The Battle of Bosworth E-Book

Michael Bennett

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2000

Seitenzahl: 373

Beschreibung

On an August morning more that five hundred years ago, to the sound of thundering hooves, gunshot, the clash of steel and the cries of men in battle, Richard III, King of England, lost his life and the Plantagenet name came to an end. But what do we really know of the battle which became known as Bosworth Field? How do we separate fact from legend when our knowledge is based on sources which by any reckoning are meagre, garbled or partisan? In this classic account Michael Bennett provides as detailed and authoritative a reconstruction of the battle, and the events that led up to it, as is possible. It is an enthralling detective story uncovering the real facts behind one of the most famous of British battles.

Leseprobe

The Battle of Bosworth

The Battle of Bosworth

MICHAEL BENNETT

Cover picture: Henry Tudor retrieving the crown at

Bosworth, St Peter’s Church, Selsey, West Sussex

(photography courtesy of Geoffrey Wheeler)

First published in 1985 by Sutton Publishing

This edition published in 2008 by

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Reprinted 2011

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Michael Bennett, 2008, 2013

The right of Michael Bennett to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9496 8

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

PREFACE

One

NEWS FROM THE FIELD

Two

CIVIL WAR AND COMMON WEAL

Three

THE YEAR OF THREE KINGS

Four

KINGS, PRETENDERS AND POWERBROKERS

Five

THE ROAD TO BOSWORTH

Six

ORDEAL BY BATTLE

Seven

THE TUDOR TRIUMPH

Eight

1485 IN ENGLISH HISTORY

APPENDICES

POSTSCRIPT

NOTES

Preface

Anniversaries are a mixed blessing for historians. On the one hand, they invest their subjects with a spurious topicality. On 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 community which 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 for the first edition 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.

M.B.

Hobart, Tasmania

May 1985

ONE

News from the Field

It was harvest time. Before the full heat of the late summer day the battle was over. 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 serve 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 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 field 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 England. 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’.1 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 communiqué from Henry VII. In addition to ordering firm measures for the cessation of fighting and feuding, it informed the general 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 André, 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.2

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 manœuvres, 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 communiqué, 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 public view, and it is perhaps significant that, contrary to the pattern in such affairs, no one ever claimed that he survived. Presumably the slow progress of the new king to London and his triumphal entry into the capital served to bring home the reality of the new regime to individuals and communities across southern England. On the other hand, despite the regular flow of news across the Channel, doubts persisted for quite a long time on the continent. According to a letter written from Rome by Cardinal Sforza on 30 September, the English ambassador had received news that evening that King Richard had been ‘cut in pieces’ by his people. Yet as late as 20 October the bishop of Imola could write to the pope from Mayence that ‘according to common report which I heard on my way here, the king of England has been killed in battle. Here, some people tell me he is alive, but others deny it’. Meanwhile, on 5 November in writing to the king of England about a piracy problem Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain wisely left a blank for the king’s name, presumably to be hurriedly filled in by the emissary on arrival in England.3

In a relatively short while, however, the rulers of Christendom had access to better information. It is a remarkable fact that three of the earliest and fullest accounts of the battle, and indeed the only account which names an eye-witness informant, come from the continent. The most curious is the memorandum on English affairs prepared for the Spanish monarchs by Diego de Valera early in 1486. While there are some obvious errors, it contains much independently verifiable information on events from 1483 to the time of writing, and it includes an account of the battle of Bosworth derived from Juan de Salazar, a Spanish soldier-of-fortune who had actually fought on the side of Richard III.4 The actors and actions described have presented problems for historians: it refers to the ‘grand chamberlain’ who commanded the king’s vanguard, and to a mysterious ‘Lord Tamerlant’ who with the king’s left wing wheeled round to join the rebels in their attack on the royal host. For the most part historians have dismissed this testimony as irremediably muddled. Yet Salazar was a seasoned soldier who actually participated in the battle, and the information provided in this account, when read right, is far less idiosyncratic than has been supposed.

