Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors (49 page)

Richard had aimed straight for the one recognisable sign of Henry’s
location, his standards of St George, the Red Dragon, and the Dun Cow. Reaching one banner, held by Henry’s standard-bearer Sir William Brandon, Richard struck out at Brandon, killing him as Henry’s standard was ‘thrown to the ground’. According to the ballads, Brandon ‘hevyd on high’ Henry’s standard, ‘and vamisyd it, tyll with deathe’s dent he was stryken downe’. The force of Richard’s blow was a powerful one. In the eighteenth century, the antiquarian John Nichols recalled speaking with a lady who had read a manuscript account of the battle which had subsequently been destroyed, which stated that Richard had cleaved William Brandon ‘down the head at one blow’.

Richard then ‘joined battle’ with John Cheyney, at 6 foot 8 inches possibly one of Henry’s tallest supporters, who ‘met him as he came’; it is testament to Richard’s strength that he thrust Cheyney to the ground, ‘with great force’. Tradition recalls that Cheyney rode in to retrieve the standard, yet Richard managed to unhorse him by striking him around the head with a broken lance. This struck the crest from his helm and, when he fell unconscious to the ground, his head was laid completely bare. Stunned, he recovered to find that he had lost his helmet. Taking his sword, he cut the skull and horns from a bull’s carcass, which happened to be lying nearby, and placed them on his head as a makeshift helmet in order to rejoin the battle. While the story seems somewhat unlikely if not practically impossible, this did not get in the way of a good tale of honour in battle, and Cheyney would be later granted the bull’s scalp as his family crest.

At such close quarters, the battle around the two standards was fiercely fought. Richard’s standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thirwall, finding himself under attack, held on to Richard’s standard ‘till both his legs were cut from him, yet to the ground he would not let go, while breath was in his breast’. Of those who were not killed, many must have been maimed or injured. Roger Acton later petitioned, ‘in consideration of the true and faithful service that your humble subject Roger Acton hath done unto your highness, now in your victorious field and under your standard and there sore hurt’.

As Richard continued to cut his way through Henry’s ranks, it was becoming clear that Henry himself was at serious risk. With his men ‘very unsure of victory’, Vergil claimed that Henry himself ‘withstood the attack longer than even his soldiers thought possible’. As
later writers added further colour to Richard’s final charge, the story of Richard’s confrontation with Henry would later come to be distorted, so that it appeared more like hand-to-hand combat. According to the later sixteenth-century chronicler Hollinshed, Henry, seeing Richard charging towards him like a ‘hungry lion’, ‘gladly proferred to encounter him body to body, and man to man’, managing to keep Richard ‘at the swords point’ while the late-sixteenth-century poet Michael Drayton would later claim that Richard was ‘scare a lance’s length’ from Henry. It has been suggested that Richard’s attack was held off by a number of French ‘pikemen’ from among the mercenaries collected from the Pontde-l’Arche, who may have formed a hedgehog-like bristle of pikes in a square formation by which to defend Henry. One French source, supposedly a fragment of a letter written by a French participant in the battle, the day after the conflict, stated how Richard had attacked ‘with all his division, which was estimated at more than 15,000 men, crying, “These French traitors are today the cause of our realm’s ruin”.’ Was this a reaction to a sudden manoeuvre that caught the king by surprise as he charged, as rows of pikes facing him were assembled, by which means the French mercenaries defended Henry, preventing Richard from breaking through the line? According to the fragmentary evidence of the French letter, which has never been verified as an original source, it stated how ‘in part we were the reason why the battle was won’. The deployment of such a manoeuvre, which the Swiss had used so effectively at the battle of Grandson in 1476, seems unlikely, however: rather than professional soldiers, the French mercenaries were clealy
archers du camp
, in other words professional archers, rather than pikemen. None of the sources makes any mention of pikes, eighteen-foot-long wooden spears, being in use at the battle, which surely would have been spotted. Moreover, Richard had his own expert in Continental warfare in Jean de Salazar, who having been in communication with the king as the battle progressed, would have been able to warn Richard about the threat he faced. And if Richard had faced a bristling wall of pikes which would have countered his cavalry charge, how then had he been able to break through its ranks to kill Sir William Brandon and unhorse Sir John Cheyney?

