LEICESTER: England’s slain king Richard III, exhumed from an undignified grave under a car park, was finally buried with honor on Thursday in an unprecedented ceremony filled with pageantry and poignancy.

Some 530 years on from his brutal demise, thousands of people came out for the procession and ceremony at Leicester Cathedral, many of them clutching white roses, the symbol of Richard’s House of York dynasty.

“I feel he was badly treated at the time of his death and all through history,” said May Doherty, a 62-year-old pensioner from Coleraine in Northern Ireland who was dressed in full medieval costume.

“We believe he was innocent and this is the burial he deserved. This is a once in a lifetime occasion. It’s brilliant to be here and be part of history.”

As bells rang out and the service got under way, spectators craned their necks for a view of the cathedral, draped with Richard’s personal standard.

The last English monarch killed in battle, Richard was laid to rest in a new tomb inside the cathedral, across the street from where his remains were located in 2012 in a feat of archaeology.

The story of the king in the car park has captivated Britain in the build-up to Thursday’s spectacle and caused people to reconsider the tale of a man long caricatured as a villainous tyrant.

Queen Elizabeth II sent a written message for the service, saying Richard would now “lie in peace in the City of Leicester in the heart of England.”

Richard was “a king who lived through turbulent times and whose Christian faith sustained him,” she said, adding: “The reinterment of King Richard III is an event of great national and international significance.”

The queen’s daughter-in-law Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, attended the ceremony on the sovereign’s behalf, along with the queen’s cousin Prince Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, patron of the Richard III Society and a blood relative of the slain king.