Two other European men of letters who wrote up an account of the battle in the following years were Philippe de Commines and Jean Molinet.5 Though both men were engaged in works which were not to be completed for another decade or so, there is every reason to suppose that their accounts of the defeat of Richard III were written before 1490. Neither can be dismissed as partisan. Based at the French court, Commines had met Henry Tudor, and was interested in following through the success of what was after all a French backed expedition. Yet he was no one’s fool, and firmly expressed his scepticism of the pretender’s claims. Molinet, a historian in the service of the duke of Burgundy, is even less vulnerable to the charge of anti-Ricardian prejudice. Both men were shrewd political analysts. Commines provides valuable information on the mounting of the expedition and stresses the importance of the support provided by Lord Stanley. Sadly he has next to nothing to say on the fighting itself. It is in the military arena that Molinet, an undeservedly neglected source, comes into his own, dedicating several hundred words to the battlefield manœuvres. His description of Richard III’s battle formation, with its vanguard and rearguard, and his discussion of Henry Tudor’s tactics, deserve to be taken at least as seriously as the later accounts of Polydore Vergil and his English translators. He also provides much interesting circumstantial detail, including the most authentic report on the death of King Richard. Despite some confusions, he was clearly well-informed. He is the earliest source for many items of information which subsequently appear in oral traditions as well as in the standard histories.

For all their problems, the continental sources compare most favourably with what has survived from English pens from before around 1490. There is the eccentric antiquarian John Rous of Warwick, whose writings, which span the change of dynasty, reveal first flattery of and then a vitriolic attack on Richard III.6 Though scatter-brained and malicious, he does include a few useful snippets of information about the battle, noting that the king bravely went down fighting and crying out against the treason of his subjects. More sober but scarcely more informative are a number of town chronicles, which though preserved in later copies, might well have been composed on a year to year basis.7 The recently discovered London annals in a College of Arms manuscript include a notice of the battle at ‘Redesmore’, which might well have been written in November 1485, at the end of the mayoral year. For the most part such entries are terse statements of fact, often merely summarising the official report. In most towns Henry Tudor’s proclamation would have been entered into the mayor’s book, and at York its factual errors were corrected by a conscientious clerk. Some annalists had access to a wider range of sources, and tried to provide a more expansive narrative. Robert Fabian is the best known of a group of London citizens who were concerned to draw together the annals of their city into a fuller national history, and whose compositions included the so-called Great Chronicle of London as well as Fabian’s Chronicle.8 Both works locate the battle at Bosworth, and provide some valuable insights on the motives of the combatants. Their knowledge of what went on in the company of Sir Robert Brackenbury, keeper of the Tower of London, presumably derived from citizens who had been in his service. Unfortunately such works only assumed final form in the early sixteenth century. The most that can be claimed for the information on Richard III and Bosworth is that it had the authority of respectable citizens who were alive at the time and who were able to draw on eye-witnesses for at least some of their matter.

The only English writer to rival in time and style the writings of Valera, Commines and Molinet is the so-called ‘second continuator’ of the Crowland abbey chronicle. Curiously tacked on to a ‘first continuation’ of ‘Ingulph’s’ chronicle, and then reworked by a third party with exclusively local interests, his composition is a remarkable political history of the civil wars from 1459 to 1485. From internal evidence it was written within a year of the death of Richard III, and though the composition of a churchman it reveals a shrewd understanding of human nature and a personal experience of affairs of state. Perhaps the author was no less a person than John Russell, bishop of Lincoln, and for a time chancellor of England. Certainly he was a man with similar qualities and experience. Not unnaturally his account of many key episodes of the Yorkist age commands wide respect, and indeed his comments on the general political scene in 1485 are most instructive. Its report of disaffection among the king’s northern affinity, and its detailing the predicament of the Stanleys, provide vital clues as to the behaviour of key participants at Bosworth. On the other hand, the author is neither well-informed about, nor particularly interested in what actually happened in the battle. An unfortunate error in Fulman’s original edition, repeated in Riley’s translation, has even given the impression that he was unreliable on the basic facts of the battle, but a line missed from the manuscript clearly reveals that he knew who was slain and who had fled.9

