We do not know what Hall reported, but according to Polydore Vergil, Richard’s scouts told him that Henry was at Lichfield. Tudor’s presence there is usually dated to 19/20 August. This was extremely significant information for Richard. To that point, Henry’s route, and especially his presence at Stafford on 18 August, suggested that he was moving towards Richard in Nottingham. But instead of continuing in that direction, Henry had turned south-eastwards towards Lichfield. It was surely knowledge of this which prompted Richard’s decision to move from Nottingham to Leicester in order to intercept his enemy.⁸ Until then, Richard had stayed put until it was clear what direction Henry would take. Richard could not have afforded to let Henry get ahead of him if there was a threat of a move towards London.

We cannot be certain which troops had already joined Richard in Nottingham. As we have seen, the Crowland Continuation projects a rather negative view, commenting that the army was ‘not yet fully assembled’. This source gains credence if, as Hicks has suggested, its author was Master Richard Langport, clerk of the royal council.⁹ Polydore Vergil, less well informed on Richard’s activities, gives a different view, claiming that a large number of armed men had already been collected and that they were now ordered by the king to ‘march in square formation (‘quadrato agmine’) along the same highway he had learned his enemies to be using [this is geographically difficult to justify], with their baggage in the centre. The king followed along with his bodyguard and horsemen ranged on either side, reaching Leicester by sunset’. This marching formation was defensive, suggesting that Richard feared an attack en route. This could be read as confirming the view in the Crowland Continuation that the army had not assembled in full at Nottingham and that Richard did not feel himself to be at full strength.

If Richard had expected to give battle close to Nottingham, as the reference in the Nottingham town records suggests, plans had had to be changed. This raises significant questions on how this news was transmitted to those who had already been summoned to Nottingham. Whilst neither the letter sent to Henry Vernon nor that of the duke of Norfolk to Paston gives an intended place of assembly, Longe’s will, made quickly in response to his call-out by the duke and his son, suggests that Nottingham had been the place indicated in the letters Richard had sent out on 11 August. The Crowland Continuation implies, however, that various contingents of Richard’s army assembled at Leicester not Nottingham. According to this source, when Richard moved out of Leicester on 21 August ‘with his diadem on his head’, he was accompanied by ‘John Howard, duke of Norfolk, and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, and other great lords, knights and esquires and a countless multitude of people’.¹⁰ We cannot be certain, therefore, when Norfolk and Northumberland joined the king at Leicester. Murray Kendall suggests that Northumberland arrived there on 20 August but there is no indication in contemporary sources that he had ever been with the king in Nottingham.¹¹ Indeed, there is even some doubt as to whether the earl joined the king at Leicester. According to the Great Chronicle of London, whilst Richard was at Leicester ‘therle of derby [i.e. Thomas Stanley] and therle of northumbyrlande which hadd everych of theym grete companies made slowe speed toward kyng Rychard’ so that Richard set out from Leicester without them.¹² We know from Polydore Vergil that Stanley was at Atherstone on 21 August and was presumably expected to join Richard on the field. Might the earl of Northumberland have been expected to move straight to the field too?

This can be taken as suggesting that an actual location for a battle was planned perhaps around 20 August, or that at least the general area in which Henry was to be intercepted was already identified. For a battle to commence in the early morning it was necessary for all contingents to be within close range of each other on the previous evening. For the Civil War battle of Edgehill, for example, we know that the king was 12 km away at Edgcote whilst his forward troops were already at Edgehill. This delayed the start of the battle until 2:00 pm in the afternoon.

In his letter of c. 14 August to John Paston, the duke of Norfolk, presumably based at Framlingham, declared his own intention to be at Bury St Edmunds on 16 August. At this stage the duke considered the king still to be at Nottingham. Norfolk told Paston that Richard, having been informed of his enemy’s landing, would have set forth on Monday 15 August had that day not been the feast of the Assumption, but would definitely ‘gothe forward’ on Tuesday. On Monday 15 August Henry was still in Wales. Richard assumed that Henry was intending to head towards him but exact routes were always difficult to fathom. This problem is revealed by an earlier entry in the records of Nottingham where a man was paid to go to Melbourne (Derbyshire) in June 1485 ‘to understand which way the king would come to Nottingham at his last coming but one’.¹³

