Henry VII and Bosworth Field

The Wars of the Roses had cut a swathe through England's nobility. After decades of bloodletting, the Yorkists had acquired control and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had seized the throne from his nephews. Though Richard III’s major Lancastrian enemies had been slain in the fighting, there remained one exiled noble who had a tenuous claim to the throne: Henry Tudor. Richard may have won the crown, but that didn’t mean much: the throne had been passed around a great deal over the last few decades, and sitting on it was a matter of geography rather than authority. Though the Lancastrians had been decimated, there were still many in England who would prefer Henry on the throne. Even France, England’s age-old nemesis, preferred Henry, because Richard was on the warpath and France didn’t want any of that—they were still rebuilding in the wake of the Hundred Years War, and their eyes were set on wrangling with the Holy Roman Empire to the east in Italy.

Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne was pretty weak; if it weren’t for deaths of the prime Lancastrian family members, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. But as it were, there was a vacuum, and he was the last surviving male descendant of the Lancastrian line. The fate of the Lancastrians rested with him. He was the son of the late Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, and his mother was Margaret Beaufort. Henry’s grandfather on his father’s side was Owen Tudor, a Welsh squire, and his paternal grandmother was Catherine of France, the widow of King Henry V. Owen Tudor met his end under Yorkist blades after the Lancastrian defeat at Mortimer’s Cross in 1461. Henry’s claim to the throne came from his mother, who was the great-granddaughter of the late Prince John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward III, the first ‘hero king’ of the Hundred Years War. John of Gaunt’s descendants had been legitimized for the throne by Henry IV, but that king had excluded the Beaufort line, from which stemmed Henry’s claim. The reasoning was that because the Beaufort line came about from one of Gaunt’s mistresses, Kathryn Swynford, it was illegitimate (despite the two of them later marrying). Henry was raised by his uncle Jasper Tudor, the earl of Pembroke, and when the Lancastrians were defeat at Tewkesbury in 1471, Jasper hurried fourteen-year-old Henry across the Channel and sought refuge in Brittany; as the sole remaining heir to the Lancastrian throne, it wouldn’t be safe to remain in England.

Henry would spend his teenage years and early twenties in Brittany; he became more familiar with French culture and customs than those of the English, and as he neared his mid-twenties, he was fired up for the throne. He was popular with his compatriots and cut a good figure: tall and slim with dark hair and a pervading handsomeness. He was in the prime of life and eager to seize the day. He knew he’d have a lot of support in England, and that support only grew with the political machinations and usurpation of Richard III in 1483. The Yorkist party split down the middle, some favoring and others decrying Richard’s seizure of the crown. Henry made a bid to a number of disgruntled Yorkist nobles and agreed to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, to unite Henry’s Lancastrian supporters and Richard’s discontented Yorkist opponents. Richard, sensing that some of the most prominent Yorkists might favor a marriage of the two houses to bring an end to the senseless and exhausting dynastic struggles, fretted for the security of his realm.

The rifting of the kingdom fueled Richard’s anger, and the king took that anger out on France. He threatened to go to war with England’s centuries-old rival, and tensions both across the Channel and in Parliament escalated. France preferred having Henry, who would likely be more amicable towards them given his good treatment in Brittany, and so they pledged him his support: if he made an attempt to steal the throne, they’d lend him close to two thousand French-paid mercenaries. Henry knew time was of the essence, for if the fractured Yorkists could find common ground and reconcile, they’d be strong enough to repulse him. Much of Henry’s strength would have to come from English lords and nobles willing to risk their heads for his cause; if the dust settled in London, they’d be less apt to throw in with him. Fortune favors the bold, or so Henry hoped, and in early August 1485 he landed at Milford Haven in West Wales with two thousand men, mostly French mercenaries, and taunted the king of England to come out and fight.