For over a generation, indeed, there seems to have been no reasonably full and coherent account of the battle of Bosworth committed to writing, still less a version with any pretensions to literary quality. It might in part have been the virtual impossibility of composing a narrative which would preserve the honour of all the participants, particularly those still alive or whose families were still powerful, and a deep reluctance to open up old wounds by probing too deeply into their motives and manœuvres. Bernard André almost certainly felt this sort of constraint, and preferred to say nothing about the battle at all, except that it was fought on a Saturday, on which point he was in any case in error. At the same time the lack of any adequate history of the events around 1485 was of a piece with the generally lamentable state of historical scholarship in England. In his History of Richard III, Thomas More set new literary standards for his fellow countrymen, but his enterprise was more to produce a Renaissance morality play than to write accurate and balanced history. For the present purposes, however, it is still disappointing that More concluded his account with the usurpation, and his English translator only carried it forward to the end of 1483.10

It was left to an Italian, a native of Urbino who first came to England in 1502, to provide his adopted countrymen with a well-written, thoughtful and coherent version of their recent past. In his Anglica Historia Polydore Vergil offered his readers a narrative of the battle of Bosworth, which almost by default has become the standard account for subsequent historians. A fluent and elegant Latinist, and steeped in classical learning, he was a careful historian by the standards of time, and he was not afraid to challenge many of the cherished myths of early British history. Like all good historians, however, he was the victim of his sources, and for most of the fifteenth century he had precious little to go on besides vernacular continuations of Polychronicon and The Brut, and the better London chronicles. For more recent events, he turned to what might now be termed ‘oral history’, and it must be assumed that most of his information about Bosworth was provided by his patrons at the Tudor court, some of whom were eye-witnesses. For want of any better information, most historians have taken his words on trust, and used them as the starting point for attempted reconstructions of the encounter. His words on the general lie of the land and the siting of the camps, the disposition of the armies and their division into battalions, the tactics of the commanders, and the progress of the battle have been plagiarised and fleshed out countless times over the centuries. Unfortunately he has been more often read in a late Tudor translation than in the original Latin, and in one vital respect this practice might have led to misconstruction: what Vergil referred to as ‘battle-lines’ the first translator and all subsequent historians have transformed into ‘vanguards’.11

Polydore Vergil is the last historian who can usefully be regarded as a primary source for the events of 1485. For all their indignation at the Italian’s debunking of aspects of their national history, Edward Hall and a new generation of British historians slavishly followed his narrative of the Bosworth campaign, as for most of the fifteenth century. Their few interpolations are of dubious value. The anecdote that the duke of Norfolk was warned of the treachery that was to take place in the battle might reflect a well-founded tradition. At least it does not seem to have been an authorial invention. The long set-speeches that Hall attributed to the two chief protagonists are another matter. There are authentic touches to them, but the most that can be said is that there was a strong oral tradition which guided his imagination and kept it within bounds. At times Hall’s freewheeling translation and imaginative amplification of Vergil have proved curiously influential. In his speech to the troops Henry Tudor is presented as referring to the enemy ahead and uncertain allies on each side, which statement seems to be the basis for the popular assumption that the Stanleys had armies both to the north and south of the field. Then at the point when the rebels are described by Vergil as having the sun at their backs, Hall amplifies the description by adding that their enemies had it on their faces. If based on evidence other than Vergil, both statements provide important clues as to troop dispositions. Yet if the former is nothing more than a glib turn of phrase and the latter a mindless elaboration then obviously there is nothing to commend them.12

In the course of the second half of the sixteenth century the account of the battle of Bosworth first offered by Vergil, then translated and amplified by Hall, became the standard version. It was the basic source for almost all Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, and through the influence of the histories of Holinshed, the drama of Shakespeare, and the verse of Beaumont, it gained even wider currency.13 Of course it must be stressed that Vergil was the sole source of this tradition. Apart from his own authority as a historian, the most that can be said is that this vision made sense to Englishmen who might well have remembered hearing eye-witness accounts or had access to local reports. The problem is that this version, to which repetition, amplification and the power of print lent a spurious authority, might well have driven other accounts from the field. The chance survival of the Crowland chronicle must give pause for thought on what might not have withstood the ravages of time. Certainly valuable information contained in foreign sources was either overlooked or ignored as is well illustrated by the Scots writers. In his Latin history of Scotland John Major provided new details on Bosworth, and in his later vernacular history Robert Lindsay of Pittscottie added a great deal more material. Both record the presence in Henry Tudor’s army of a Scots contingent under such captains as Alexander Bruce.14 It is perhaps easy to understand why English writers chose not to register such information in Tudor times, and why equally it reappeared in the English literary tradition under James I. On the other hand there are other elements in Lindsay’s account which cannot be so readily inserted into the standard version. In addition to some decidedly apocryphal material, he offered an account of troop deployments and battlefield manœuvres that is reminiscent of Valera’s report, which he could scarcely have seen.

