TENS of thousands lined the streets Sunday to see the coffin of England’s Richard III taken in procession to his final burial, five centuries after his battlefield death.

    The remains of the last English monarch to die in battle were discovered buried under a municipal car park in 2012, almost 530 years after he was killed in 1485.

    The medieval king will be laid to rest Thursday in Leicester Cathedral, central England, in the presence of royalty in a service broadcast live on national television.

    Five days of events leading up to the burial got under way Sunday when the king’s descendants and archaeologists who excavated his remains laid white roses, the symbol of his royal house, on his coffin.

    It was then taken to Bosworth, where he fell in battle, where many attended in period dress and battle armor, and the dead king was honored with a 21-gun salute.

    The Leicester county council said 35,000 people had lined the streets during the day.

    The Bishop of Leicester, Tim Stevens, said Richard’s death marked an “extraordinary moment” in English history.

    “It was a change of dynasty, an end of a period of violent civil war, the beginning of the period in which Shakespeare was to write his great tragedies, including Richard III, and a different way of governing the country,” he said.

    Richard, the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, ruled England from 1483 until he was killed near Leicester by soldiers loyal to Henry Tudor, later Henry VII.

    It was the last major conflict in the Wars of the Roses, and Richard’s defeat saw the crown pass from his House of York to the House of Tudor.(SD-Agencies)