The Battle of Bosworth [1 ed.] 0312069723, 9780312069728

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Preface
Contents
List of Illustrations
1. News from the Field
2. Civil War and Common Weal
3. The Year of Three Kings
4. Kings, Pretenders and Powerbrokers
5. The Road to Bosworth
6. Ordeal by Battle
7. The Tudor Triumph
8. 1485 in English History
Appendix
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Back Cover

Citation preview

4

The

Battle of

Bosworth Michael Bennett

ST.

MARTIN’S PRESS

New

York

Copyright

© Michael

First published in the

All rights reserved. St.

Bennett 1985

United States of America

For information,

in

write:

Martin’s Press, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue York, NY 10010

New

Printed in Great Britain

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Bennett, Michael

J.

(Michael John), 1949-

d'he Battle of Bosworth. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1.

Bosworth Field, Battle of, 1485. 1985 942.05 85-14292

DA260.B46

ISBN 0-312-06972-3

1.

Title.

1985

PREFACE

Anniversaries are a mixed blessing for historians. their subjects with a spurious topicality.

On

On

the one hand, they invest

the other hand, by concentrating

public attention on old landmarks they provide an incentive for scholars to

sharpen the focus of their research, and to share their findings with that wider also seeks pleasure and meaning from the past. It was not my idea to write on Bosworth Field and 1485, but I took on the project with enthusiasm. I knew that others had made the task easier for me. For a start most of the major sources for the reign of Richard III have been published, a great boon for an English historian based in Australia. On this point it is fitting to pay tribute to the Richard III Society and Alan Sutton Publishing for harnessing lay enthusiasm and business acumen in support of fifteenth-century scholarship. I would like to record my gratitude to the late Professor A.R. Myers, who first introduced me to the study of Richard III, Dr Colin Richmond, who gave me early encouragement, Mr J.R. Tinsley, who welcomed me to the Battlefield Centre during the winter recess, Peter and Carolyn Hammond for not only selecting the pictures but also sharing their expertise on Ricardian matters, Airlie Alam for her work on the maps, and my mother, who assisted with the index. Finally I dedicate this book to my wife Fatimah, who has supported this work since its conception, and to my daughter Masni, whose birth by deflecting me from other projects made possible this one.

community which

M.B. Hobart, Tasmania May, 1985

CONTENTS

PREFACE

V

LIST

OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1

News From The

2

Civil

3

The Year

4

Kings, Pretenders

5

The Road to Bosworth

79

6

Ordeal by Battle

99

7

The TudorTriumph

123

8

1485

141

ix

Field

War and Common Weal

in

of

Three Kings

English History

APPENDIX LIST

and Powerbrokers

OF ABBREVIATIONS

1

17

33 53

155 176

NOTES

177

INDEX

193

5

LIST

OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1

Wood

2

Epitaph for Richard

now

8

Stowe School, depicting the Battle of Bosworth from the York House Books Composite Gothic field armour Equipment worn by a common soldier during the Wars of the Roses Effigy of Ralph Fitzherbert from Norbury, Derbyshire German mail shirt of the second quarter of the fifteenth century Swords and daggers Edward IV, painted about 1518

22

9

Battle of Barnet, April 1471

24

3

4 5

6 7

carving

2

at

3

III,

May

5

8

12 1

19

10

Battle of Tewkesbury,

1 1

Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, birthplace of Richard of Gloucester

12

Richard

13

Anthony, Earl Rivers, presenting a book

14

Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV

15

20

Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham and of Edward V Garter stall plate of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham Baynard’s Castle, London, home of Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York Richard III, Anne Neville and Edward of Middleham The Tower of London as it was in the Middle Ages Sir John Cheney, later Lord Cheney

21

Great Seal of Richard

22

Signature of Richard

23

Middleham, Yorkshire, residence of Richard of Gloucester 1472-83

54

24

Garter

56

25

Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII Henry VII; bust by Pietro Torrigiano ‘Henry VII Tower’, Pembroke Castle John de Vere, Earl of Oxford

61

Oxford’s signature

65

31

Thomas Howard,

69

32

Surrey’s signature

69

33

John Howard, Duke of Norfolk Garter stall plate of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland Possibly Thomas, Lord Stanley and his first wife Eleanor Neville Sir John Savage Nottingham Castle, as it was in the fifteenth century

71

1

6

17 18 19

26 27

^8 29 30

34 35

36 37

III,

1471

27

painted about 1518 to

Edward IV

Signatures of the

stall

29 31

III

III

plate of Francis, Viscount Lovell

Earl of Surrey

34 36 38 40 4?