The establishment of an ‘authoritative’ version of the battle of Bosworth might also have driven from the field traditions which had been preserved by word of mouth or in song. For several generations at least there must have been a whole body of miscellaneous information about the events of 1485 available to the oral historian, and indeed public knowledge of what had happened at Bosworth must have depended for a long time on the tales of eye-witnesses, raconteurs and balladeers. Bernard André gave the impression that there were many, not entirely consistent stories in circulation around 1500, while Vergil admitted his dependence on the testimony of old men at the Tudor court. Many recollections died with the chief participants, and there can have been precious few still alive to proofread Vergil’s history. Yet some memories were passed on and eventually committed to writing. In the reign of Queen Mary Lord Parker recorded the tale frequently told in the household of Lady Margaret Beaufort by a man called Bigod who had been with Richard III on the morning of the battle. In far more detail than the Crowland chronicle he recalled the scene of confusion when wine and chalice could not be found for the performance of the mass.15 At around the same time Robert Lindsay of Pittscottie was writing up traditions which had been preserved in his neighbourhood by the descendants of Alexander Bruce. Snippets of local lore were soaked up in other writings. John Leland recorded the names of some Rutlandshire men who fought for Henry Tudor. According to Cornish legend, Sir Henry Bodrugan, a local knight of some notoriety, was in the field with Richard III. John Beaumont related the story of two Leicestershire friends who found themselves on opposite sides of the fray. In 1620 the Leicestershire antiquarian William Burton claimed that only forty years previously there had been villagers alive around Market Bosworth who remembered the battle.16

It is certainly the case that the historian needs to be wary of what is reported as popular tradition. A great many of the stories passed down though the ages sound apocryphal. The Scots chronicler Lindsay included a splendid, but scarcely credible tale about a highlander named MacGregor who stole Richard III’s crown shortly before the battle. A servant of the bishop of Dunkeld, ambassador from James III, he admitted the theft, explaining that since it had been prophesied that he would hang as a thief he was determined not to shame his family with petty larceny. The king enjoyed the story so much that he was set free.17 While being no less preposterous, few other legends are as engaging. There is the predictable story about the bed in which Richard III slept at Leicester. The king’s treasure was found hidden in the mattress, but it brought its discoverer ill fortune.18 At the same time it often turns out that a so-called folk tradition, far from being orally transmitted through the centuries, has originated from bookish sources, and then suitably embroidered with romantic frills has begun to masquerade as the voice of the people. Though Leicestershire born and with a knowledge of local traditions, Beaumont drew most of his information from the standard sources, while Sir George Buck, who prided himself on being the great-grandson of a prominent Ricardian killed at Bosworth, had to turn to chronicles and records to learn about the battle.19 J. Nichols, the eighteenth-century Leicestershire historian, recorded the story of a woman in the neighbourhood of Bosworth who had in her possession old writings about the battle, which were destroyed by a thoughtless cook in need of kindling for her fire. The likelihood is that they were antiquarian jottings from printed materials, though none of the points said to have been made in them seem to be derived from the standard works. What is especially curious is that they included information on the death of Richard III which corresponds strikingly to the report received by Jean Molinet on the continent some three hundred years previously.20

