1: THE NIGHTMARE – SHAKESPEARE’S BOSWORTH
This chapter explores renditions of battle in the late Middle Ages. It is inspired by the pioneering work of the Belgian historian J.F. Verbruggen, whose classic 1954 study, The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages has been revised and translated by S. Willard and R.W. Southern (Woodbridge, 1997). I develop these ideas further in an article for War in History (November, 2002); ‘The battle of Verneuil (17 August 1424): towards a history of courage’. I argue that trying to work out exactly what happened in a medieval battle is a redundant methodology and take issue with Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Burne’s theory of Inherent Military Probability, which still casts its baleful influence on Wars of the Roses battle reconstruction. I believe we need to explore the ritual employed before and during an engagement to find out more about why men fought.
1 The description of Montlhéry is taken from Philippe de Commynes, Memoirs, tr. M. Jones (London, 1972), pp.68–77.
2 W. Bullein, Dialogue on the Fever Pestilence (Early English Text Soc., LII), pp.59–60.
3 The Battle of Neville’s Cross, 1346, ed. D. Rollason and M. Prestwich (Stamford, 1998).
4 The reference to the most precious crown is found in The Crowland Chronicle Continuations 1459–86, ed. N. Pronay and J. Cox (London, 1986), pp.182–3. The suggestion that this was in fact the coronation crown of Edward the Confessor was first made by C.A.J. Armstrong, ‘The inauguration ceremonies of the Yorkist kings and their title to the throne’, Tr. Royal Hist. Soc., 4th series, V (1948), p.72.
5 For this see two of my earlier articles: M.K.Jones, ‘Richard III and the Stanleys’ in Richard III and the North, ed. R. Horrox (Hull, 1986), pp.32–34, and ‘Sir William Stanley of Holt: politics and family allegiance in the late fifteenth century’, Welsh History Review, XIV (1988), p.2.
6 For Wellington: Chambers Dictionary of Quotations, ed. A. Jones (London, 1996), p. 1063; for Waurin and Verneuil, M.K.Jones, ‘The battle of Verneuil (17 August 1424): towards a history of courage’, War in History.
7 General detail on Courtrai is drawn from Verbruggen, The Art of Warfare, pp. 190–94, and Kelly de Vries, Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 1996), pp.9–22. It is to de Vries (p. 18) that I owe the striking likeness between Artois’ plea for help and Richard III’s cry for a horse. The story of Richard being unable to celebrate Mass is found in the Crowland Chronicle and an account by Henry Parker, Lord Morley. The incident is well discussed in a perceptive piece by Jan Willem Verkaik, ‘King Richard’s last sacrament’, The Ricardian, IX (1992), PP.359–60.
8 Antony Sher, Year of the King (London, 1985), pp.129–30.
9 On the general symbolism of the crown in Olivier’s film version, Constance Brown, ‘Olivier’s Richard III – a re-evaluation’, Film Quarterly, XX (1967), pp.23–32 (which I owe to Geoffrey Wheeler).
2: MARTYRDOM – DEATH OF A FATHER
Here I look at the way Richard might have come to see his father. A key episode is York’s relief of Pontoise, which I believe has been both neglected (it receives a passing three lines in Paul Johnson’s 1988 study of York’s career) and misunderstood (the culprit is A.H. Burne’s Agincourt War, London 1956, pp.293–306). To be fair to Burne, the campaign is difficult to reconstruct, but he has compressed the action into two weeks instead of five and as a result missed out the most important part of it. York’s action was seen as a feat of arms within his family, and this took on a vital significance for his youngest son.
1 The reference to the ‘horrible battle’ is from the ‘Annales rerum anglicarum’, printed in Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France, ed. J. Stevenson, 2 vols in 3 (Rolls Series, 1864), II, ii, p. 775. For a survey of the sources for Wakefield I have relied on Keith Dockray, ‘The battle of Wakefield and the Wars of the Roses’, The Ricardian, IX (1992), pp.238–58.
2 On this see Sheila Delany, ‘Bokenham’s “Claudian” as Yorkist propaganda’, Journal of Medieval History XXII (1996), pp.83–96, and more recently her Impolitic Bodies: Poetry, Saints and Society in Fifteenth-Century England: The Work of Osbern Bokenham (Oxford, 1998), pp. 127–59 (kindly drawn to my attention by Dr Jonathan Hughes). For the Clare Roll: A.F. Sutton and L.Visser-Fuchs, ‘“Richard liveth yet”: an old myth’, The Ricardian, IX (1992), pp.266–69.
