8

‘He has now Departed from Amongst the Living’¹

As we have seen, there are two important early written sources for the Battle of Bosworth: the Crowland Chronicle continuation and Vergil’s history. Based upon these and upon the recent battlefield site excavations, we shall now attempt to reconstruct this much discussed battle.²

Richard III is traditionally thought to have camped upon Ambion Hill the night before the battle. However, it is perhaps more likely that the large royal army camped in and around Sutton Cheney. Henry ‘Tudor’ had spent the night of 21/22 August at Merevale. Like Richard, he was apparently wakeful. Before dawn, he is reported to have had a secret conference with Sir William Stanley. A conference which possibly included William’s brother – and Henry’s stepfather – Thomas, Lord Stanley. According to Vergil, Lord Stanley was present, though this has been disputed and Stanley himself later implied otherwise.³ It is difficult to judge whether Stanley or Vergil was telling the truth. Our understanding of what Lord Stanley did – or did not do – is complicated by his own subsequent editing of history.

We shall presently summarise the events of King Richard’s last morning on earth. Before we can do so, however, there are three important elements of our story which are somewhat contentious, and which therefore need to be reviewed in specific detail, in order that we can integrate them correctly into the broader picture of events. The three points in question are reports relating to Richard’s last mass, to his breakfast on the morning of the 22 August, and to an object often referred to as the Bosworth Cross – but which should more accurately be called the Bosworth Crucifix.

Whether he slept well or badly during the night of 21/22 August 1485, Richard III probably awoke early and we know that he rose at dawn (6 a.m. BST or 5 a.m. GMT on 22 August – see appendix 3). This was traditional on the morning of a battle, for the fighting itself often started at an early hour, and there were personal preparations and military dispositions to be dealt with first. There is no reason whatever to countenance the unfortunate and quite incredible twentieth-century invention that was added to the Bosworth legend in the 1920s,⁴ which would have us believe that on the morning of the battle Richard III walked up to the parish church at Sutton Cheney to attend mass there. There is certainly no contemporary authority for this nonsense.⁵ As we shall see later, when we explore the question of Richard’s burial, in attempting to rediscover the real Richard III it is very important to deal ruthlessly with all the later mythology. Therefore, in view of recent attempts to defend the utterly improbable story that Richard heard his last mass in Sutton Cheney church, perhaps a little more needs to be said about this.

First, no parish church would have celebrated its regular daily mass at dawn! If Richard had walked to Sutton Cheney when he arose on the morning of 22 August, he would have found the door locked and no priest in attendance. If he took his own chaplains with him they would have needed to break in to the church and then into the sacristy to obtain the essentials for celebrating mass. There are no possible grounds for believing that they would have done this when they had all the necessary equipment for celebrating the liturgy with them in Richard’s camp, and when mass could easily have been celebrated in the king’s tent, using a travelling altar.

Our evidence for the presence in Richard’s camp of his own clergy comes from the Crowland Chronicle, which specifically tells us that – just as one would expect – Richard III was accompanied in the royal camp by chaplains of the royal household. Like every Catholic priest, these royal servitors were under a religious obligation to celebrate mass on a daily basis. Thus there can be no possible doubt that all of them celebrated mass both on the eve of the battle (Sunday 21 August), and again on Monday 22 August.

Normally, one would simply have assumed that one or more of these chaplains celebrated mass for the king soon after he arose on Monday morning, and before he had breakfast. However, the Crowland chronicler reports that ‘at dawn on Monday morning the chaplains were not ready to celebrate mass for King Richard’.⁶ Since, as we have already noted, the chronicler himself was almost certainly not present in the royal camp that morning, the source for his information on this point remains unknown. Thus it amounts merely to another piece of hearsay. Nevertheless, the statement as it stands may be literally correct. There is some evidence that the reports which imply there was a degree of confusion surrounding the preparations for the royal mass on the morning of 22 August may have originated with members of Richard III’s own immediate entourage. In his Account of Miracles Performed by the Holy Eucharist, which Henry Parker, Lord Morley, presented to Queen Mary I in 1554, Morley – himself the son of a Yorkist who fought for Richard III at Bosworth – ascribed this information to a servant of Richard’s called Bygoff (now usually identified as Sir Ralph Bigod). This man ‘sayd that Kyng Richard callyd in the morning for to have had mass sayd before hym, but when his chapeleyne had one thing ready, evermore & they wanted another, when they had wyne they lacked breade, And ever one thing was myssing’.⁷

