THE POMP and ceremony of the occasion stopped the nation in its tracks.

The funeral of Richard III, at Leicester Cathedral, came 530 years after his death in the Battle of Bosworth Field.

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Oxford University lecturer Alexandra Buckle, who organised the music and prayers for the ceremony

But behind much of the show and splendour, at odds with the council car park in which the final Yorkist king was found, lay the efforts of one woman: Oxford University lecturer Alexandra Buckle.

Dr Buckle, a lecturer in music at St Anne’s College and St Hilda’s College, Oxford, was tasked with organising the music and prayers for the reburial on March 26.

In her quest to find out how people would have reburied a king in medieval times, she discovered an elusive manuscript buried deep in the archives of the British Library.

Dr Buckle, 34, said: “When I started work on this manuscript, I never envisaged it would influence a service of national importance, be used to bury a king, and prayers I unearthed would end up in the mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“It was wonderful that 15th-century music and history was getting such an airing. To sit and hear hours of work used in this context was very moving – it was definitely a great day – up there with getting married and having my two children.”

The manuscript showed that a re-burial should contain six short pieces of music called antiphons and seven psalms.

She had to consult other medieval manuscripts to find out how the music would have been sung before asking the choir at New College Oxford to try some of it out for her.

Antiphons in the manuscript were sang at the funeral, including De terra, which was sung as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

Dr Buckle added: “The manuscript I found in the British Library really guided the process.

“Two unique prayers, not known to survive in any other liturgy, became a real feature of the service.” The rare Latin manuscript describes the reburial of a medieval baron, Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in 1475, a close ally to King Henry V, famed for his role in beating the French at Agincourt.

Visit oxfordtoday.ox.ac.uk/content/recreating-richard-iiis-burial to watch the New College choir trying out some of the music for the reburial ceremony.