3 The account of Baugé is drawn from R. Planchenault, ‘La bataille de Baugé (22 Mars 1421)’, Mémoires de la Société Nationale d’Agriculture, Sciences et Arts d’Angers, 5e sér, XXVIII (1925), pp.5–30; ‘Les suites de la bataille de Baugé’, ibid., 6e sér., V (1930), pp.90–107.
4 For Evesham: O. de Laborderie, J.R. Maddicott and D.A. Carpenter, ‘The last hours of Simon de Montfort: a new account’, English Historical Review, CXV (2000), pp.378–412. For the development of the miracle cult, Ronald Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims. Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (London, 1977), pp. 131–5.
5 A.F. Sutton, L.Visser-Fuchs and P.W. Hammond, The Reburial of Richard Duke of York, 21–30 July 1476 (Richard III Society, 1996).
6 The caustic comment on Charles VII’s performance is from A Parisian Journal, 1405–1449, tr. J. Shirley (Oxford, 1968), p.344. The redating of the campaign rests on the following archival sources: Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, G 43; Archives Nationales, K67/1, 31–32; Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr. 26068/4339–4344.
7 The criticism is discussed in M.K.Jones, ‘John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and the French expedition of 1443’, in Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England, ed. R.A. Griffiths (Gloucester, 1981), pp.79–102.
8 Cecily’s letter is Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 108/14.
9 These comments are drawn from A. F. Sutton and L.Visser-Fuchs, The Hours of Richard III (Stroud, 1990) and Richard III’s Books (Stroud, 1997). Details of York’s visit to Rouen Cathedral before the Pontoise expedition are found in Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, G 2129.
10 The quotation is from British Library, Add. Ms. 11814, f. 17. Historical background provided in A. Cameron, Claudian, Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (Oxford, 1970).
3: THE THEATRE OF PAIN
Central to this chapter is a re-evaluation of the career of Richard’s mother, Cecily Neville. The interpretation put forward here was first developed during my research on Lady Margaret Beaufort (which culminated in the 1992 biography with Malcolm Underwood, The King’s Mother), when I studied Cecily’s life for parallels and comparisons. But I would also like to draw attention to the important work undertaken by Dr Joanna Laynesmith (née Chamberlayne), who has kindly given me permission to consult her MA thesis, ‘Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, King’s Mother: the roles of an English noblewoman, 1415–95’ (York MA dissertation 1995). It is to be hoped that she will publish a full biography in due course.
1 I have argued for a deliberate policy of separating the family in M.K.Jones, ‘Edward IV, the Earl of Warwick and the Yorkist claim to the throne’, Historical Research, LXX (1997), pp.342–52.
2 For Cecily’s spending and that dress see T.B. Pugh, ‘Richard Plantaganet (1411–60), Duke of York, as King’s lieutenant in France and Ireland’, in Aspects of Late Medieval Government and Society: Essays Presented to J.R. Lander, ed. J.G. Rowe (Toronto, 1986), p.112. The re-upholstered privy was made during a visit of the Duke and Duchess to the castle of Caen, in 1445.The reference is from V. Hunger, Le Siège et Prise de Caen par Charles VII (Paris, 1912).
3 C. Rawcliffe, ‘Richard, Duke of York, the King’s “obeissant liegeman”: a new source for the protectorates of 1454 and 1455’, Historical Research, LX (1987), pp.237–8. B.M. Cron, ‘Margaret of Anjou: tradition and revision’ (Massey University PhD, 1999), p.71, dates it to shortly before Whitsun 1453. An entry on the Hitchin account roll for 1452–3 (British Library, Egerton Roll 8365) confirms that the meeting between Cecily and the Queen actually took place.
4 The tactic was successful, Cecily being granted an annual pension of 1,000 marks for the ‘relief of her and her infants, who have not offended against the King’ (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1452–61, p.542), but according to one source she and her children were initially in some danger: An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, ed. J.S. Davies (Camden Soc., 1856), p.83.