According to the letter sent by Norfolk to Paston, the duke had been informed of the king’s intentions by one of his own servants who had been with Richard in Nottingham. Since Norfolk made straight for Leicester, he must subsequently have been made aware that the king intended his army to assemble there rather than at Nottingham. This suggests that a battle was now expected, and intended, in the vicinity of Leicester. Efforts must surely have been made to send new instructions to all who had not joined the king at Nottingham, but we must ask how effective this might be given the limited time available and the distances involved. This raises the possibility that not all of Richard’s supporters were in the right place at the right time, a factor which serves to diminish Richard’s military potential at the battle. It is unlikely that Norfolk arrived at Leicester with his men much before 21 August. The distance from Bury St Edmunds to Leicester is 98 miles (158 km) by modern routes, and the journey therefore likely to have taken at least 5 days. The exact route taken is unclear since the Roman road no longer functioned from Huntingdon to Leicester. Bury was a sensible mustering point: the main route out of East Anglia was via Bury since the fen intervenes to block more northerly routes. It is not clear whether Norfolk’s son, the earl of Surrey, made rendezvous with his father at Bury St Edmunds or whether he had moved directly towards Nottingham or Leicester, presumably from his seat at Ashwellthorpe.¹⁴

We know that the king had ordered Sir Robert Bracken-bury, constable of the Tower of London, to join him with various hostages, including Thomas Bourchier and Walter Hungerford. Again we lack clarity over the date of this order and the intended meeting point. According to Polydore Vergil, just beyond Stony Stratford (which was where the London road to Leicester diverged from Watling Street), Bourchier, Hungerford and others defected and joined Henry at Tamworth. This suggests that the defectors knew where Henry was marching to. Henry was at Tamworth on 20 August. If the defection occurred that day, Richard’s initial order to Brackenbury must have been issued several days before, in advance of the king’s move from Nottingham to Leicester. We might assume that Richard had summoned Brackenbury at the same time as he sent letters to other supporters. If so, Brackenbury would initially have expected to join the king at Nottingham. He too must have received subsequent instructions to make for Leicester. Certainly, the route which he was following from London suggests that his intended destination was Leicester. It is also tempting to believe that Brackenbury was bringing with him ordnance from the Tower arsenal, although this is not documented in any narrative or governmental record.

However and wherever Richard’s troops had come together, it was quite late in the day. Henry had the advantage, as Henry V had enjoyed in 1415, of his own army being together for some time. Those who had crossed from France had already been with him for nearly three weeks. By contrast, Richard’s army came together in dribs and drabs and over several days. This left less time to discuss deployment and tactics and for the troops to develop mutual understanding and cohesion.

Henry’s march to the eventual battlefield totalled around 225 miles (362 km) and had taken 14 days, giving an average of 16 miles (26 km) per day. This rate suggests that not all troops were mounted.¹⁵ It is unlikely that large numbers of horses would have been transported across the Channel. As for Richard’s troops, we would expect urban contingents and shire levies, if there were any, to include men moving on foot. Whilst horses can be ridden across any kind of terrain, there were limitations in pulling carts and in marching on foot. Roads would be necessary for this, as also bridges. This is a significant point when considering possible camp and battle sites. Furthermore, troops needed to be fed and housed whilst en route.

The route which Richard took from Leicester on 21 August would surely have been the Roman road towards Atherstone which runs through Kirby Mallory. This route joined Fenn Lane near Dadlington. In using this route, Richard would seem already to have had knowledge that Henry was moving towards Atherstone. This suggests that an interception and battle in that vicinity were anticipated. Scouts on fast horses would have been active, bringing back information to Richard, Henry and the Stanleys on the location and progress of the various armies.

Richard and his army spent only one night in camp, that of 21 August. Of the early narratives, only the Crowland Continuation gives any indication of where his camp might have been. According to this narrative, ‘the king was informed by his scouts as to where the enemy were likely to rest the following night and set up camp eight miles from the town [i.e. Leicester] near (‘iuxta’) Merevale abbey’. The difficulty here is knowing the length of the mile which the author was using. It is possible that the Roman mile of 1,000 paces (or yards) was meant as opposed to the statute or modern mile of 1,760 yards. If so, the distance of 8 miles would be 7.35 modern miles (c. 11.8 km). That would put Richard somewhere between Desford and Kirby Mallory. If, however, the author’s mile was the old English mile at 1.3 modern miles, this would place Richard’s camp at 10.4 miles (c. 16.7 km) out of Leicester. This is much closer to both the traditional and the new battlefield sites which lie at c. 12 miles (19.3 km) and c. 13.5 miles (21.7 km) respectively from Leicester. It is interesting to note that in a chronicle linked with the household of Sir Thomas Frowyk, the battle is placed at Redemore, which the author claims lay 8 miles (12.9 km) from Coventry, although that town is in fact 19 modern miles (30.6 km) from the field.¹⁶