The preparations required for saying a low weekday mass, which would have been of quite short duration, were so basic and routine that any priest should have been able to accomplish them in a good deal less than half an hour, even with his eyes blindfolded. Since we know the chaplains were present, even if they were not ready the instant the king arose, it seems highly unlikely that they would not have been given rapid instructions to prepare themselves as soon as they knew that Richard was up. If bread and wine were not immediately on hand these could easily and promptly have been procured. Add to this the certain fact that the chaplains had to celebrate mass on a daily basis and one cannot but conclude that mass must have been celebrated in the royal tent as soon as the preparations for it were complete.

The fact that the Crowland writer also reports that breakfast was not ready when the king first got up can likewise be dismissed as relatively insignificant. As we have already seen, medieval breakfast was usually a very simple meal, probably comprising bread and wine. How long can this have taken to prepare? And since the king could not break his fast until after mass in any case, there would have been ample time to make the necessary preparations while mass was being said. In short, the reports of the Crowland chronicler may suggest either that Richard III got up earlier than expected, or that his servants overslept, but they certainly prove neither that no mass was celebrated for Richard III on the last morning of his life, nor that the king went into battle on an empty stomach. It may nevertheless be the case that, for his own ends, the chronicler deliberately wished to leave his readers with the impression that Richard III died in a godless and ravenous state.

Until recently, relatively few archaeological finds relating to the Battle of Bosworth had ever been discovered. There is one eighteenth century find, however, which tends to confirm that Richard III’s camp was properly staffed by chaplains, equipped with all the necessary items for fulfilling their religious function. In the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London there is a fifteenth-century crucifix 23 inches tall and 11 inches wide (585mm x 280mm).⁸ It is generally known from its find location as the ‘Bosworth Cross’, although it is in fact not a cross but a crucifix, since it bears an effigy of the crucified Christ. This object has an outer frame forming a foliated border (damaged at either extremity of the transverse limb of the cross).⁹ The frame surrounds an inner cross formed of strips of decorated metal and bearing a Corpus (figure of Christ crucified) somewhat crudely cast in a bronze alloy. A knop on the crown of the head probably indicates that a nimbus was once attached. The whole object was originally gilded. Substantial traces of the gilding remain.

The arms of the crucifix end in roundels, which are decorated on the front with symbols of the four evangelists. The backs of these roundels display suns or stars with many rays, which have been interpreted as Yorkist emblems; the sunburst badge of Edward IV and, by extension, of the house of York.¹⁰

The limbs of the inner cross which bears the Corpus are formed, both front and back, of strips of gilded metal, engraved with a foliate design. In the case of some other, similar crucifixes, such strips are of champlevé enamel, typically with the background coloured blue, but the Bosworth example was never decorated in that way. It is made throughout of a yellow bronze alloy, now darkened, and originally overlaid with gold. Presumably the evangelists’ emblems on the roundels once had enamelled backgrounds such as are seen on other examples of this type of cross, but no trace of the enamel is now visible.

As now preserved, the item is mounted on a modern base for display purposes. It was originally designed to be used either as an altar crucifix, mounted on a base, and with the addition of side brackets supporting figures of the Virgin and St John, or as a processional cross, mounted on a staff. From the evidence of other, more complete specimens of the type, when mounted as an altar cross it would have had a six-lobed base surmounted by a dome, upon which a small open crown would have acted as the seating for the shaft of the cross. For processional use it would have been mounted on a long wooden stave, possibly covered by brass tubing.