44 46 48 49 51

57

59 63 65

73 75

77

80

5 1

X

THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH 38 39

C.ommission of Array

to the

county commissioners

82

42

Rhys ap T homas \\ clsh Bridge, Shrewsbury Letter from the Duke of Norfolk I louse in Wyle Cop, Shrewsbur\

43

Blue Boar Inn, Leicester

44 45

King Richard’s Chamber Simon Digby

46

Bow

47

Sutton Cheney Church, where Richard traditionally heard his

48

Processional cross, found at Bosworth in 1778

101

49

King Richard’s Well

102

50

Standard of Richard

51

Standard of Richard

40 41

52 53

Sir

85

88 to John

Paston

89 91

93 at

the Blue

Boar Inn, Leicester

94 96

,

Bridge, Leicester

111,

97

flying

on Ambion

last

Mass

104

Hill

drawn by Julian Rowe Standard of 1 Icnrv' Tudor; drawn by Julian Rowe Standard of Henry Tudor, flying from the position occupied by at

Bosworth, the

Dun Cow

Warwick, and St George

56

German Gothic war

57

Memorial to Richard 111, erected in 1973 Banner of Richard III, flying over the modern memorial stone Memorial brass to Richard III and those who fell at Bosworth Plaque near the modern Bow Bridge, Leicester Elizabeth of York Sir Robert Wdlloughby, later L.ord Willoughby de Broke William Catesby and Margaret Zouche his w ife Gold seal ring w ith a boar enamelled in white on the bezel Cannon ball found at Bosworth IGrthenware costrel (water bottle) found at Bosworth Spurs traditionally from the battlefield at Bosworth

60 61

62 63

64 65

66 67

of 1 1

Pole Axes

59

106 his

108

Standards used by Henry' Tudor

55

58

106

111;

troops during the Battle

54

100

113 harness for

man and

horse

1 1

117 119

120 124 126 128 129 131

133

135

137

68 69

Sir Robert

Signature of Henry' VII

140

70

German

143

71

North

72

Battle axe

73

Italian bill

74

I

75

War hammers and maces

Harcourt

sallet

of about 1450-60

Italian sallet

lalberds of the fifteenth century

138

143 145

148

150 152

MAPS Ricardian England: retainers and rebels

Road

52

Bosworth: 7-22 August

78

Bosworth ITeld 22 August 1485

98

to

List of Illustrations

Photographs and

illustrations

were supplied

by, or are

reproduced by kind permission of

the following: Aerofilms Limited (11, 23); Society of Antiquaries of

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Chatsworth Settlement

London

(8, 12, 48);

(14); British Librar\ (15, 18, 38, 41); Trustees of the

(64); University of

Ghent

(9, 10);

Peter

Hammond

(16, 17, 19,

21, 24, 34, 40, 44, 49, 57); Oliver Harris (54); Trustees of Lambeth Palace Library' (13);

Leicestershire

County Council Department of

Property' (50, 53, 58); Leicestershire

Libraries and Information Service (43, 46); Leicestershire

Records Service

(65,

66, 67); National

Museums, Art Galleries and London (26, 61); Castle

Portrait Gallery',

Museum, Nottingham (37); Julian Rowe (51, 52); Stowe School (1); Board of Trustees H.M. Tower of London, crown copy right (3, 4); Victoria and Albert Museum, London (27); Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London (6, 7, 55, 56, 70,

of the Armouries,

Wheeler (1,5, 20, 25, 28, 33, 35, 36, 39, 42, 45, 47, 59, 60, York City Archives (2).