5 For York asking Cecily to join him: The Paston Letters, ed. J. Gairdner, 6 vols (London, 1904), III, p.233. On Cecily’s influence early in the reign of Edward IV see Chamberlayne, thesis cit., pp.9–10.The comment that she could rule the King as she pleased is found in Calendar of State Papers, Milan, 1385–1516, vol. 1, ed. A.B. Hinds (London, 1912), pp.65–66. The surviving letter from Richard to Cecily is in British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, ed. R. Horrox and P.W. Hammond, 4 vols (London, 1979–83), I, p.3.
6 Cecily’s close interest in Clare is shown in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 108/12–14.
7 The hapless official was summoned before Cecily’s council, with the Duchess now taking a close interest in proceedings. He received the following blunt warning:‘And therefore ripe yourself also therein for to answere it’: Bridgwater Borough Archives 1445–1468, ed. T.B. Dilks (Somerset Rec. Soc., LX, 1945), p.68. Anger at the Woodville marriage and the smear of witchcraft is examined in Jonathan Hughes’s forthcoming Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: the Kingship of Edward IV.
8 St Thomas More, The History of King Richard III, ed. R.S. Sylvester (London, 1976), pp.63–65. For the comments made to Richard by Isabella of Castile see Harleian 433, III, p.24. The issue was picked up by Thomas Basin and Caspar Weinreich in his Danzig chronicle.
9 Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard III, tr. and ed. C.A.J. Armstrong (Oxford, 1969), pp.61–63. A recent, positive evaluation of this source is given in Michael Hicks, Richard III (Stroud, 2000), pp.95–102.
10 Information on Arthur, nursed back to health at Farnham, is found in the Bishop of Winchester’s account for 1486–7: Hampshire Record Office, 11 M59/B1/211.
11 These issues are discussed in Rudolph M. Bell, How To Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago, 1999), pp.63–82 (kindly drawn to my attention by Dr Carole Rawcliffe).
12 ‘Annales rerum anglicarum’, p.763; Political Poems, ed F.J. Furnival (EETS, XV), p.2 (which I owe to Professor Pollard).
13 Information on Edmund’s christening has been taken from Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime, G 2130. For the exceptional honour of this: Wilhelmi Wyrcester Anekdota apud Liber Niger, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford, 1728), p.525.
14 Commynes, Memoirs, p.249.
15 Joanna L. Chamberlayne, ‘A paper crown: the titles and seals of Cecily Duchess of York’, The Ricardian, X (1996), pp.429–35, noting that according to the Abbreviata Cronica 1377–1469, ed. J. Smith (Cambridge, 1840), p.9, Cecily adopted the title of ‘Queen by Right’ within months of Edward IV’s marriage being announced.
16 The rumour of Edward IV’s bastardy was first picked up by an Italian source in August 1469: J. Calmette and G. Perinelle, Louis XI et L’Angleterre (Paris, 1930), pièce justificative no.30. On Fotheringhay see R. Marks, ‘The glazing of Fotheringhay Church and college’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, CXXXI (1978), pp.79–109. For the ruined state of Berkhamsted: P.M. Remfrey, Berkhamsted Castle, 1066 to 1495 (Worcester, 1995). I am grateful to Dr Christopher Wilson for discussing this with me.
17 The Chronicle of John Stone, Monk of Christ Church 1415–1471, ed. W.G. Searle (Cambridge, 1902), p. 110.
18 The temporary reconciliation is noted in Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Papers, 1290–1483, ed. C. Carpenter (Cambridge, 1996), pp.269–71. Rumours of Edward’s ill health were current from the spring of 1477: Henry Huntington Library, San Marino, HA 13879, f. 4.
19 W.C.Waller, ‘An old church-chest being notes on the contents of that at Theydon-Garnon, Essex’, Trans. of the Essex Archaeological Soc., n.s., V (1895), p.14. As Cecily made clear to her son ‘we understand, to the accomplishment of your promise made unto us at Syon, ye have showed hym the favour of your good lordship, and the more specially at our contemplation, we thank you therefore in our most hertely wise’. See also Essex Record Office, D/DCe/L64, 79. Why such commanding influence might be necessary is shown by Michael Hicks, ‘The last days of Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford’, English Historical Review, CIII (1988).
20 A reappraisal of Richard’s role in the foreign policy of the later Yorkist period is made in M.K.Jones, ‘1477 – the expedition that never was: chivalric expectation in late Yorkist England’, The Ricardian, XII (2001), pp.275–92.