Nineteenth-century speculation that this crucifix might have come not from the vicinity of the battlefield but from Husbands Bosworth has been shown by the present writer to be baseless.¹¹ Although its precise find location cannot now be identified, the crucifix is an object of the correct period, and may well be a relic of the battle of 1485. A connection with the travelling chapel royal of Richard III, if unproven, is very plausible. In fact, the crucifix is described in a note in its file at the Society of Antiquaries as belonging to a class of objects ‘intended for use in minor churches and in private chapels’. It is, therefore, precisely the kind of artefact which one would expect to have figured amongst the church plate in use by those royal chaplains who, as we have already seen, undoubtedly accompanied Richard III to Bosworth.

There has been some confusion about the name of Richard III’s last battle. However, there seems no particular reason to reject the traditional ‘Bosworth Field’, since Henry VIII so referred to it in 1511.¹² In addition, ‘there have been as many different accounts of Bosworth as there have been historians, and even today it is hard to produce a reconstruction of the battle which will command general acceptance’.¹³ Ross and other modern writers continue to stress the numerical superiority of Richard III’s army over ‘the mixed force of French and Welsh levies which was all Henry “Tudor” could command’.¹⁴ While the smallness of the ‘Tudor’ force may later have been exaggerated to point up the scale and miraculous nature of Henry VII’s victory, superficially the respective numbers appear to suggest that Henry ‘Tudor’ had not succeeded in attracting any significant English support, and that the only English on his side were probably the small number of exiled noblemen who had formed his entourage in France.

As we have already observed, Richard III’s army probably camped in and around Sutton Cheney. Let us now attempt to reconstruct the events of the last few hours of Richard III’s life.

In the royal camp, the king probably arose soon after monastery and convent bells had sounded the hour of Prime, at about ten minutes past six (BST) on the morning of Monday 22 August.¹⁵ As we have already seen, reportedly there were slight delays in the preparations for his morning mass and his breakfast. Let us assume that these delays took up some thirty minutes. The celebration of low mass in the royal tent will then have begun at about 6.40 am. The Bosworth Crucifix (a standard gilt and enamelled piece of royal travelling chapel equipment) mounted upon its lobed base, and with its side brackets in place, bearing figures of the Blessed Virgin and St John, stood, perhaps, on the portable altar, flanked by candlesticks. One of the royal chaplains began intoning the opening words of the mass for the feast day of SS Timothy and Symphorian. He was probably vested in the blood-red chasuble appropriate for the commemoration of martyrs.¹⁶ The Latin words of the introit may have reminded the king of his coronation, and of the crown that he had worn the previous day, and would shortly put on again.¹⁷

The service will not have taken more than half an hour. Thus, by ten past seven, Richard will have been consuming his modest breakfast, probably comprising bread and wine. While he did so his esquires no doubt began to put his armour on him. At the same time, the royal chaplains were dismantling their portable altar in the royal tent. For the last time ever, the Bosworth Crucifix was taken off its lobed base, its side brackets were removed, and it was remounted upon a tall processional stave. A hinged ring of iron was clipped into place at the foot of the crucifix, just above the socket where the latter was now attached to its wooden shaft. To this the chaplains may then have tied ribbons or tassels in the Yorkist royal livery colours of murrey and blue.¹⁸

It was perhaps just after half past seven in the morning when the king finally donned an open crown, probably of gilded metal, set with jewels or paste, which he put on around the brow of his helmet. Richard III then left the royal tent to address his army. His chaplains, bearing the Bosworth Crucifix (now mounted as a processional cross), accompanied him to bless the royal forces.

