark Ormrod of the University of York expressed scepticism over the idea that Richard had devised any clear plans for his own burial.

Mathematician Rob Eastaway calculated that Richard III may have millions of living collateral descendants, saying that "we should all have the chance to vote on Leicester versus York".

[3] The Dean of Leicester had called the Plantagenet Alliance's challenge "disrespectful", and said that the cathedral would not be investing funding in the re-interment project until the matter was resolved.