21 Mancini, p. 63. Richard’s letter to the Irish Earl of Desmond is Harleian 433, II, pp. 108–9.
22 J. Raine, ‘The statutes ordained by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, for the college of Middleham’, Archaeological Journal, XIV (1857), pp. 160–70.
23 Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey et al., 6 vols (London, 1767–77), VI, p.241.
24 Rhoda Edwards, The Itinerary of King Richard III, 1483–1485 (Richard III Society, 1983), p.36.
4: THE SEARCH FOR REDEMPTION
The focus here is on Richard’s martial self-image and how, after he came to the throne, he sought a form of resolution through a great enterprise – a chivalric feat of arms. The chapter builds on ideas earlier expressed in ‘Richard III as a soldier’, in Richard III. A Medieval Kingship, ed. J. Gillingham (London, 1993). I have considered the transforming power of a fait d’armes in another article, ‘The relief of Avranches (1439): an English feat of arms at the end of the Hundred Years War’, in England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. N. Rogers (Stamford, 1994).
1 Colin Richmond, ‘1483 – the year of decision’, in Richard III. A Medieval Kingship. p.43. The letter, from John Gigur, warden of Tattershall College, was written on 19 April 1483.
2 The crucial reference is Registrum Thome Bourgchier, Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, AD 1454–1486, ed. F.R.H. DuBoulay (Canterbury and York Soc., LIV, 1957), pp.52–53.The entry makes clear that the decision to confiscate Edward IV’s goods took place at Baynard’s Castle. I am grateful to Dr Rowena Archer for drawing it to my attention and discussing its significance with me.
3 On 25 June 1483 the Duke of Buckingham, accompanied by a delegation of lords, aldermen and commoners, visited Richard at Baynard’s Castle and petitioned him to take the throne. I am taking the view that the contents of this petition had been formulated within the house of York between 22–25 June. The emphasis on Richard choosing to reside at his mother’s house is made by Mancini, p.97. It is also Mancini (p.95) who tells us that Richard initially alleged that Edward IV had been a bastard and was therefore unfit to rule. More detail on this is found in Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, ed. H. Ellis (Camden Soc., 1844), pp.183–4. For an excellent discussion of these events see Charles Ross, Richard III (London, 1981), pp.88–89.
4 Rotuli Parliamentorum, VI, p.241; Hours of Richard III, p.46.
5 For Cecily’s alleged complaint see Polydore Vergil, pp. 186–7. Her piety is discussed in C.A.J. Armstrong, ‘The piety of Cecily, Duchess of York’, in For Hilaire Belloc, ed. D. Woodruff (London, 1942), pp.73–94.
6 Calendar of Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, VIII, p.281.
7 Mancini, p.97; More, Richard III, pp.65–66. On sexual immorality, the key devotional text familiar to Cecily was Walter Hilton’s Scala Perfectionis, and its admonitions on gluttony, lechery and fleshly ‘uncleanness’. On this see George Keiser, ‘The mystics and the early English printers: the economics of devotionalism’, in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, ed. M. Glascoe, p.96.
8 Details on the conspiracy to rescue the princes are found in J. Stow, The Annals or General Chronicle of England (London, 1615), p.460. They are confirmed by the contemporary account of Thomas Basin, writing at the end of the reign of Louis XI, who says that the plot took place at the end of July 1483, and that some fifty people were arrested and four executed. I owe these references to Dr Rosemary Horrox and Mr C.S.L. Davies. The best account of the controversy is A.J. Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower (Stroud, 1991).
9 Information is drawn from D. Palliser, ‘Richard III and York’, in Richard III and the North, pp. 51–81; R.B. Dobson, ‘Richard III and the church of York’, in Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages, ed. R.A. Griffiths and J. Sherborne (Gloucester, 1986), pp. 130–54.
10 For Pontefract see Jonathan Hughes, The Religious Life of Richard III (Stroud, 1997), p.88; for Towton, Moira Habberjam, ‘Some thoughts on Richard III’s memorial chapel at Towton’, Blanc Sanglier, XXIX (1995).
11 W. Searle, The History of the Queens’ College of St Margaret and St Bernard in the University of Cambridge, 1446–1560 (Cambridge, 1867), pp.89–90; Charles Ross, ‘Some “servants and lovers” of Richard in his youth’, The Ricardian, IV (1976), pp.2–4.