Orally transmitted material could transcend mere anecdotage. In ballad form, in particular, whole narratives of the battle of Bosworth could be passed down through the generations, often doubtless committed to written notes, some of which perhaps finished their days by fuelling a kitchen fire. There can be no doubt that from as early as 1485 itself numerous songs and ballads were composed to meet the demands of a predominantly illiterate population to hear the news and relish the drama of the historic encounter. Unfortunately there are only three ballads extant which relate to Bosworth, all of which seem to emanate from north-west England, where the house of Stanley held sway. The most valuable for historical purposes is The Ballad of Bosworth Field, which also survives in a prose version, but The Rose of England and Lady Bessy, though rather more romanticised, are not without their interest.21 The problem is what reliance can be placed on them. No matter how soon after the battle they were first composed, they were not committed to writing for a century and more. There are some anachronisms, not least the fact that one version ends with prayers for James I. There is a concern for a strong story line and a pandering to popular taste in their simplifications and romanticisations. At the same time there are clear signs of deterioration over time: events that have been missed out, places that have been garbled, names that have been muddled. Yet it is possible to make some quite positive points. Most obviously the garbling itself suggests a long period of oral transmission. It is particularly pleasing to find that there is an Elizabethan prose summary of Bosworth Field which can be put alongside the Jacobean version: the texts are sufficiently close to tell that they are versions of the same work, but sufficiently different to suggest that their common source was several generations removed. At the same time there is much internal evidence which suggests an early date of original composition, not least perhaps the manner in which parts of the action are described as if by an eye-witness.

Ultimately the value of the ballad tradition must be judged in terms of the quality of the information it provides. Though blatantly fanciful in parts, and partisan in spirit, Bosworth Field, Rose of England and Lady Bessy do present information about 1485 which cannot be dismissed out of hand. Leaving aside for the moment the insights which they might provide regarding the politicking and plotting of Richard III’s reign, they offer significant details about the battle which are not mentioned in the standard histories, but which find support in other evidence to which the balladeer cannot be supposed to have access. Thus Rose of England maintained that the rebels decided to attack the flank of the royal army, a point also made by the Burgundian chronicler, Jean Molinet. Bosworth Field testified to the use of cannons in the battle: a point again made by Molinet, and seemingly confirmed by archaeological evidence.22

The most striking addition made by the ballad tradition to the body of evidence relating to the battle of Bosworth is a list of over a hundred lords and knights who were with Richard III. Hitherto scholars have been troubled by the inclusion of noblemen for whose presence there is no other evidence, the garbled nature of many of the names, and the impossibility of identifying some of them at all. Yet the more it is studied the more authentic the body of information appears. First of all it offers the most comprehensive list of men whose presence in the royal army is recorded elsewhere, including not only all the eight peers who are mentioned in the chronicles, but also the majority of the knights whose participation in the battle was later documented in the act of attainder. In addition there are the names of dozens of lords and knights, whose attendance on the king seems not improbable given their close attachment to the Ricardian cause: privy councillors like Lords Audley, Grey of Codnor and Maltravers, northern friends like Lords Fitzhugh, Scrope of Bolton, Scrope of Masham, no less than seventeen of Richard III’s ‘knights of body’, and a large number of other northern knights, some of whom were retainers of the king and others of the earl of Northumberland. Indeed around two-thirds of the names are readily identifiable as individuals active in politics at the time, and most of the others bear recognisable surnames. Since there are two slightly different texts, it is possible to unscramble some of the more garbled names. The men named variously in the ballad and prose summary as Sir Robert ‘Utridge’ or ‘Owlrege’, Sir Henry ‘Bowdrye’ or ‘Landringham’, and Sir Alexander ‘Fawne’ or ‘Haymor’ might well have been Sir Robert Ughtred of Yorkshire, Sir Henry Bodrugan alias Bodringham of Cornwall, and Sir Alexander Baynham of Gloucestershire. All could have been at Bosworth, but none of their names would have meant anything to north-western audiences. An oral tradition which preserved so remarkably faithfully the names of so many Ricardian stalwarts for over a century must have originated in firm intelligence derived from the field by a Stanleyan herald or spy. The only alternative is to claim that the ballads were the product of a later antiquarian, who was equipped with an extraordinary knowledge of fifteenth-century politics and possessed of a sufficiently devious intelligence to throw in a few wild spellings.

Acceptance of the ballad testimony on the composition of Richard III’s army has a more general significance than simply adding to the cast in the drama of Bosworth. Most basically it reinforces and fleshes out the statements in other sources that the royal host was both large and distinguished, and challenges the assumption made by almost all historians that the king was attended only by a narrow circle of nobles. Of course, it also presents its difficulties, compounding, for example, the problem of explaining the defeat of the king and the behaviour of his leading subjects. Yet there is good chronicle evidence to support the proposition that large numbers of notables in the royal army declined to fight, and it is beyond dispute that the overwhelming majority of the men who bore arms against Henry Tudor escaped attainder or other recorded punishment. At the same time the pattern of events implied by the ballad tradition might well be capable of furnishing new insights into the nature of the Tudor settlement and of helping to explain the strange reticence in so many quarters as to what actually happened at Bosworth.

