As a chain reaction of beacons were lit on the south side of Milford Haven, news soon reached the constable and steward of Pembroke Castle, Richard Williams, who had succeeded in the office from the Duke of Buckingham in January 1484. He had previously only been an usher of Richard’s chamber, but Richard’s trust in Williams was demonstrated by his substantial land grants to him in December 1484, when he was granted the lordship of the castle of Manorbier and the manor of Penally. Under his stewardship, the castle was put in a state of defence, with £113 14s 6d spent on fortifying the castle; the woods around the nearby town of Narberth were felled to supply fuel and wood for beacons. Realising that the first beacon must have been lit at Angle, indicating that Henry had finally landed there, Williams knew that he had no time to waste. He decided to ride the journey of 210 miles to Nottingham, managing an average speed of fifty-two miles a day, a considerable feat considering that the expected distance covered by a mounted messenger was around thirty to thirty-five miles. To achieve such a distance, Williams would have had to ride through the night, making use of the king’s post-horses that were stationed every twenty miles which would allow him to maintain his breakneck speed.
When he arrived, Williams found Richard not at Nottingham Castle but at his hunting lodge at Bestwood Park. Lying to the north of Nottingham in Sherwood Forest, Bestwood Park had been a royal hunting ground since at least the twelfth century, where it remained well stocked. Covering 3,000 acres, a survey of 1607 reported that ‘there are in the park at least three hundred fallow-deer, and four and twenty red deer’. The park had been completely enclosed by Edward III in the 1360s; at the same time a timber-framed hunting lodge was constructed on the most attractive part of the estate. In 1593 it was reported to have contained thirty-eight rooms, built of lath and plaster, with a tiled roof. It was here that, according to the Crowland chronicler, news of his adversary’s landing was broken to the king.
Richard’s initial reaction was one of delight and rejoicing – ‘or at least he pretended to rejoice’, as the Crowland chronicler noted. According to Vergil, Richard believed that Henry’s forces would be ‘unprepared and weak’ compared to his own troops who he had stationed in Wales. He was confident that Henry ‘because of the small number of his men, was destined to have a bad end when he would either be compelled to fight against his will or be taken alive by Walter Herbert and Richard Thomas’.
Richard’s confidence was reflected in his own military experience. In contrast to Henry, he had a formidable reputation as a successful soldier and general, and must have believed that, given his previous experience, he would have the upper hand in any forthcoming battle. From an early age, Richard had demonstrated his abilities to command men under his standard. In June 1469, aged seventeen, he had managed to recruit men to fight under his banner against a rebellion led by Robin of Redesdale in the north, by ‘waging’ them to fight. Two years later, he had fought at the battle of Barnet, where he was close enough to the action to be wounded, and again at Tewkesbury weeks later, where leading the vanguard he had crushed the Lancastrian forces, with one chronicler describing how he bore the brunt of the struggle alongside his brothers. Later, Richard would remember his fellow companions who had died under his standard. When in 1477 Richard granted a Lordship to Queen’s College, Cambridge, in return for the establishment of a chantry foundation in its chapel, he requested that four priests pray for, among the other family members both living and dead, ‘the souls of … all other gentlemen and yeoman servants and lovers of the said Duke of Gloucester, the which were slain in his service at the battles of Barnet, Tewkesbury or at any other fields or journeys’.
Richard’s service at Barnet won him unique praise, being compared in one literary panegyric to one of the greatest chivalric warriors, Hector of Troy:
The Duke of Gloucester, that noble prince
Young of age and victorious in battle,
To the honour of Hector that he might come,
Grace him followeth, fortune, and good speed …
Richard would have known of Hector’s bravery; in the manuscript copy of the story of Troy which he owned, Hector is described as ‘a knight of unheard valour … there was none who was distinguished by as great a spirit as Hector … he surpassed all other in courage’. In the same copy, in a passage describing the advantages of fighting among friends and relatives to protect one’s home, a fifteenth-century hand has written in the margin, ‘note well the fair words’ as well as the words ‘note the crow and its vigour’, a reference to the image of the weaker crow defending its nest from attack by a stronger falcon. It was just one of the influential military works that Richard was well-read in; works that the king even sought to educate his own son with, ordering a copy of the classic textbook, Vegetius’ De Re Militari, to be made for his education.