12 The relevant sections of Piotr Radzikowski, Reisebeschreibung Niclas Von Popplau, Ritter, Burtig von Breslau (Krakow, 1998) are translated by Livia Visser-Fuchs in The Ricardian, XI (1999), pp.526–8. For Richard’s history of Troy see Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books, p.98.
13 R. Horrox, ‘Richard III and All Hallows Barking by the Tower’, The Ricardian, VI (1982), pp.38–40.
14 A.F. Sutton and L.Visser-Fuchs, ‘“Chevalerie... in som partie is worthi for to be commendid, and in some part to ben amendid”: chivalry and the Yorkist kings’, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in the Late Middle Ages, ed. C. Richmond and E. Scarff (Windsor, 2001), p.124.
15 Jones, ‘1477 – the expedition that never was’, pp.275–92; A.J.Pollard, North-Eastern England During the Wars of the Roses (Oxford, 1990), pp.232–40, for a positive appraisal of Richard’s role. The quotation is from Mancini, p.65.
16 For the accusation of cowardice in 1471 see The Paston Letters, V, p. 106. His flight from imminent battle at Morat (1476) provoked a similar reaction from Charles the Bold. Duke Charles said Rivers had left ‘because he is afraid’ (Calendar of State Papers, Milan, I, p.227).
17 On the portrait see Pamela Tudor-Craig, Richard III: National Portrait Gallery Exhibition, 27 June to 7 October 1973 (London, 1973), p.93 and the further research of F. Hepburn, Portraits of the Later Plantaganets (Woodbridge, 1986), pp.77–78. On the relic possessed by Cecily, the supposed piece of the True Cross: Armstrong, ‘Piety of Cecily, Duchess of York’, p.91.
18 The Chronicle of John Hardyng, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1812). A.S.G.Edwards, ‘The manuscripts and texts of the second version of John Hardyng’s Chronicle’, in England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. D.Williams (Woodbridge, 1987), pp.75–84.
19 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, The Hours of Richard III, pp.62–66.
20 This is from the Ballad of Bosworth Field. The text is taken from Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript. Ballads and Romances, ed. J.W. Hales and F.J. Furnivall, 3 vols (London, 1868), III, pp.233–59.The reference is from stanza 49, where Richard swears ‘by Jesu full of might/When they are assembled with their powers all/I wold I had the great turke against me to fight’.
21 Jones, ‘The battle of Verneuil’, War in History (November 2002). For Henry V and the crusade; J. Webb, ‘A survey of Egypt and Syria, undertaken in the year 1422, by Sir Gilbert Lannoy’, Archaeologia, XXI (1827), pp.281–444. On Caxton’s Order of Chivalry see Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books, pp. 80–85.
22 On Richard’s interest in the office of the heralds, A.F.Sutton, ‘“A curious searcher for our weal public”: Richard III, piety, chivalry and the concept of the “good prince”’, in Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law, ed. P.W. Hammond, 2nd edition (London, 2000), p.93.The enormous importance of chivalric protocol to Richard’s father is brought out in M.K.Jones, ‘Somerset, York and the Wars of the Roses’, English Historical Review, CIV (1989), pp.285–307.
23 The Coronation of Richard III: The Extant Documents, ed. A.F. Sutton and P.W. Hammond (Gloucester, 1983), pp.7–9.
24 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books, pp.46–50; Armstrong, ‘Piety of Cecily, Duchess of York’, p.86.
5: THE RIVALS
The reconstruction of Henry Tudor’s early life and career is drawn from R.A. Griffiths and R.S.Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty (Gloucester, 1985), and M.K. Jones and M.G. Underwood, The King’s Mother. Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge, 1992). The thrust of the chapter is a complete re-evaluation of Tudor’s last period of exile in France, in 1484–5. This is derived from a paper I gave at a one-day conference at the Public Record Office in November 1999, ‘The myth of 1485 – did France really put Henry Tudor on the throne?’. The proceedings are to be published in July 2002 by Ashgate in a volume edited by Dr David Grummitt, The English Experience in France circa 1450–1558. War, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange.