It seems to have been a bright, sunny morning.¹⁹ The enemy army had spent the night about 5 miles away at Merevale, which is located on Watling Street – a direct route to London. Richard, therefore, left his camp and marched his own forces westwards. The king’s aim was to block Henry Tudor’s route to London. However, Richard did not march as far as Watling Street. This was possibly because a Stanley banner was already visible to the south-west of Dadlington, near Stoke Golding. The Stanleys’ precise intentions were still unclear, but it would have been wise to treat them with caution, and Richard would not have wanted to position his army confronting Henry ‘Tudor’, but with the Stanley forces lurking behind him.

Richard, therefore, positioned himself to the north-west of Crown Hill (as it would later be called). There, he arranged his force in an extended line on high ground, with the Duke of Norfolk’s forces to the north-west, and the Earl of Northumberland’s men to the south-east of the central contingent, which was commanded by Richard himself. Probably by seven fifty or thereabouts, the royal host had taken up its position on a low ridge. According to the Crowland Chronicle, Richard then ordered the execution of George Stanley, Lord Strange, but this execution was certainly not carried out, and the order may never have been given, since the Stanleys had so far taken no overtly hostile action. ²⁰

MAP 1: The Battle of Bosworth.

On the lower ground in front of Richard’s army some of the terrain was marshy.²¹ As the king and his men gazed down they saw Henry ‘Tudor’’s much smaller force mustered beyond this marshland. Towards eight o’clock this smaller rebel force slowly began to advance towards the royal army, skirting the boggy ground. For a time the king took no action, but eventually, seeing that the rebel forces were clearing the marshland, he gave orders to oppose their further advance.

When John de Vere (soi-disant Earl of Oxford, and one of Henry ‘Tudor’’s most experienced commanders) saw men of the royal army advancing to oppose them, he swiftly ordered his men to hold back and maintain close contact with their standard bearers. In consequence, the rebel advance may have more or less ground to a halt, but by maintaining a fairly tight formation Henry ‘Tudor’’s men effectively prevented any serious incursion into their ranks by the royal army. In total, all this slow manoeuvring may have taken up as much as an hour.

It was apparently at this point – when in religious houses throughout the land monks and nuns, canons and friars were beginning to sing the office of Terce²² – that the king suddenly caught sight of his second cousin, Henry ‘Tudor’, amongst the rebel forces.²³ Perhaps out of bravado; or from a sense of noblesse oblige; from fury at seeing ‘Tudor’ displaying the undifferenced royal arms, or possibly because he was suffering from a fever and not in full possession of all his faculties, Richard called his men around him and set off with them in person, at the gallop, to settle Henry’s fate once and for all. An eyewitness account reports that ‘he came 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”’.²⁴ The king’s action could be seen as a risky move, and one which suggests that Richard may not have been thinking very clearly. In some ways it recalls his father’s sortie from Sandal Castle, which had led to the Duke of York’s death in December 1460. But unlike his father, Richard was in command of a large army and he should have had every chance of winning his battle. Jones prefers to see his charge as ‘the final act of Richard’s ritual affirmation of himself as rightful king’, and it was certainly an action fully in accord with the late medieval chivalric literary tradition.²⁵ Whichever interpretation is correct, the king’s dramatic charge did come very close to succeeding. The force of his charge cut through the ‘Tudor’ army, and Richard engaged his rival’s standard bearer, William Brandon, whom he swiftly cut down. The ‘Tudor’ standard fell to the ground, and at this point Richard’s hopes must have been high indeed, since probably only Sir John Cheney now stood between him and his adversary.

