Our analysis of the finds is split into two parts. The guns are tackled separately, in Chapter 7, because the projectiles for gunpowder weapons represent the most important component of the assemblage recovered from Bosworth. First we will deal will all other types of finds, starting with the documentary record for the weapons and equipment in use.
If we were to rely on the narrative accounts alone, we would have little to go on in terms of the weapons used at Bosworth. Polydore Vergil is the only writer to mention arrows or, for that matter, archers. In his account, Richard ordered his men to charge once they saw Henry’s army passing the marsh: ‘They raised a sudden shout and first attacked the enemy with arrows’. Henry’s own archers responded by shooting back.1 After mentioning this reciprocal action, although with no comment on the damage it did, Polydore says that when the combatants ‘drew close to each other, they henceforth did their work with the sword’.
Molinet mentions two weapons. He refers to the artillery which Richard fired against the rebel army, and he has a Welshman kill Richard with a halbard.2 The Ballad of Bosworth Fielde also refers to the king’s ordnance and mentions 10,000 pikes and harquebusiers.3 The act of attainder against Richard and his supporters in the parliament of November 1485 also mentions weapons:
‘they kept the said host in being with banners displayed, strongly armed and equipped with all kinds of weapons, such as guns, bows, arrows, spears, glaives, axes and all other weaponry suitable or necessary for giving and advancing a mighty battle against our sovereign lord’.4
Whilst this wording reflects legal niceties – the use of offensive weapons in an illegal act – it is useful in indicating the range of weapons in use at the time. What more can be said about them, and how might this inform the project? The first point is that there was nothing particularly distinctive about Bosworth in terms of hand-held weaponry. Whilst precise evidence from this exact period is lacking, we would expect a range of swords, as outlined by Graeme Rimer in his discussion of weapons at Towton.5 Generally, lower ranking soldiers carried shorter swords but all types of sword were key to hand-to-hand combat, both for cutting and thrusting actions. We would also expect all kinds of troops to possess daggers, which were often used with the blade pointing downwards. The effects they had at Towton is revealed by triangular holes in skulls.
We would also expect a range of staff weapons, some of which are usefully illustrated in The Life and Pageant of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. This manuscript has been dated to the period. Indeed it has similarities with a drawing in a charter for the Cistercian Priory of Esholt (W. Yorks) dated to 1485.6 In one image we see soldiers carrying bills, on poles extending about a foot above the soldier’s head, with the blade extending the weapon by a further foot. As Rimer puts it, ‘the long hooked blade of the bill proved a very successful shape for attacking both armoured and unarmoured opponents … since it could be used both to cut and to pull an adversary off balance’.7 In another image we have a soldier portrayed with a glaive – a long flat bladed knife attached to a pole. In the illustration the pole looks shorter than for the bill, which might suggest that the weapon was used principally in a scythe-like motion as well as for thrusting. We also find halberds illustrated. These also tended to be on 6 ft (1.8 m) poles but the blade was in the form of an axe. There was also often a spike at the top and another spike or hook on the side opposite the blade. The pole-axe is also known in this period. This was similar to the halberd but had iron reinforcement of the staff, and often a hammer-shaped device opposite the axe. Therefore it was heavier than the other staff weapons and needed to be used double-handed. No doubt, however, the simpler spear persisted in use, having a leaf- or diamond-shaped head and sometimes a cross bar. These weapons could be used in a variety of ways. In addition to the cutting devices, they could also be used as a traditional staff using the pole itself as a weapon, especially for fending off blows from the opponent. They were suitable for action against cavalry as well as infantry. In this period, we also find shorter-handled hand weapons, such as the battle axe, mace and ‘godendag’, a spiked club.
The upper echelons of society were distinguished by their military upbringing, and we would expect them to have a range of fighting capabilities, both on horse and on foot, as well as weapons. A further illustration (xiv) in ‘The Life and Pageant’ shows a foot joust. Here one protagonist uses a staff weapon of a 3 ft (0.9 m) long pole, with a short spike at one end and a long knife at the other. The other has a slightly longer staff with a spike on the top, a three pronged spike on the rear and a bill-shaped axe on the front. Both also carry daggers. Behind each stands a servant holding a sword by its point, ready to toss the weapon to their master – who would presumably catch it by the cross-guard for another phase of fighting. Might this support system have been seen in battle also? It is tempting to believe that it did, since it also facilitated the removal of prisoners or wounded from the field once they had been defeated in the hand to hand fight.