Richard III was overjoyed at the news of Henry's landing--at least according to one chronicler. He was confident he could defeat ‘the rebel,’ but it took him four days to notify his lords for mobilization. It wasn’t until mid-August that the Yorkist army could link together into a force of sizable strength. This delay – the curse of daily life in a country absent motor vehicles and digital communications – gave Henry breathing room to gather supporters to bolster his two-thousand-strong entourage. Henry’s eyes were set on London, but he knew he lacked the strength to oppose it; so he rested his men in Shrewsbury and then headed east to link up with gathering allies and swell the ranks with deserters from Richard’s army. Even so, the hopeful usurper remained outnumbered, so he moved slowly to give more time for straggling and last-minute supporters to arrive.

Lord Stanley and William Stanley, leaders of one of England’s most powerful families, mobilized their men and maneuvered in front of Henry’s line of march. Richard was suspicious of the Stanleys’ loyalty, given that Lord Stanley had married Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, making him Henry’s step-father. Henry and the Stanleys met in secret a number of times, hatching the ultimate battlefield betrayal (Richard was convinced the Stanleys were firm supporters of his crown). It was on the 21st of August that the Stanleys and their retinue encamped on the slopes of a hill just north of the town of Dadlington; Henry pitched camp to the northwest at White Moors. His men were grateful for the rest: since the beginning of the invasion, they’d been moving almost non-stop and had covered over two hundred miles.

Richard had ridden from Nottingham to Leicester to join forces with Norfolk and his men. The king spent the night of the 20th at the Blue Boar Inn, and Northumberland arrived on the 21st. Having amassed their forces, they marched west to intercept Henry’s ongoing march on London. Henry received news of Richard’s approach and made camp towards Ambion Hill. The Croyland Chronicle records that the night before the history-shaking clash, the king had trouble sleeping, and in the morning his face was ‘more livid and ghastly than usual.’

the battleground today

No matter how he slept, at least the king could take some solace in the fact that the numbers were in their favor. His army numbered between 7500 and 12000 men, compared to Henry’s forces of 5-8000 men. Richard deployed his men along a narrow east-west ridgeline. The aged John, duke of Norfolk, held the right wing. His group, which included twelve hundred archers, was positioned on the right flank where they could protect the royal cannon. One account of the battle suggests Richard had one hundred forty cannon, and archaeological digs at the battle-site tend to support this: more than thirty cannon-shot have been discovered, more than on any other medieval battlefield. Cannons had proved themselves during the dynastic struggles, and Richard was keen on using them. The king’s three thousand infantry held the center, and Northumberland’s group, numbering about four thousand infantry with scores of cavalry, secured the royal left flank. Their position on the elevated ridgeline gave them a good view of Henry’s rebels taking position at the bottom of the ridge’s slope. The Stanleys and their 4-6000 men took position around Dadlington’s Hill, and Henry’s larger force was spreading out to the southwest.

The core of Henry’s army was likely the 1800 mercenaries ‘on loan’ from France. John Mair, writing thirty-five years after the battle, said that the mercenaries boasted a number of Scottish soldiers, though France likely didn’t lend him their best mercenary knights and archers. Henry marched his men towards Ambion Hill, in full view of Richard’s forces on the ridgeline. The southwest foot of the hill was marshland, and Henry’s men had to maneuver around it to reach the firmer ground that faced the ridgeline. Henry sent messengers to Lord Stanley, asking him to clarify his allegiance, but Stanley responded evasively, giving ambiguous answers, saying that they would ‘naturally’ come after Henry had arrayed his men for battle (in other words, ‘Start without me.’) Henry had no option to begin the battle by facing the king alone—and hoping Stanley didn’t do a double-turn and come down on his flank.