But Henry ‘Tudor’’s foreign mercenaries now suddenly deployed themselves in a defensive manoeuvre never hitherto witnessed in England. They fell back, enclosing Henry in a square formation of pikemen, through which the mounted warriors of the king’s army could not penetrate.²⁶ The forefront of Richard’s charging cavalry suddenly stalled, and the men riding behind cannoned into them. Many must have been unhorsed as a result. Seeing the royal charge thus broken in confusion against the wall of pikemen, the treacherous Stanley now took a swift decision and committed his forces on the ‘Tudor’ side.²⁷ His army cut more or less unopposed through the muddled mêlée of the royal cavalry, and in minutes the balance of the field was reversed. Richard III’s horse was killed beneath him, and the king fell to the ground, losing his helmet in the process. He was struck on the head. As he struggled to his feet, one of his men offered him his own mount and shouted to Richard to flee, so that he could regroup and fight again. But the king refused. Surrounded now by enemies, he received further blows to his exposed head. His body, still protected by plate armour, was safe, but one hefty blow to the back of his unprotected skull was fatal. Given that in one sense his defeat and death clearly lay at Stanley’s door, the report that Richard III’s dying words were ‘Treason – treason’ may well be true.

The king had died some six weeks short of his thirty-third birthday. Polydore Vergil’s account of his death recorded simply that ‘king Richerd, alone, was killyd fyghting manfully in the thickkest presse of his enemyes’.²⁸ Although this account was written by and for Richard’s enemies, it is a fitting tribute. Interestingly, it is also one which, in the final analysis, acknowledges without question the one key point which Richard himself was defending, namely his kingship.

Meanwhile, the rest of the vast royal army, most of whom had as yet done no fighting whatever, watched aghast as their sovereign fell. The quick-thinking John de Vere now seized the initiative. Taking rapid advantage of the new situation he hurled himself and his men at the position defended by his cousin, the Duke of Norfolk (who was in command of the royal archers). As de Vere grappled with his cousin, the latter unluckily lost his helmet. It was in that instant that an arrow, loosed at a venture, pierced the Duke of Norfolk’s skull and he too fell dead.²⁹

The vast royal army was now, in effect, a leaderless rabble. As the great host began to disintegrate, and its individual men-at-arms started to flee in the direction of Dadlington, the men of the smaller Tudor army began to pursue them and cut them down. The premise that the final stages of the combat were located in the vicinity of Dadlington is based upon the known fact that Henry VIII later established a perpetual chantry at Dadlington parish church for the souls of those who had been killed in the battle.³⁰

By about ten o’clock in the morning the fighting was over. It was only from this point onwards that Henry ‘Tudor’ would have had the leisure to detail a search for Richard III’s body, which had been left lying where it fell, somewhere near Henry’s position at the outset of the battle. We shall explore in detail what happened to the king’s remains in the next chapter.

Ironically, it was apparently in the month of August 1485 that Richard III’s marriage negotiations in Portugal finally came to fruition. We have seen already that the Portuguese Council of State, meeting in Alcobaça, had urged both their king and their infanta in the strongest possible terms to accede to Richard III’s marriage proposals, for they feared that otherwise the English court would turn its attention to Castile and Aragon, in which case the ‘Catholic Kings’ were only too likely to agree to a marriage between King Richard and the Infanta Doña Isabel de Aragón.

Duly impressed by his councillors’ arguments and prognostications:

King John bullied and brow-beat his sister, but also employed their aunt, Philippa, to try more feminine means of persuasion. A dramatic dénoûment [sic] followed. Joanna [sic] retired for a night of prayer and meditation. She had either a vision or a dream of a ‘beautiful young man’ who told her that Richard ‘had gone from among the living’. Next morning, she gave her brother a firm answer: If Richard were still alive, she would go to England and marry him. If he were indeed dead, the King was not to press her again to marry.³¹

Apparently the infanta had been granted supernatural help in resolving her (and her country’s) dilemma. The earliest extant written account of her vision dates from 1621, by which time Joana was, of course, also dead, and indeed, well advanced upon the path to sainthood. She was finally canonised in 1693 by Pope Innocent XII, and it is as St Joana of Portugal, Princess, that the Catholic Church remembers her today. Her mortal remains now lie splendidly enshrined at the Dominican monastery to which this princess, who came so close to being Queen of England, finally and definitively retired after Richard III’s death in order to cultivate the religious life.