The precise location of Richard’s camp is not known. The mention of Ambion Hill as its location first occurs in Holinshed’s Chronicles published in 1577. ¹⁷ Richard ‘marched to a place mete for two battails to encounter, by a village called Bosworth, not farre from Leycester, and there he pitched his field on a hill called Anne Beame, refreshed hys Souldiours and tooke his rest’. Despite this late notice, it is not impossible that Ambion Hill was the location of Richard’s camp since it fits quite well with the old English mile calculation. Given that the king’s army numbered thousands of soldiers and would have had many horses, grooms and servants with it, it would need to have been distributed across a number of villages and tented sites even if these were in close proximity to each other. All needed access to water supplies as well as fodder, even if soldiers had brought supplies with them, as was likely for those that had come from Leicester. Therefore it is credible that archaeology might reveal more than one site for the camps, perhaps associated with particular parts of the army. If these reflected recruitment patterns (and, in due course, battle groups), we might expect to find camps associated with the king, the duke of Norfolk and the earl of Northumberland.

Mention in the Crowland Continuation of Richard’s camp being close to Merevale Abbey is interesting since that is a location usually associated with Henry Tudor. Merevale Abbey lies 18.4 miles (29.4 km) from Leicester. It is unlikely that Richard travelled as far as that on 21 August. It is a long distance to travel in one day even in late August with long hours of daylight. The average speed of Henry V’s march from Harfleur to Agincourt in 1415 was 14.5 miles (23 km) per day although some days saw a march of over 18.6 miles (30 km), and in 1471 it is believed that Edward IV moved from Sodbury to Cheltenham, a distance of 31 miles (49.9 km), in one day en route to intercepting Margaret of Anjou at Tewkesbury.¹⁸ The New Model Army in 1645 with a full artillery train made a maximum of 15.5 miles (25 km) per day and frequently less. Most likely the author of the Crowland Continuation had no fixed points on which to draw other than religious houses in the area, which explains his reference to Merevale Abbey. Indeed, he calls the engagement ‘this Merevale battle’ (‘hoc bellum Mirivallense’). ‘Near’ was a relative concept and should not be taken too literally as indicating the site of Richard’s camp.¹⁹

There is no certainty over the whereabouts of Henry on the eve of battle save to say that he must have been to the west of the eventual battlefield. On the night of 20 August Henry’s army was at Tamworth but Henry had followed behind and had lost sight of the tracks of his army when night fell. According to Polydore Vergil he therefore spent that night ‘at a certain hamlet more than three miles from his camp’. Polydore goes on to claim that on the next day, having initially returned to his army [the location is not specified], Henry then went secretly to Atherstone where the Stanleys were encamped, and had discussion with them on how to fight against Richard. Henry then ‘encamped near his enemies and spent the night [of 21 August] there’.

A tradition has developed that Henry was at Merevale Abbey on the eve of the battle. This has been stimulated by the fact that Henry visited the abbey in 1503 (with his son Henry VIII doing the same in 1511), and that he displayed a devotion to St Armel who was linked to the abbey. Jones and Austin claim that ‘Henry prayed to St Armel on the road to Bosworth, and he subsequently ascribed his victory to the saint’s intercession’. Given that the saint’s day was 16 August this link is credible even if definitive proof of Henry’s presence at Merevale Abbey on 21 August 1485 has not been found. On 7 December 1485 Henry granted 100 marks compensation to the abbey for the losses which it had incurred ‘by occasion of the great repair and resort that our people, coming toward our late field, made to the house of Merevale as well as in going over his [i.e. the abbot’s] ground to the destruction of his corns and pastures’.²⁰ This suggests that some of Henry’s troops, and perhaps Henry himself, were at or near the abbey. The reference in the Crowland Continuation to Richard’s scouts telling him where the enemy were likely to camp could confirm that Henry was at the abbey on 21 August, or at least closer to the abbey than Richard himself.