1 I owe this perception of Henry Tudor to Mr C.S.L. Davies.
2 Our sole authority for this traumatic incident has been Polydore Vergil. His account is now substantiated by fresh document evidence. This is set out by my namesake at the University of Nottingham, Professor Michael Jones, in a forthcoming article ‘“For my lord of Richmond, a pourpoint... and a palfrey”: brief remarks on the financial evidence for Henry Tudor’s exile in Brittany 1471–1484’. I am grateful to him for making this available, and for discussing the whole issue with me. The poem is Thomas Hardy’s The Convergence of the Twain. Lines on the Sinking of the Titanic.
3 On this see C.S.L. Davies, ‘Richard III, Henry VII and the Island of Jersey’, The Ricardian, IX (1992), pp. 334–42. The broader line of argument is from Jones, ‘The myth of 1485’ (forthcoming).
4 On Richard’s use of spies see The Crowland Chronicle, p. 173, and for general context Ian Arthurson, ‘Espionage and intelligence from the Wars of the Roses to the Reformation’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, XXXV (1991).
5 Information on Henry’s forced loan is drawn from Archives Nationales, MC: Et/XIX/1/Rés. 269.This exciting new discovery is fully discussed in Jones, ‘The Myth of 1485’.
6: BOSWORTH FIELD
This chapter offers a radically different interpretation of the battle. For a clear and well-illustrated overview see Chris Gravett, The Battle of Bosworth (Osprey, 2000).Tempus have recently brought out a new (1999) edition of William Hutton’s classic study The Battle of Bosworth Field, originally published in 1788. The most imaginative recreation, with Ambion Hill playing a leading role, is Paul Murray Kendall, Richard III (London, 1955), of whose account Charles Ross said memorably, it ‘seems to suggest that he was perched on the crupper of the King’s horse’. Essential background is provided in two key books. Michael Bennett’s The Battle of Bosworth (Gloucester, 1985) provides an excellent general discussion and a thorough survey of the chief sources, with relevant extracts. Peter Foss, The Field of Redemore: The Battle of Bosworth, 1485, 2nd edition (Newtown Linford, 1998) is first class on the developing battle tradition and place name evidence. Both are indispensable. In the pages that follow, I offer an alternative site and a fresh source for the battle. The former has benefited greatly from the kindness of local Atherstone historian John Austin, who first introduced me to Bloody Bank and Derby Spinney, and Dr Philip Morgan, who has discussed burial sites and the naming of battles with me. The arguments for the latter, an exciting but problematic fragment, are set out in an appendix.
1 The extract from Morton’s will is found in J. Hunter, South Yorkshire: the History and Topography of the Deanery of Doncaster, 2 vols (1828), I, p.75.
2 J. Augis, ‘La bataille de Verneuil (jeudi 17 août 1424) vue de Châteaudun’, Bulletin de la Société Dunoise, XVI (1932–5), pp.116–21.
3 Historical MSS Commission, 12th Report, Rutland, I, pp.7–8.
4 Chronicles of London, ed. C.L. Kingsford (Oxford, 1905), p. 143.
5 The vexed question of numbers has seen Richard accompanied by between six and twenty-four peers. The difference rests on an interpretation of the ‘Ballad of Bosworth Field’. Two opposing views are given in Charles Ross, Richard III, pp.215–16, 235–7, and Colin Richmond, ‘1485 and all that, or what was going on at the battle of Bosworth’, in Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law, pp.200–2, 237–42.
6 For praise of Richard after Barnet:V.J. Scattergood, Politics and Poetry in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1971), p.205; for the Troy book, Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books, pp. 158–61.
7 On Toro see W.H. Prescott, The Art of War in Spain. The Conquest of Granada 1481–92, ed.A.D. McJoynt (London, 1995), pp.20, 104. For Salaçar, W.J. Entwhistle, ‘A Spanish account of the battle of Bosworth’ Bulletin of Spanish Studies, IV (1927), pp. 34–37; A. Goodman and A. Mackay, ‘A Castilian report on English affairs, 1486’, English Historical Review, LXXXVIII (1973), pp.92–99.The link between the house of York and Castile is well set out in A. Goodman and D. Morgan, ‘The Yorkist claim to the throne of Castile’, Journal of Medieval History, XI (1985), pp.61–69.
