In reviewing the evidence for battlefields across England, Scotland and Ireland over the last decade, it has become clear that many medieval and early modern battles are likely to be either incorrectly placed, or the depictions of deployments and action fail to represent the true events accurately. Detailed studies of several major battles have already demonstrated the limited degree of confidence which can be placed in the current interpretations of battlefield location, especially where they are based primarily upon the documentary records for the action.¹⁷ Where one can identify an earlier ‘traditional’ site, different from that currently known, it is likely to be the correct one. As we have already seen, this may prove to be the case at Barnet, while other examples may include Bannockburn (1314) and Otterburn (1388).¹⁸ Bosworth now shows us why one should also be cautious about simply accepting what is recorded on the earliest maps as the traditional site, especially if that map is only from the late eighteenth or nineteenth century. Had the chantry chapel to the dead of Bosworth been built on the site of the action, instead of being established within the church in Dadlington village, then the battlefield might well have remained fixed in the landscape. This appears to have been the outcome where monuments were built within living memory of a battle, as with Hastings and Shrewsbury. Yet at Barnet even the site of the memorial chapel was lost, following the dissolution, allowing authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to move the battlefield unimpeded by the constraints of a physical monument contemporary to the battle.¹⁹ At Bosworth of course we have Richard’s Well, which is first recorded on Prior’s map of 1777, but it was at that time a simple spring, as Hutton and Nichols report. Then, with the construction of a stone well-head in 1813, there was a solid anchor for the new ‘traditional’ site. Together with Hutton’s book, this completed the transfer of the battlefield to its new location on Ambion Hill.

Thus, in 1785, when Robinson compiled a map showing the country 5 miles (8 km) around Hinckley, he had various cartographic sources upon which to draw to determine the exact position for the battlefield (Figure 1.8).²⁰ His map was printed in 1796 in Nichols’ History of Leicestershire, accompanied by a detailed discussion of the battle and battlefield. The plan shows exact battle deployments, apparently based on a calculation of the position of the sun at 2:00 pm when, on unspecified evidence, it is said the battle started. Also described in the text are other features, including ‘some tender ground’ on the south side of Ambion Wood, with the implication that this was the site of the marsh where Richard met his death.

Hutton too, when he came to compile his book The Battle of Bosworth Field, drew on these sources including, one assumes, the crossed swords beside Richard’s Well on Prior’s map and, surrounding this symbol on earlier maps, the apparently clear definition of the extent of the battlefield. The first edition of Hutton’s book was published in 1788 with a second edition, including substantial additions by Nichols, published in 1813.²¹ Both authors visited the site before the 1797 enclosure of Sutton Cheney – Hutton first in around 1770 and Nichols in 1789.²² In this they had an advantage over all authors who have followed them. Hutton’s book has been the most influential of any work on the battle until the 1980s, which is unfortunate given the fundamental errors it contains. He defined important principles in the study of the battle which he says underpinned his investigation: ‘By carefully comparing the writers, the field, and the traditions, I have attempted to remove some absurdities and place truth on firmer ground.’²³ Sadly he did not follow his principles in sufficiently close or professional a manner, as was noted by at least one of his contemporaries.²⁴ To a large degree Hutton dismissed the facts that were relatively secure, because they did not fit the agreed location of the battlefield. Hence the action is seen taking place on a hilltop, not in a plain; the marsh has become a morass along a narrow rivulet leading down from Richard’s Well; and Richard dies in dust rather than in a mire.²⁵