Whether Henry Tudor himself, lacking any military experience, would have proved an effective match for Richard seems to have been
ignored by the later Tudor writers; all agree, however, that he was in desperate trouble. The writer of the ‘Life of Sir Rhys ap Thomas’ relates a story that Rhys, witnessing Henry ‘beginning to quail’, ‘took this occasion to send unto Sir William Stanley, giving him to understand the danger they were in, and entreating him to join his forces for the disengaging the Earl, who was not only in despair of victory, but almost of his life’. Sir William Stanley, who had apparently ‘understood not the danger before’ joined the battle, and joining with Rhys, ‘both together rushed in upon their adversaries and routed them’. According to Vergil, it was only when Henry’s life was ‘in immediate danger’ that Stanley arrived, ‘bearing quick and very timely aid’ that rescued Henry ‘safe and sound from a slaughter’. In fact, Sir William was not acting alone, with Vergil believing that the ‘strong band of soldiers’ under Sir William’s charge had been sent ‘by his brother Thomas, who had been sitting idle not far from the battlefield’. This raises the question why Thomas Stanley decided to take action so late in the battle. The timing of Stanley’s movement against Richard seems mysterious. He could not be sure that at the precise moment, with Richard so close to Henry Tudor, that the king might not easily defeat Henry, in which case his late charge into the battle would have been taken as treason. Perhaps it was also at this moment when Stanley must have assumed that Lord Strange had been killed, leaving him with nothing else to lose but to order Sir William Stanley to charge into battle. Alternatively, Stanley could have discovered that Strange had been freed during the battle, thereby removing the one cause for constraint that had prevented Stanley from declaring his support for Henry Tudor.

Sir William Stanley’s charge seems to have taken Richard entirely by surprise. Leading a force of 3,000 men, Stanley swept into the battle ‘down at a bank’ to set upon Richard and his men, smashing into the king’s left side, while Thomas Stanley remained motionless, deciding to ‘hove on this hill / That fair battle for to see’. William Stanley’s forces aimed straight for the king’s standard, upon which ‘fast did they light’. ‘The Rose of England’ described the image of how William Stanley’s men, wearing their jackets ‘of white and red’, ‘laid about them lustily’, adding ‘a worthy sight it was to see’.

Vergil believed that Richard ‘was killed at the selfsame moment’, describing how, witnessing Sir William Stanley’s sudden charge, the
rest of the king’s men were ‘thrown into flight’. Nevertheless, Richard remained committed to battle and it was only ‘while fighting in the thickest press of the enemy’ that he was ‘struck through’. It seems that as Stanley’s men pushed forward, Richard was swept towards the marsh that Henry had intended to act as his defence. The details of Richard’s final moments remain elusive, though the prose version of the ‘Ballad of Bosworth Field’ recorded that Richard was ‘in a marris’ while Molinet believed he ‘ended his days iniquitously and filthily in the dirt and the mire’, adding that the king had died after ‘his horse leapt into a marsh from which it could not retrieve itself. One of the Welshmen then came after him, and struck him dead with a halberd.’ Even once Richard had been killed, the rain of blows upon his battered body continued as his crown was ‘hewyd’ from his head ‘with dowtfull dents’. The ‘Ballad of Lady Bessie’ adds further lurid detail, suggesting that Richard’s head was battered to the point that his basinet was driven into his head, ‘until his brains came out with blood’.

Later there would be many who would claim the credit for delivering the final fatal blow that had killed the king. Molinet recorded that Richard had been killed by a ‘Welsh halberd’: according to Welsh tradition, it was Rhys ap Maredudd, known also as Rhys Fawr, ‘Rhys the Mighty’, who having immediately picked up Henry’s Red Dragon standard after Brandon’s death, had managed to kill Richard. Yet those same traditions, told by various Welsh bards, told that it was Sir Rhys ap Thomas who killed the king, ‘manfully fighting with him hand to hand’, and that in gratitude Henry honoured Sir Rhys with the quaint epithet of ‘Father Rice’. The Welsh poet Guto’r Glyn, addressing a poem to Rhys after the battle, implied that he had delivered the fatal blow himself, and ‘killed the boar, destroyed his head’. Another poet, Tudur Penllyn, also gifts Richard’s killing to Rhys.

While in the confusion and heat of battle, it was perhaps impossible for even those men who were present to say who exactly had killed Richard. Nevertheless, another tale worth considering is the story told in 1610 by James Ley, who claimed that his great-grandfather, Henry Ley, had been ‘a man of arms’ on Henry’s side, ‘and was near about the earl’s person, at such time the king was slain by one Thomas Woodshawe’. Henry Ley had accompanied his lord Sir Robert Willoughby to the battle, yet it is notable that one ‘Thomas Woodshawe’, a tenant on
the Middleton Hall estate also owned by the Willoughby family, was rewarded by Henry on 20 September with the office of bailiff of the lordship of Berkeswell in Warwickshire and made keeper of the park there ‘during pleasure’.