Grummitt’s work on the weapons found in the administrative records of the Calais garrison in the period is very useful in indicating the types and relative quantities of weapons.8 In 1484, for instance, we find 84 white (i.e. steeled) bills and 119 black (non-steeled) bills held in the Calais armoury. In August 1483 Richard had ordered his usher of the chamber to procure 2,000 Welsh bills.9 Grummitt also noted an increase in the number of spears in the late 1470s and early 1480s. At Guînes in 1476, for example, there were 24 spears, but by 1485 we find 67. Grummitt also suggests that in the 1470s and ’80s the bill was replaced by the poleaxe as ‘the weapon of choice’ for the man-at-arms. This may reveal the predominance of foot combat. Whilst the bill was suitable for unhorsing opponents, the poleaxe offered a wider range of possibilities for close quarters fighting against armoured opponents. It also seems that the long Swiss style pike was entering the royal arsenal in this period. We know that in May 1483 the ‘receiver of artillery’ of Maximilian of Hapsburg placed an order with a weapon-maker of Malines for 1,200 pikes to be delivered to the king of England. These were to be ‘about 22 feet [6.7 m] in length, all steel-tipped’.10 In France in 1480 pikes of 22 feet were common: 5,500 were purchased by Louis XI in late 1480, along with 14,500 halbardes and 18,500 long daggers.11 Jones assumes that all the French troops at Bosworth were pikemen, trained by Swiss, though there is no clear evidence for such an interpretation.12
We would expect the archers to have carried bows of at least 6 ft (1.8 m) in length. An Irish statute of 1465 required the bow to be the height of the archer plus a ‘fistmele’, and the unstrung bows found on the Mary Rose were between 6 and 7 ft (1.8–2.1 m).13 The arrowshafts found there were just over 30 in (760 mm), and we would expect a bodkin of around 4 in (10 mm) to be attached. Archers generally held 24 arrows for use. Any further arrows would have to be brought to the archers during the battle.
An excellent example of the full range of equipment expected of archers earlier in the century can be seen in a muster of the garrison of Bayeux dated 17 September 1434, where the archers were expected to be equipped with a jak, helmet, bow, quiver (of arrows), sword and dagger ‘and other things appropriate for archers of the English nation for war’ (‘de palletes, cappelines, ars, trousses, espees, dagues et autres choses quil appert a archiers par fait de guerre de la nacion dengleterre’).14 By the time of Bosworth, however, Grummit has suggested that the term ‘archer’ was used simply as an administrative convenience and included general infantry (presumably with staff weapons) as well as those capable with the bow.15 This is important since otherwise, once archers had let off their arrows, they would no longer be of use in the fight.
This multiplicity of function is easy if weapons were attached to the belt (as was the case with swords, daggers and shorter handled staff weapons). But was there time to abandon the bow and collect a longer handled staff weapon? This might be possible if, after firing, the archers withdrew behind ranks of men at arms or billmen, or if we accept battles to be multi-phased events. The answer seems to be provided at Agincourt where we hear that:
‘when hand to hand fighting began, a good part of the English archers, having quickly thrown away their bows as is their custom and taken up the daggers and swords which they always had ready to hand, rushed at great pace into the advancing enemy’.16
As we saw in Chapter 2, lower-ranking troops raised by commission of array were not exclusively archers. Indeed, there is suggestion of a move towards greater diversification between the late 1450s and the 1480s.17 In the Bridport muster roll of 1457, 95 out of 119 people for whom equipment is noted have a bow. Many of these also have another weapon, such as a sword, dagger, hammer, or poleaxe. By way of comparison we can see that in a muster from the half-hundred of Ewelme in Oxfordshire around 1480, 18 men are described either as archers or as able to do service with a bow. Seven other men are able to do service with a bill, with a further five with a staff and one with an axe. This suggests more specialisation since the archers in the 1480 list are not described as holding other weapons.
John Howard, duke of Norfolk, brought a number of troops to the battle. His household books give some insights in to equipment purchased for his soldiers for the naval campaign to Scotland in 1480–1. These included 15 bows and a chest of arrows. When Howard himself boarded his ship he brought with him 26 black bills, two axes and ‘his bows which Tomson had in the store house’. One of Howard’s soldiers in 1480, John Wady (or Wade), who also appears in the list of those Howard had promised the king in February 1484, was described as having ‘a peir brygandines, a standart, a salate … a pair splentes, a cheff of arros and his jaket’.18
Of the wide range of weapons and equipment hinted at in the battle accounts for Bosworth, mentioned in connection with the armies that fought there and, most importantly, recorded in military use during the period, the vast majority are not reflected in the battlefield finds. Amongst that assemblage there are just a handful of weapon parts. The swords are represented by just three scabbard chapes and one fragment of a cross guard, the daggers by one possible chape together with three possible rondels from their hilts. Yet, even if all are correctly identified, not all need be from the battle. Of the staff weapons there is no clear evidence and this is also true of the equipment belonging to the archers, unless perhaps it was they who carried some of the swords and daggers noted above. The rest of the finds are mainly buckles, strap ends and the like from personal equipment and various items from horse trappings. As we have seen, most of these could as easily derive from non-military use, though more detailed study may allow battle-related items to be isolated.