After Tewkesbury, however, the opportunity for Richard to extend his military reputation had been limited. When Edward IV had stated his intent to invade France in 1475, drawing up plans for over 11,000 troops to sail across the Channel, Richard threw himself into the preparations, relishing the opportunity to win military glory abroad. At Picquigny he had taken the opportunity to survey his opposing French army, and was bitterly disappointed when the subsequent peace treaty denied him the chance of battle, refusing to be present during the signing ceremony since, according to one French chronicler, he was ‘mal content’ with the treaty.
War in Scotland finally had allowed Richard to partly fulfil his ambitions of leading an army into battle: having been appointed lieutenant-general in 1480, Richard sought to take an active role in crushing the Scots, launching his first raid across the border in September 1480. The following year, together with the Earl of Northumberland, Richard attempted to recapture the stronghold of Berwick. The town finally fell in 1482, after an energetic campaign which had seen Richard reach the gates of Edinburgh without resistance. The recovery of Berwick marked a symbolic milestone for the Yorkist cause: it had been given up by the Lancastrians under Henry VI to secure Scottish backing. Richard himself marked its capture with a major new rebuilding programme, repairing the castle and the town’s walls together with the construction of 120 houses. Such was the success of Richard’s campaign, Parliament officially declared its gratitude to him, while Dominic Mancini wrote that ‘such was his renown in warfare, that whenever a difficult and dangerous policy had to be undertaken, it would be entrusted to his discretion and generalship’.
Perhaps Richard’s bellicose attitude is best summed up in his choice of emblem, that of the white sanglier or boar. William Worcester in his Boke of Noblesse had urged Edward IV to wage war on France and follow ‘the example of the boar’, ‘advancing your courageous heart to war … furious, eager … against all those nations that … would put you from your … rightful inheritance’. The sanglier was considered the most dangerous animal in the forest, whose ferocity and power made it one of the most difficult animals to hunt – its killer was greatly honoured. The boar was also admired in literature, including in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, which makes mention of the ‘fierce Boar, which will try the sharpness of its tusks in the forests of Gaul; for it will lop down all larger oak trees, taking care however to protect the smaller ones. The Arabs shall dread the Boar and so shall the Africans.’
Like many knights of his day, Richard was drawn by the idea of crusade, demonstrating sympathy with crusading warriors engaged in wars of religion against the Turks. His own book of hours contains a litany beseeching God to destroy ‘the peoples of the heathen’. Richard’s own interest in crusading can also be witnessed in his patronage of the chapel of All Hallows, Barking, where it was believed that the heart of Richard I was buried, and in his appointment of John Kendale, an officer of the Order of the Knights of St John, to present his obedience to Pope Innocent VIII. According to a visitor at his court, Nicolas Von Poppelau, when his conversation with Richard turned to the Turks, who had recently been defeated in battle by the Hungari
ans, Richard grew enlivened, replying that ‘I would like my kingdom and land to lie where the land and kingdom of the King of Hungary lies, on the Turkish frontier itself. Then I would certainly, with my own people alone, without the help of other kings, princes or lords, properly drive away not only the Turks, but all my enemies and opponents.’ Richard’s words may have been an expression of hope rather than intent, but it is worthwhile noting that one of the coronation regalia used in the king’s coronation, the Holy Oil of St Thomas of Canterbury, was believed to have mystical properties, and when ‘carried in the breast’ its small ampulla would ensure certain victory over the king’s enemies; its carrier would also supposedly recover Normandy and Aquitaine, and ‘build churches in the holy land and chase all the heathen from Babylon’. Richard gave the oil to Westminster Abbey for safe keeping, but only on the specific condition that it would be returned ‘whensoever it shall please him to ask it’.