There can be little doubt that Richard had fought, whether in determination or desperation, to the last. By his ‘sole effort’, one chronicler wrote, he had ‘upheld the battle for a long time’. Despite being no fan of Richard, whom he compared to the Antichrist, John Rous of Warwick wrote how ‘if I may say the truth to his credit, though small in body and feeble of limb, he bore himself like a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until his last breath’. The Crowland chronicler praised Richard’s bravery, ‘for in the thick of the fight, and not in the act of flight, King Richard fell in the field, struck by many mortal wounds, as a bold and most valiant prince’. And even Polydore Vergil, intent upon presenting the king in the worst possible light, had to admit that Richard had demonstrated ‘a proud, fierce spirit, which did not desert him even in death, which, abandoned by his men, he preferred to meet rather than to save his life by shameful flight’.

It was an almost unbelievable victory: for the Crowland chronicler, Henry’s crown had been ‘remarkably won’. Not since the Norman Conquest had an invasion resulted in a king’s death on the battlefield, the passing of one dynasty and the birth of another. ‘I observe from the chronicles that no such end for a King of England (being killed that is on a battlefield in his own kingdom) has been heard of since the time of King Harold, who was a usurper and was defeated in battle by William the Conqueror coming from Normandy whence also these men had come.’

Upon the sight of his death, Richard’s army melted away in flight. ‘The rearguard,’ Molinet wrote, ‘seeing King Richard dead, turned in flight.’ Immediately those in the field ‘threw down their arms and willingly surrendered into Henry’s power’ to be taken prisoner. As a result, the Crowland chronicler added almost crestfallen, ‘there was left no part of the opposing army of sufficient significance or substance for the glorious victor Henry VII to engage, and so add to his experience in battle’.

The battle had lasted little more than two hours. According to Robert
Fabyan, a ‘sharp battle’ had been fought, ‘and sharper it should have been, if the king’s party had been fast to him’. For many, the end of the battle had come as a relief. Many of Richard’s men would have surrendered earlier, Vergil wrote, ‘of their own accord even when Richard was alive, assuming it could have been done without danger’.

According to Vergil, when Henry learnt of Richard’s death he was ‘amazingly overjoyed’; only in the later printed edition of his work did he note that Henry ‘immediately gave thanks to Almighty God with many prayers for receiving the victory he had won’. Henry ‘betook himself to the nearest hill’, described somewhat optimistically in one of the ballads as a ‘mountain high’, located south of where the battle had taken place, near to the village of Stoke, from which its inhabitants had watched the battle unfold from the tower of St Margaret’s church. Henry’s reasons for heading for the hill may also have been to reach Thomas Stanley, who in Vergil’s account was ‘encamped with his troops not far from the battlefield’. From this location, overlooking the carnage of the dead and wounded in the marshy ground below, Henry first addressed his victorious army, praising his soldiers and ordering that the wounded should be looked after and that the dead be buried. According to Bernard André, Henry spoke of his grief ‘when I behold the deaths of so many brave men, whom I would like to commit to a decent burial. In particular, I am of the opinion that the body of King Richard should be buried … with all due reverence.’ Vergil noted how Henry took especial care to give his ‘everlasting thanks’ to his ‘leading men’, promising that he ‘would remember their good deeds’. As he ended his speech, his soldiers began to hail him ‘in a great shout’, cheering ‘with very willing hearts’: the ballads record that ‘with a voice they cried King Henry’.

According to Vergil, Thomas Stanley, witnessing this, took Richard’s crown, which ‘had been found in the meantime among the spoils … then, with all acclaiming him in this way, Thomas Stanley placed the crown on his head’. Later, in his printed work, Vergil took the unofficial crowning ceremony to be an official sign of Henry’s legitimacy to the throne, having been declared by the ‘vox populi’, ‘just as if he had been hailed as king by the will of the people in accordance with ancestral custom; and this was the first omen of happiness’. André also provides details of how ‘all the churchmen who had come along with the
most fortunate Earl of Richmond offered up heartfelt and most pious prayers to heaven’, including the Franciscan friar Michael Deacon, the Bishop of Asaph, the sometime confessor to the king, and Christopher Urswick.