The sources available for the study of the battle of Bosworth are meagre, frequently muddled, inconsistent, often distant in time from the events described, and subject to partisan distortion. Even the most basic points of historical fact are difficult to establish. Though there are many problems of chronology, the dating of the battle does seem incontestable. Most accounts correctly refer to the 22nd August 1485, or in the case of John Rous the eighth day of the Assumption. Of course, Henry VII confused matters by dating his own reign from 21 August, while to add to the confusion Lord Stanley later recalled meeting Henry Tudor for the first time on 24 August, which seems most unlikely. Bernard André thought the battle took place on a Saturday; the Chronicle of Calais confidently ascribed it to St Bartholomew’s eve; Polydore Vergil gave the date as 11th kalends of September 1486.23 At the same time the battle went under a variety of names, reflecting in some degree the perspectives of the various informants. The first reports said that Richard had been killed at ‘Sandeford’, while other early notices referred to ‘Redesmore’ and ‘Brownheath’. In the years that followed men talked of a battle on the Warwickshire border, near Coventry or at Merevale. Only gradually did the name of Bosworth, the largest settlement adjoining the battlesite, sweep all its rivals from the field.24

The historian might be forgiven for throwing up his hands in despair when confronted with testimony of this sort, or clutching at one particular account to the exclusion of others. The ‘truth’ about the battle of Bosworth is certainly an unattainable ideal, but there are at least strategies of questioning, analysis and interpretation which help to clarify the score. As regards the dating and general site of the battle, for example, it is possible to evaluate the evidence, rather than accept simply one testimony as true and another as false. Thus the chronology of 22 August 1485 can be established beyond doubt not just because it is recorded in several independent sources and alone fits the time-frames implied in them, but also because some of the inconsistent evidence can be satisfactorily explained. Bernard André thought the victory was won on a Saturday because by the end of his reign Henry VII had won two other battles on that day; Lord Stanley simply associated the event with the nearest ‘red letter day’, the feast of St Bartholomew; Polydore Vergil, in true Renaissance style, provided the correct Roman version of the date, but fell into gross error with the year, perhaps by over-correcting the London chronicle tradition which followed mayoral years rather than calendar years. Similarly the apparent contradictions with regard to the name of the battle can be satisfactorily resolved. ‘Sandeford’, ‘Redesmore’ and ‘Brownheath’ were improvisations drawn from the terrain itself, and meant nothing to people from outside the immediate locality. Others slotted the battle into their own mental maps. John Rous, the Warwickshire man, noted that the battle took place ‘on the border of the counties of Warwick and Leicester’. Juan de Salazar, who perhaps made his escape southwards, or the Spanish merchants, who knew English commercial centres, located the action in the neighbourhood of Coventry. The Crowland chronicler, true to his cloth, pinpointed the battle by reference to Merevale abbey. The triumph of Bosworth was only assured by its adoption by Vergil and Hall, though the name might also have been independently promoted by the court and popular tradition.

The sources thus need to be examined and cross-examined, and the historian, like the successful barrister, has his own cards up his sleeve. He might well have visited the site of the battle and thus know more about the lie of land than many of his witnesses. Unfortunately the landscape around Bosworth provides precious few new clues, despite attention from many amateur archaeologists and antiquarians. A major problem was that the land was drained and enclosed in the sixteenth century. When Raphael Holinshed inspected the site in Elizabethan times he had difficulty in reconstructing the scene described by Vergil, most particularly the boggy land around which the rebel army skirted. In the early seventeenth century William Burton recalled that at the enclosure of the manor of Stoke quantities of armour and a great number of large arrow-heads had been dug up. Eighteenth century antiquarians also sought to make sense of the site. From time to time more skeletons, weapons and cannon shot were excavated, but unfortunately precious little was properly documented or dated. To confuse matters further, there had been a skirmish on the battlesite between the Royalists and Parliamentarians in the Civil War.25