8 We learn of this incident from Polydore Vergil. Its significance is discussed in Griffiths and Thomas, Tudor Dynasty, pp. 153–4. For the argument that Jasper Tudor was left behind, to safeguard Henry’s possible retreat, see T.B. Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English nobility’, in The Tudor Nobility, ed. G.W. Bernard (Manchester, 1992), p.50.
9 The saga of the Stanley-Harrington feud is told in Jones, ‘Richard III and the Stanleys’, pp.37–42. Sir William Stanley’s role in imprisoning the Harrington girls in Holt Castle is gleaned from Liverpool City Library, 920/MOO/1091.
10 The discussion of battlefield location has benefited greatly from Philip Morgan, ‘The naming of battlefields in the Middle Ages’, in War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain, ed. D. Dunn (Liverpool, 2000), pp.34–52, and an unpublished paper of his, ‘Medieval and early modern war memorials’, which he has kindly made available to me. The salutary warning against an over-reliance on local tradition, and the drawing up of detailed maps of the battlefield, is John Gillingham, The Wars of the Roses (London, 1981), p.242: ‘Many such maps have been drawn but, apart from the fun of making them, they are all quite worthless’.
11 The identification of Redemore is made by Peter Foss. The Dadlington documents are printed in O.D.Harris, ‘The Bosworth commemoration at Dadlington’, The Ricardian, VII (1985), pp. 115–31. See also Colin Richmond’s piece on Bosworth in History Today (August 1985), pp. 17–22.
12 The possibility of this alternative site is mentioned in a brief note by David Starkey, ‘Or Merevale?’, in the October 1985 issue of History Today.
13 Materials of the Reign of Henry VII, ed. W. Campbell (Rolls Series, 1873), I, pp.188, 201. The originals are in Public Record Office, E404/79. I am grateful to Dr Sean Cunningham for discussing them with me.
14 British Library, Harley 44. G. 14. Context is provided in Sir William Dugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire, 2 vols (London, 1730), II, p. 1084.
15 British Library, Harleian MS 78, f. 31. The quotation is from the romance Durmart le Galois, cited in Maurice Keen, Chivalry (London, 1984), p.80.
16 The chronicler is Elis Gruffydd. On ‘the Tuns’ and a probable link with Henry VII’s grant see Griffiths and Thomas, Tudor Dynasty, p. 159.
17 J.D.Austin, The History of Atherstone Street Names (Atherstone, 2000), p. 16. Royal Meadow is shown in the plan of the Atherstone open field system made in 1716:Warwickshire County Record Office, P7.
18 For Derby Spinney and the Fenny Drayton burial mound I am indebted to John Austin. Also see J. Edwards, Fenny Drayton. Its History and Legends (Nuneaton, 1923), pp.59–60. For fighting to spill into this area Henry must have remained some distance from his vanguard, and then been pushed back by Richard’s attack. On this see the useful comments made in A. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses (London, 1981), p.93.
19 Tudor-Craig, Catalogue of the Richard III Exhibition, pp.77–78.
20 C. Tyerman, England and the Crusades 1095–1588 (London, 1988), p.309.
21 W.E. Hampton, ‘Sir Robert Percy and Joyce his wife’, in Richard III: Crown and People, ed. J. Petre (London, 1985), pp. 184–94.
22 The Vegetius is British Library, MS Royal 18 A xii.
23 On the war camp at Pont-de-l’Arche see A. Spont, ‘La milice des Francs-Archers (1448–1500), Revue des Questions Historiques, LXI (1897), pp.474–7. More specific information on the mercenaries is drawn from Archives Nationales, JJ 218, f. 11.
24 We learn of this manoeuvre from the chronicler Jean Molinet, the importance of which is rightly emphasised in Bennett, Bosworth, p.93. Polydore Vergil’s comment (pp.223–4) that no man should go more than ten feet away from his standard is significant in view of the French system of organising men in ‘centaines’ or ‘hundreds’, each with their own standard-bearer. See also A. Grant, ‘Foreign affairs under Richard III’, in Richard III. A Medieval Kingship, pp. 129–30.
25 Richard’s battle preparations are primarily derived from the Spanish account already cited, almost certainly based on the eye-witness testimony of Juan de Salaçar. The quotation is from Keen, Chivalry, p. 133.
26 National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 481, f. 70 (showing Porus being slain by Alexander).
27 Fragments of this letter were published by Alfred Spont in 1897. This source is discussed in the appendix. The Swiss training of pikemen is ably surveyed in Niall Barr, Flodden 1513 (Stroud, 2001), pp.35–41.