In Henry Tudor, Richard finally had his own crusade to win: according to one ballad, when confronted with the news of Henry’s invasion and its gathering support, he swept aside the threat, stating: ‘By Jesus full of might, when they are assembled with their powers all, I would I had the great Turk against me to fight, or Prester John in his armour bright, the Sultan of Syria with them to bring.’ According to the chronicler Jean Molinet, his first reaction on hearing the news of Henry’s arrival was to counter his march immediately, only to be dissuaded by those nobles around him who replied: ‘Do not move, we shall do well.’
Preparations would need to be made to ensure that the royal army was gathered together at Nottingham in order to march on the enemy. Richard immediately ordered that letters were to be sent ‘everywhere to say that the day he had longed for had now arrived when he would easily triumph over such a wretched company’. The time had come, he believed, that he could finally ‘restore the strength of his subjects with the blessings of certain peace’. At the same time, the threat could not be underestimated. Richard ‘sent out terrifying orders in manifold letters to all the counties of the kingdom’. No man, ‘at least none of those who were born to any inheritances within the said kingdom, should withdraw themselves from the coming battle, with the threat that, after the victory had been gained, anyone who might be found, in any part of the kingdom not to have been present in person with him on the battlefield could hope for nothing but the loss of all his goods, his possessions and his life’. Letters were dispatched across the country; opened and read, many of them had the desired effect. It was later claimed that Geoffrey St Germyn had been been ‘so manashed’ by Richard’s letters, that he believed he had no choice but to come to the king’s aid, or else ‘he should lose his life, lands and goods; for dread whereof’ he travelled to the king ‘full sore against his will’. Roger Wake also later explained that he had journeyed to aid the king ‘against his will and mind’, quoting from Richard’s letters which commanded him to fight ‘upon pain of forfeiture of life, land, and asmuch as he might forfeit’.
One of Richard’s letters survives, written from Bestwood on 11 August to one of the esquires of his body, Henry Vernon. It must have been dictated by the king, fresh from discovering that Henry had landed, as Williams had told him from his own knowledge of the lit beacons, at ‘Nangle’:
Trusty and wellbeloved, we greet you well. And forasmuch as our rebels and traitors accompanied with our ancient enemies of France and other strange nations departed out of the water of Seine the first day of this present month making their course westwards, been landed at Nangle besides Milford Haven in Wales on Sunday last passed, as we be credibly informed, intending our utter destruction, the extreme subversion of this our realm and disinheriting of our true subjects of the same, towards whose re-countering, God being our guide, we be utterly determined in our own person to remove in all haste goodly that we can or may. Wherefore we will and straightly charge you that ye in your person with such number as ye have promised unto us sufficiently horsed and harnessed be with us in all haste to you possible, to give unto us your attendance without failing, all manner [of] excuses set apart, upon pain of forfeiture unto us of all that ye may forfeit and lose…
There is no evidence that Vernon responded to the letter by mobilising for the king. Richard’s letter to Vernon survives in a collection of summonses, the first dating back to March 1471, when Henry Vernon, then an officer in the household of the Duke of Clarence, was required by the duke to ‘see that as well all your tenants and servants as ours in those parts be ready upon an hour’s warning to wait upon us in defensible array whensoever we send for you and them’. Several other letters followed, but Vernon failed to obey them; he was not present at the battle of Tewkesbury, prompting Clarence to write for the fourth time, threatening that ‘we desire and for your weal advise you, and also in my said lord’s name charge you, to dispose you to come and attend upon us’. It seems that, just as fourteen years before, Henry Vernon chose the course of least resistance.