To reconstruct what happened on 22 August 1485 it is also possible to draw on a mass of evidence regarding the men of the hour. As full a knowledge as possible of their personalities and backgrounds, their ambitions and anxieties, their records in the past and their behaviour after the event, must assist the process of elucidation and explanation, or at the very least will provide the best available guide in linking apparent motive to hypothetical action, or known action to likely motive. It will be pertinent to draw on knowledge of the age in which the chief protagonists lived so as to make evident the institutions, values and technologies which shaped their political options and military strategies. Indeed it will be necessary to go back some distance in time from the battle of Bosworth. Most basically it is hoped to establish some sense of its meaning for the participants. At the same time a presentation of facets of the fifteenth-century background will certainly be indispensable in any attempted assessment of the place of 1485 in English and British history.

TWO

Civil War and Common Weal

The chain of events leading to the battle of Bosworth is composed of innumerable strands, many of which can be traced back through several generations. Few commentators at the time failed to connect the events of 1485 in some wise with the dynastic strife and civil wars of the previous thirty years, which in turn were often presented as stemming from the consequences of the deposition of Richard II in 1399. In the hands of Tudor historians this perspective was moulded into a powerful myth, which not only served to legitimize the new regime but also chimed in with new politic and moral attitudes. It was this vision which William Shakespeare stamped indelibly in the consciousness of later generations, a vision of the fifteenth century as a drama whose first act sees the deposition of Richard II, whose subsequent acts chronicle the rise and fall, and the bloody feuding of the houses of Lancaster and York, whose crisis is the battle of Bosworth, and whose blessed resolution is the establishment of peace and harmony under the Tudors. Even in recent times it made sense for at least one eminent historian, A.L. Rowse, to adopt the Shakespearian perspective on the background to the battle of Bosworth.1

It is a compelling tale, an artfully crafted image of the past. For all its propagandist value and its elements of wilful distortion, it was not a grossly cynical fabrication. For the most part the Tudor vision was a genuine attempt on the part of sixteenth-century writers to make sense of their national experience. Of course, most modern historians find it unsatisfactory and spend much time exorcising it from the public mind. Yet, even if its general plot and moralising refrain are to be jettisoned, its chronology might well be worth retaining. Obviously the drama culminating in the battle of Bosworth was set against a back-cloth of institutions and ideas which stretched back over several generations, if not centuries. In the forging of this landscape events of the late fourteenth century have an especial importance: the Black Death, the French wars, the Peasants’ Revolt, Lollardy, the Chaucerian achievement, and so on. Above all, even if it can no longer be claimed that the Wars of the Roses began with the deposition of Richard II by Henry IV in 1399, there are many senses in which the events and experiences of the time shaped the course of English politics until long after a third Richard had been supplanted by a seventh Henry.

For Shakespeare the dramatic cycle which would end at Bosworth field began in the last years of Richard II’s reign. For the historian it is a matter of tracing the build up of tension between the monarch and his leading subjects over the previous twenty years of his reign. In large measure the problems were inherited from his grandfather Edward III. The old king’s long and glorious reign, which had seen English armies triumphant in France and the nation united behind the war-effort, ended in defeat, disillusionment and discord. Edward himself slipped into an unmanly dotage, his court was rife with amours and intrigue, and his government grew corrupt and rapacious. To add to the troubles of the time, Edward, prince of Wales, the Black Prince, died of cholera, leaving his unpopular brother, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, at the centre of the political stage. In a remarkable demonstration of their outrage the commons in parliament openly defied the government in 1376, and successfully impeached the king’s chief ministers. When the old king died in 1377, the succession passed to his grandson, the Black Prince’s son. With the accession of the ten-year old Richard II, the nation hoped for new beginnings, but more wisely prepared for the worst.

Traditionally the fate of kingdoms without adult rulers was pitiable. During the minority of Richard II there were considerable difficulties. English military fortunes continued to decline, and resentment at government taxation continued to mount. In the so-called Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 the commons rose in rebellion, ominously blending political demands with larger social and ideological concerns. Yet the broadly-based minority council served the realm surprisingly well, and the major political problems of the reign emerged only as the king began to shake off his tutelage. Young Richard seems to have been brought up with too exalted a notion of his regality, naturally nourished both by sincere counsellors seeking to dignify the monarchy and by avaricious courtiers