28 The ferocity of the last attack is caught well in the ‘Ballad of Bosworth Field’, stanzas 147–58. For the tradition that the Welshman Rhys Fawr retrieved the standard after Brandon’s death see Emyr Wyn Jones, A Kinsman King. The Welsh March to Bosworth (1980), pp.10–11. On the part played by Sir Rhys ap Thomas we now have Professor Ralph Griffiths’ new edition of the early seventeenth-century family history. Acton’s petition is from Materials of the Reign of Henry VII, I, p.89.The tribute by John Rous to Richard’s courage is all the more powerful for being so reluctant: ‘He bore himself like a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until his last breath’.
7: AFTERMATH – THE TRAGEDY SHAKESPEARE MIGHT HAVE WRITTEN
This last chapter explores what the real meaning of Bosworth might have been to the Tudor dynasty. A key aspect is the cult of the little-known Breton St Armel, who was credited with securing Henry’s extraordinary victory. The existence of the only surviving stained glass representation of this saint at Merevale reinforces the strong link between the Abbey and the alternative battle site, argued in the previous chapter. I am grateful to Nigel Ramsay for alerting me to this cult, and once again to John Austin for showing us the window, in the church of St Mary the Virgin, Merevale (originally the gate chapel of Merevale Abbey).
1 The suite of hangings ‘taken in Richard the Thirdes tent in Bosworth Field’ is recorded by O.Millar, ‘Stafford and Van Dyck’, in For Veronica Wedgwood These: Studies in Seventeenth-Century History, ed. R. Ollard and P.Tudor-Craig (London, 1986). I owe the reference to Pamela Tudor-Craig.
2 On the reaction to Bosworth in York see the articles by Palliser and Dobson, already cited. For anger against the Stanleys: Daniel Williams, ‘The hastily drawn up will of William Catesby esquire, 25 August 1485’, Trans. of the Leics. Archaeological and Historical Soc., LI (1975–6). For Tudor’s achievement against all numerical odds, the quotation is from Lord Morley’s account of the miracle of the sacrament: ‘Triumphs of the English’. Henry Parker, Lord Morley, Translator to the Tudor Court, ed. M. Axton and J.P. Carley (London, 2000), p.262.
3 Forestier’s tract on the sweating sickness, with a prologue addressed to Henry VII, is British Library, Add MS 27582, ff. 70–77. I am grateful to Professor George Keiser for drawing this text to my attention and discussing its significance with me. For general background see Carole Rawcliffe, ‘Consultants, careerists and conspirators: royal doctors in the time of Richard III’, The Ricardian, VIII (1989), pp.250–58.
4 On opposition to the dating of Henry VII’s reign from 21 August 1485 see ‘A Colchester account, 1485’, in Pronay and Taylor’s, Parliamentary Texts of the Later Middle Ages, p. 188, and The Plumpton Letters and Papers, ed. Joan Kirby (Camden 5th series, VIII, 1996), p.63. I owe these references to Professor Michael Hicks. The comment from The Crowland Chronicle is on p. 195.
5 The public image is displayed in The Inventory of King Henry VIII, ed. D. Starkey (London, 1998), p.273 (a piece of arras ‘of the comyng into England of King Henrye the Seventh’). On Armel see A.R. Green, ‘The Romsey painted wooden reredos, with a short account of Saint Armel’, Archaeological Journal, XC (1933), pp.308–11;J.D. Austin, Merevale Church and Abbey (Studley, 1998), pp.62–63.
6 The Will of Henry VII, ed. T. Astle (London, 1775).The strength of Henry’s feeling is well brought out by Margaret Condon, ‘The kaleidoscope of treason: fragments of the Bosworth story’, The Ricardian, VII (1986), pp.208–12.
7 C.G. Cruickshank, Army Royal: King Henry VIII’s Invasion of France 1513 (Oxford, 1969), pp.103, 117 (kindly drawn to my attention by Dr Steven Gunn).
8 Philip Morgan, ‘“Those were the days”: a Yorkist pedigree roll’ in Estrangement, Enterprise and Education in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. S.D. Michalove and A. Compton Reeves (Stroud, 1998), pp. 107–16 and plate 1.