In addition to leading members of the gentry and officers of the crown, Richard intended to summon members of his nobility to Nottingham, commanding them to bring with them their own retinues that would help to bolster the commissions of array. Letters were sent to John Howard, Duke of Norfolk and his son, Thomas, Earl of Surrey to muster their troops at Bury. The king also commanded Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and other ‘friendly’ nobles in the north to conduct musters immediately, travelling to him with their equipped soldiers. Messengers carrying the king’s letters were also sent to Robert Brackenbury, the constable of the Tower of London, ‘to come to him as soon as possible’ bringing with him Thomas Bourchier, Walter Hungerford and several other knights ‘as if they would be participating in the war, for he held them in suspicion’. Further letters were sent out, according to the ‘Ballad of Bosworth Field’, ‘throughout England far and near’ and ‘to every man in his degree’. Even as far south as Exeter, the city had received letters from the king, and duly prepared to send sixteen men to any forthcoming battle. Few records of the musters that were taking place across the country survive, though one letter from the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, writing from his castle at Framlingham to a member of the Norfolk gentry, Sir John Paston, indicates that Richard’s letters had prompted those supportive members of the nobility to take swift action. Norfolk wrote to Paston, urging him to muster his men at Bury, where he intended to wait on Tuesday 16 August ready to head towards the king’s army at Nottingham:
To my wellbeloved friend, John Paston, be this bill delivered in haste.
Wellbeloved friend, I command me to you, letting you to understand that the King’s enemies be a land, and that the King would have set forth as upon Monday but only for Our Lady Day, but for certain he goeth forward as upon Tuesday, for a servant of mine brought me to the certainty.
Wherefore, I pray you that ye meet with me at Bury, for, be the grace of God, I purpose to lie at Bury as upon Tuesday night, and that ye bring with you such company of tall men as ye may goodly make at my cost and charge, be said that ye have promised the King; and I pray you ordain them jackets of my livery, and I shall content you at your meeting with me.
Your lover,
J. NORFOLK
Reading the text of the duke’s letter, Sir John Paston must have felt a sense of déjà vu. Only two years earlier, Norfolk had written an almost identical letter, when he requested that Paston bring a company of ‘six tall fellows in harness’ to help crush Buckingham’s rebellion. Then, Paston had ignored the duke: what chance was there that he would decide to act any differently now? And even if John Paston had been at the battle, could Norfolk be entirely confident that he would be fighting on his side? Paston had long been a Lancastrian sympathiser; his patron had traditionally been the Earl of Oxford, whom he had fought for and been wounded fighting against Norfolk at the battle of Barnet.
Paston’s loyalties were probably the least of Norfolk’s worries: he had promised previously that he would be able to muster 1,000 men at his ow
n cost for the king. Now with Richard demanding that he deliver, Norfolk searched desperately through his tenants, servants and retainers to make up the numbers he had pledged. A list of the ‘names of the men that my Lord hath granted the king’ survives in his household books, and includes his household servants, tenants, and estate officers who were to bring two or three men each. James Hobart had promised Norfolk at least three men, in addition ‘he hath promised my Lord to get him as many men as he can get’. Sir Harry Rosse, Thomas Hoo and Richard Lewknor undertook to ‘get my Lord’s grace of his servants and tenants, beside them before named … out of Sussex and Surrey, well horsed and harnessed’. Whether they did so at Bosworth is debatable: only Thomas Hoo received a minor rebuke when he was removed from the commission of the peace for a year, while James Hobart was promoted to attorney-general in 1486, making it unlikely that he personally fought alongside the duke.
While John Paston or Thomas Hoo may have chosen to absent themselves from any forthcoming conflict, evidence survives for those who chose perhaps a braver course of action. The recent rediscovery of the will of Thomas Longe of Ashwellthorpe gives an indication of the kind of ordinary retainer whom Norfolk could rely upon to follow their lord blindly into battle. On the same day that Norfolk had informed John Paston in his letter that he would be departing Bury for Richard’s army at Nottingham, Thomas Longe drew up his will in a nuncupative, or spoken, form, suggesting that Longe had dictated the will himself, as he was about to depart on the long march northwards:
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