71, 72, 73, 74, 75); Geoffrey

62, 68);

Picture research by Carolyn and Peter

jacket: detail

Hammond.

from the mural painting of the Battle of Bosworth,

The Three Tuns,

Atherstone; border incorporating symbolic representation of Henry'’s

Welsh dragon

triumphing over Richard’s boar, from an engraving by George Vertue. Photograph and jacket concept: Geoffrey Wheeler. Design:

Martin Latham.

xi

The

Battle of

Bosworth

1

News from

the Field

was harvest time. Before the full heat of the late summer day the battle was King Richard III was slain, and the mightiest army assembled in England within memory was shattered. Many lay dead, their bodies mangled in the press, but many more had thrown down their arms without a fight, and either taken to their heels or fallen in with the rebels. Whole battalions had held aloof on the side-lines, and their commanders now set out to ingratiate themselves with the victors. The obscure adventurer Henry Tudor, flushed with a remarkable triumph in his first military engagement, moved with his captains to a hill south of the battlefield which might serv e as a vantage-point from which to direct the mopping up operations. It was on this elevation, later called Crown hill by the local populace, that the jubilant soldiers acclaimed their young leader as king, and one of the captains placed on his brow a coronet found among the debris in It

over.

the field. It was probably still afternoon on 22 August 1485 that Henry VII led his triumphant cavalcade, bringing in tow many noble captives from the royal army and the naked corpse of his rival, through the gates of Leicester. The townsmen would already have received reports of the upset, and would have prepared an appropriate reception. Already reports of the battle would have spread to other neighbouring towns, as men fleeing from the fi^ld and messengers specially deputed for the task relayed the intelligence^ Before nightfall the city of Coventry buzzed with the tidings, and in the course of the following day the news could have reached most of the major population centres of Englan'T.] On the vigil of St Bartholomew, the evening of the day after the battle, the mayor and aldermen of York assembled in the council chamber in considerable agitation to hear ‘that King Richard late mercifully reigning upon us was through great treason piteously slain and murdered to the great heaviness of this city’.' This intelligence was owed to John Sponer, whom they had sent to Leicester for this purpose, but who in all likelihood had gained his information actually on the road. Presumably the city fathers of London were as well organised, and also had reports of the defeat of Richard III by 23 August. Hard on the heels of the first messages, winged by fear or self-interest, there would have come to London and all the county towns of the kingdom what amounted to an official communique from Henry VII. In addition to ordering firm measures for the cessation of fighting and feuding, it informed the general .

.

.

2

THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH

Wood

carving

now

at

Stowe School,

depicting the Battle

of Bos wort It. Probably dating from the

middle of the sixteenth century, and possibly commissioned by an Earl of Oxford.

public that Richard

III

and

his

more prominent noble

supporters, the duke of

Norfolk, the earls of Lincoln and Surrey, Viscount Lovell, and Lords Ferrers

and Zouche, had been slain. Apart from the later act of attainder which named two dozen more of the men who had fought against him, the new king was to provide no more information about the battle. In view of the widely held assumption that the first Tudor actively promoted the rewriting of history for propagandist purposes, the reticence in official circles as to what happened in the battle needs to be stressed, and indeed is one of the many mysteries of this time. Even as late as 1500 Bernard Andre, poet laureate and official biographer of the king, had no coherent account to give of the battle, leaving a blank space for the episode which for some reason he was unable to fill.^ As rumour and report spread outwards from the epicentre at Bosworth in ever widening circles, and as the thousands of men from the various armies returned to their homes, there can have been no shortage of accounts of the battle. Unfortunately even participants might have found difficulty in making sense of the manoeuvres, and there can have been precious few observations which were not garbled, partial and partisan. Judging from the few extant accounts, it is painfully apparent that from its very source the flow of news was broken and muddied on the banks of ignorance and fear, and deflected by streams of self-interest and propaganda. The official communique, for a start, either wilfully or unwittingly misled the public. At least three of the nobles whom it claimed to be dead were in fact alive. Similarly the report which reached York contained the bizarre information that the duke of Norfolk, who in fact had laid down his life in the Ricardian cause, had betrayed the king. It is small wonder that even the basic items of report, that King Richard was slain and that Henry Tudor had taken the crown, were for some time in doubt in many quarters of the realm. Quite deliberately the late king’s corpse was kept on

News from

'

’

'

U ^

r


f*^2

-X

.

/