Thus, while gunpowder weapons have left a clear archaeological signature, few if any of the other types of weapon or classes of troops present at Bosworth seem to be amenable to archaeological study. For some the evidence will be restricted to battlefields with exceptional preservation, as with the arrowheads recovered from Towton. For others there may be no realistic chance, on any site, that battle archaeology will provide meaningful evidence. This is likely to be the case with that other key introduction to the Renaissance battlefield, the pike. While occasionally pike heads might be recovered, these are likely to be rare discoveries and so will say little more than the weapon type was present on the field.
However, unexpected archaeological approaches to such problems may appear, as with our suggestion for the cavalry action at Towton (see Figure 8.8).19 The potential for loss will vary between the cavalry, who were normally placed on the wings, and the infantry, who formed the bulk of any army and were deployed in the centre of each battle. While one might expect more non-ferrous fitments on cavalry equipment, given their higher status compared to common foot soldiers, it is their speed of movement and the fact they tend to be engaged for less time that may be critical. This may result in a remarkably low density archaeological signature. In contrast, the infantry will often have been engaged in intensive hand to hand action for a considerable time, with the battle lines moving only short distances. Thus the infantry action will have created far greater opportunity for the loss of objects. Even so, it may only have been where higher status individuals were engaged on foot, especially the men-at-arms, that equipment will have contained sufficient numbers of non-ferrous attachments to yield a long lasting and closely datable archaeological signature. If the foot were dominated by low status soldiers then, though the number of lost fitments may have been high, almost all of these will have been of ferrous metal which, on most sites, probably do not survive. For these reasons, at Towton we may see the position of the cavalry from the lack of finds on the east side of the field. In contrast, the high density of finds across the rest of the frontage may represent just the infantry action, where large numbers of high status individuals were engaged – and died. But such a pattern, if correctly interpreted, may only be visible on battlefields, like Towton, which have an exceptionally high density of non-ferrous artefacts.
In the systematic survey at Bosworth, from 2005 onwards, there were a small number of Anglo-Saxon, Bronze Age and Iron Age finds, but the vast majority (3,366) were Roman, medieval, early modern, modern or unclassified. Of this total there were 1,067 that came from the core area of the battlefield and 2,299 from the rest of the systematic survey (Figure 4.4). Just 422 of the total are or may be of medieval date, representing 13% of finds. Those certainly of medieval date represent just 4% of the total assemblage, with only 1% being closely datable to the fifteenth century (Appendix 2).20 This late medieval material includes personal dress accessories, of which buckles represent by far the largest proportion, with smaller numbers of other items including badges, weapon and scabbard fragments, horse related items and coinage. Parallels for almost all of these have been found across the country in non-military contexts, including the weapon fragments and heraldic badges.
When it comes to the ferrous items, their poor condition and sometimes fragmentary nature makes identification and dating even more difficult. In many cases a Roman date is as likely as a medieval one. This and the fact that they were not systematically searched for in the survey has led us to exclude the ferrous items from the following analysis.
The finds data is summarised by period in Table 6.3. In this table and in the three distribution maps shown in Figure 6.1, finds which could be of more than one period are included amongst the possible finds of both periods, so that potentially significant associations can be recognised. The table and plans reveal an interesting pattern. Although the core of the battlefield saw 68% of the systematic detecting, it has a lower share of finds later than the medieval compared to the rest of the systematic survey. If the random survey is included with the Roman material the extreme distortion is largely due to the vast number of Roman finds from what may be a temple on Ambion Hill. For the early modern, modern and undated finds the low percentages seem to reflect the peripheral nature of the battlefield core. Despite its distance from the medieval villages, only with the finds of certain or possible medieval date does the percentage approach what might be expected from the amount of detecting conducted. This may be an indicator that a significant proportion of these finds do come from the battle.
Table 6.3: Distribution of finds by period and area