Henry wasn’t the only one frustrated by the Stanleys. Richard, up on the ridgeline, fumed at how Lord Stanley was just letting Henry’s men pass by their front. He sent a messenger and threatened to execute his son if he didn’t join the attack on Henry immediately; “I have other sons,” was Stanley’s reply. When news of Stanley’s answer—and insubordination—reached the king, he lost his cool and ordered Stanley’s son, a mere boy who was with the royal forces on the ridgeline, to be beheaded that instant. His officers, repulsed by the barbarity of Richard’s order, refused, imploring that their focus be on the enemy marching straight at them. They could kill the boy after the battle, if the king still desired it. And so the boy, who could have met his end in a fit of the king’s rage, survived to watch the rebel army filling the valley below.

royal cannon were prominent at Bosworth Field

Henry didn’t have the necessary battle experience to effectively lead his men, so he handed command to John de Vere, the earl of Oxford, and retired to the rear with his bodyguards. Oxford decided to keep his men together rather than splitting them into three separate groups. The troops were to stray no further than ten feet from their banners, and individual groups clumped together, forming a single large mass flanked by horsemen on the wings. Henry’s men were pummeled with royal cannon firing from the heights, but they pressed on. Norfolk’s group, stationed on the right with the cannon, began to advance in step with several contingents of Richard’s group in the center. The Yorkists descended down the ridgeline’s slope, the cannons firing behind them and over their heads. The archers, coming into range of Henry’s advancing army, began loosing their volleys. Henry’s archers responded in kind, and swarms of arrows crisscrossed above the advancing forces. In the last moments Oxford’s men charged, throwing themselves into a vicious melee with Norfolk’s group on the royal right flank. Oxford’s men held their ground, and parts of Norfolk’s line began to break and rout.

Richard III charges into Henry's bodyguard

Richard signaled for Northumberland, on the left flank, to assist, but Northumberland’s men remained steadfast on their part of the ridge. Whether Northumberland declined to assist Norfolk for personal reasons, or whether the geography of the ridgeline and the marsh prevented him from going to Norfolk’s aid, no one knows (though contemporaries viewed him as a traitor, and his own supporters would eventually kill him for ‘disappointing’ the king as Bosworth). Richard could only look helplessly between the seemingly disinterested Northumberland and the disingenuous Lord Stanley shadowing Henry’s force. The center of his line was engaged, his right was falling back towards the cannons that were keeping up their furious fire, and his left wing was immobile, as if those men had just come out to bird-watch as the battle unrolled. Richard sensed that the battle could easily turn against him; his right wing would be rolled back and his men engulfed. There was no retreat, for running away would delegitimize his rule. He needed to crush Henry that very day, and so he decided to make a bold cut at the jugular by driving his personal bodyguard right at Henry, who was positioned at the rear of his men. Rallying a number of mounted knights, most likely his household men and closest friends, he led them on a thunderous circuit around Henry’s flanks and then angled them in a bee-line for Henry’s bodyguard.

Mercenary soldiers protecting Henry Tudor

Henry’s men shifted to face the incoming cavalry charge just as the king’s men slammed into them. The king knocked down the six-foot-eight-inches tall Sir John Cheyney and killed Henry’s standard-bearer. The king’s lance had broken, but he used it nonetheless, unhorsing Edward IV’s former standard bearer. Henry’s guard wrapped around him, and he dismounted from his horse to conceal himself among the French mercenaries. He knew he didn’t have the skills to survive against Richard’s elite soldiers, so he stayed out of the fight. Richard was heated up and desperate to cut through the mercenaries and take Henry’s life, but mercenary pikemen gathered around the rebel usurper and protected him with a hedge of blades. Richard ordered his cavalry to push on to the king, but though their horses could be brought to a gallop, they would always refuse to throw themselves against the wall of spear-points, breaking at the last moment and running helter-skelter along the face of the enemy. Lord Stanley, seeing Henry embroiled with Richard’s cavalry, made his disposition clear: he betrayed the king and went to the aid of his step-son. Henry had the advantage, and Richard’s men were pushed a hundred yards from their prey, right to the edge of the marsh—and the king’s horse toppled in the boggy ground.

