This is Leicestershire --The pause button has been pressed but I have no doubt of the outcome. In all of this, it is the cathedral clergy and staff I feel particularly sorry for.
When this reburial does take place, the eyes of the world will be on them and many thousands will afterwards come to visit and pay their respects at the memorial they create.
The dean and bishop have a heavy responsibility and considerable expense in planning an appropriate ceremony and a tomb for the king. There's a lot to do. There's a lot to get just right.
So putting cathedral preparations on pause must be a very frustrating distraction. It's also completely out of proportion.
Normally, I'd be sympathetic if a group of real relatives wanted to have a say in where their ancestor is buried. But this isn't a normal situation – and I bet these aren't all real relatives.
The person they claim as their ancestor is a former king of England – first laid in the ground more than 500 years ago. King Richard himself had no surviving legitimate heirs.
The BBC has estimated that, 20 generations later, at least a million – possibly as many as 17 million – people might have one of Richard's close relatives in their family tree. They include our present Queen.
Of course, the high court judge is right to say we need to take everything appropriate into account when deciding where a king should be laid to rest. But is it appropriate to take seriously this recently-invented group, the Plantagenet Alliance?
Apparently, the group didn't exist when the licence for the archaeological dig was issued last year. Yet it is now complaining it wasn't consulted in advance before the Government specified reburial in Leicester Cathedral!
We know from the case of Michael Ibsen, who provided the DNA link for the university, how difficult it was to prove ancestry, with absolute certainty, to one man through all of the generations. Michael has supported reinterment in Leicester Cathedral.
I would like to challenge this bunch of 15 to prove their claim to be descendants of the king with special rights above millions of other people.
How many of this 15 have had their DNA tested? Let us see their documentary evidence and their royal family trees.
It would perhaps be different if there was any real alternative to the reburying the king in the cathedral, in whose shadow he has rested for over 500 years.
Of course, he was Duke of Gloucester, so that city could make a claim. He was born at Fotheringhay and brought up at Middleham, so perhaps they'll be contenders. Many kings and queens ended up in Westminster Abbey. His brother, Edward IV, is buried in Windsor so some might make that argument for Richard.
But, whether it is a court or some independent panel that now decides, none of these alternatives can possibly match the overwhelming case for the final resting place to be in our Leicester Cathedral.
It was from Leicester that Richard rode out to meet his death at Bosworth. It was to Leicester the new king Henry returned with the body. It was in Leicester, by royal command, the corpse was buried and has remained.
Finally, it was the expertise of Leicester archaeologists that discovered the remains and their forensic skills that identified and interpreted them.
These self-styled relatives didn't come looking for his remains. It is the Richard III Society which, for nearly a century, has challenged the demonisation of Richard in Tudor propaganda.
It funded the statue in Castle Park. Without its determination and finance the dig would not have happened, the bones would still be in the car park.
Through their loyalty, it is the Richard III Society members who are the king's true representatives in this generation.
In a way, I welcome the opportunity the judge's announcement brings. It will give a timetable for ending any remaining uncertainty and the claims of this silly group, the Plantagenet Alliance.
I look forward to the inevitable outcome. Richard will be reinterred in the heart of our city – with a proper ceremony and in a tomb fit for a king.
We will honour him. We will tell his story, the history of his time and the skill of his rediscovery. We will set that chapter in the 2,000-year history of our proud city – and we will thank the Richard III Society.
Unfortunately, we need to be patient before we get on with it. Reported by This is 1 day ago.