Richard defends himself with a macabre gusto

Unhorsed, Richard rallied his men. One of them offered him his horse, pleading with him to seek safety with the royal troops still entrenched on the ridgeline; the king refused the horse, saying, “God forbid that I retreat one step. I will either win the battle as a king, or die as one.” Henry’s men surrounded the king and his dwindling men; soon he was pressed on all sides, fighting savagely like a demon, much to the surprise of John Rous, who had compared the king to the Antichrist. ‘[If] I may say the truth to his credit,’ he later said, ‘though small in body [just five feet four inches tall] and feeble of limb, the late king bore himself like a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until the last breath.’ Richard knew the end was but heartbeats away; his banner man lost his legs, and even despoiled on the ground and with his broken arteries bleeding him out, he held the king’s banner aloft until he was killed. Polydore Vergil, Henry’s official historian, reports that ‘King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies.’ The Burgundian chronicler Jean Molinet tells us that a Welshman struck the king’s death-blow with a halberd (an axe-like weapon on the end of a six-foot pole); it’s said that the halberd’s blows were so violet that the king’s helmet was driven into his skull. The Welsh poet Guto’r Glyn says that the leading Welsh Lancastrian ‘killed the boar, shaved his head.’ Analysis of Richard’s skeletal remains, found in 2012 under a parking lot, reveal eleven wounds, nine of them to the head, and a blade consistent with a halberd had sliced off part of the back of Richard’s skull, suggesting that he’d lost his helmet. Forensic archaeologists, working off an interpretation of the various wounds, believe that the back part of his skull was sheathed off (likely by a halberd); if this didn’t kill him, a sword blade thrust from the back of the skull straight into the brain would’ve finished the job.

Whatever the manner, the king had died—and Richard’s forces melted away as word of the king’s death spread. They didn’t have the spirit to take up the dead man’s cause; the throne was now open, and Henry not only had his tenable claim, he also had triumph—and that would mean a lot in London. The English throne changed hands time and again; this was just daily life, and the dead king’s supporters knew their best hope lie in aligning themselves with Henry. Northumberland’s men, who had remained immobile on the ridgeline, turned tail and fled north towards Northumbria. The aged Duke of Norfolk, one of Richard’s most fierce supporters, died on the battlefield.

The story of the Battle of Bosworth Field, in keeping company with the tale of the Wars of the Roses, has become saturated with myth. Just as Shakespeare’s portrayal of the Red and White Rose resulted in a sort of high-class historical revisionism, so he has his hand here, putting words into the mouth of Richard III: “A horse, a horse, a kingdom for my horse.’ Even the name for the battle is a later development; up until the first days of Henry VIII’s reign, it was called the ‘Battle of Redemore,’ or ‘place of reeds,’ because of the marsh in which Richard made his heroic last stand. Legend has it that after the battle, Richard’s circlet was found and brought to Henry; Lord Stanley put it on his head and proclaimed him king. The circlet was found in a hawthorn bush, or so rumor has it (none of the contemporary sources mention this), and this is why Henry had a hawthorn bush added to his coat-of-arms. Some skeptical historians argue that the hawthorn bush wasn’t unique to Henry; it could be found with other coat-of-arms used within the House of Lancaster. At the same time, coats-of-arms were quite varied, and one must wonder why Henry would adopt the hawthorn bush on a whim. It’s likely that it references something critical to his ascension to the throne: his victory over the last Yorkist king.

Those Yorkists who had lost their lives in the battle were taken to St. James Church at Dadlington for Christian burial, but Richard’s corpse didn’t receive such benevolent treatment: his body was stripped naked, tied like a hog (his insignia) with his genitalia exposed, and taken to Leicester so that no one could deny he had died. Two days later, after doubts had been addressed, he was buried in a plain tomb in the church of the Greyfriars. When the church was demolished in 1538, it was thought Richard’s remains were lost to history; but in 2012 archaeologists found – underneath a car park of all places! – a buried skeleton with spinal abnormalities and head injuries; the next year, DNA testing convinced the researchers ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that the remains were those of Richard III. His remains were reinterred in Leicester Cathedral in 2015.