The Last Days of Richard III and the Fate of His DNA

by John Ashdown-Hill

  Not only deer hunting, but all medieval hunting was strictly seasonal, taking due account of the breeding cycle of the prey animal in order to preserve the game for the future. The prime season for deer hunting was summer and early autumn. As previously mentioned, when Richard had been a mere teen-aged royal duke, Sir John Howard had apparently taken him deer hunting at Lavenham in Suffolk.23 Many years later, as Duke of Norfolk, Howard was created master forester of Desenyng and Hemgrave [Hengrave] by Richard III, following the execution of the Duke of Buckingham, who had previously held these posts.24 He also received similar appointments in the county of Norfolk.25 Information survives relating to some of John Howard’s dogs, but the names of the king’s own hounds are not on record.26

  While Richard and his friends were hunting the deer in Sherwood Forest, Henry ‘Tudor’ and his small invasion force made their way through Wales, and on Friday 12 August they entered the town of Shrewsbury unopposed. It was about two days later, probably on the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption, that John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, received his summons to the king’s array. Howard’s precise whereabouts at this time are unknown. He was not with the royal hunting party at Bestwood, but somewhere in the East Anglian region, which comprised the heartland of his territory. Quite possibly he was at Sudbury, not far from his ancestral manor house of Tendring Hall at Stoke-by-Nayland. During the fifteenth century the Feast of the Assumption was kept with special solemnity in Sudbury, where the celebrations are believed to have included a procession, bearing from its shrine in St Gregory’s church the miraculous image of Our Lady of Sudbury. Reportedly, the statue was first carried through the streets and then out into the countryside to bless the fields around the town. It then seems to have spent the night at the town’s Dominican Friary, the gatehouse of which still survives, before being returned to its shrine chapel the following day in an even grander procession known as ‘Our Lady’s Homecoming’.27 John Howard was a patron of the Sudbury shrine,28 which also enjoyed the patronage of members of the royal house of York.29 Moreover, Sudbury was not far from Bury St Edmunds, and we know that it was at Bury that the Duke of Norfolk commanded his own men to assemble when he received the royal summons.30

  It was certainly on the Feast of the Assumption itself (Monday 15 August) that the royal summons reached the city of York. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, this city of supposedly loyal and devoted supporters of Richard III did nothing whatever on the actual feast day. On the following day, when they did get around to discussing the most appropriate response to the king’s message, they finally decided not to send the men they had been asked for, but instead to ask the king for further information!

  It was also on the feast day that Richard III, still at the Bestwood Park hunting lodge, received a messenger from Lord Stanley, who regretted that he would be unable to attend the royal array in accordance with the royal summons, which he also had received, since unfortunately he was suffering from the sweating sickness.31 Lord Stanley seems to have been running true to form, and the king probably concluded that his polite excuses were merely a pretext. However, it is conceivable that Stanley really was ill, and it is even possible that his messenger carried the contagion to Bestwood (see below). In either case, Richard probably took comfort from the fact that the doubtful lord had sent his excuses – thus indicating that he was unwilling (for the time being, at least) to disobey the king openly.

  The king requested that Lord Stanley send in his place his son George, Lord Strange, and Stanley complied. Lord Strange seems to have been regarded as a hostage for his father’s good behaviour. The Crowland chronicler goes on to tell us that Lord Strange subsequently tried to escape to rejoin his father, but was captured, whereupon he revealed a plot involving his uncle, Sir William Stanley, and Sir John Savage. According to the chronicler, Richard III then had both men publicly denounced as traitors at Coventry and elsewhere.32

  On the afternoon of Wednesday 17 August, the messengers dispatched in quest of further information by the city fathers of York reached the royal hunting lodge at Bestwood Park. There they were received in audience by the king. Subsequently, Richard brought his hunting holiday to an end, and returned to Nottingham Castle. One of the messengers from York rode home with the king’s answer, in response to which, on Friday 19 August, the city of York finally committed itself to sending eighty men to the royal array. It was probably also on 19 August that Richard III rode out of the gates of Nottingham Castle for the last time, making for Leicester.

  On Saturday 20 August the Earl of Northumberland and his men arrived to swell the royal host, the muster of which was being supervised by the Duke of Norfolk who, in the meanwhile, had reached Leicester with his own East Anglian forces. These latter probably included his trumpeter from Harwich, Richard Lullay, together with men from John Howard’s home village of Stoke-by-Nayland, and men from Colchester, Ipswich and the surrounding villages, at least some of whose names can be tentatively listed.33

  By Sunday 21 August the assembled royal army had reached its full strength (allowing for the known absence of the Stanley contingent), and both the Crowland Chronicle and Vergil’s History agree that it comprised a very large force.34 Indeed, Vergil states that it was twice as big as Henry ‘Tudor’’s army.35 The royal force was assembled outside Leicester, and on Sunday 21 August, with great pomp, wearing a crown,36 and accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Northumberland and the whole of his great army, Richard III marched westwards out of the city, preparing to meet Henry ‘Tudor’ and his rebel forces. He and his men camped for the night near Market Bosworth.

  7

  Crossing the River

  On the evening of Saturday 20 August 1485, when Richard had ridden into Leicester at the head of his army, Hall’s sixteenth-century chronicle tells us that the king was ‘mounted on a great white courser’.1 There seems to be no earlier source now surviving for this information. However, Shakespeare apparently believed that Richard rode this same horse again the following day, when he left Leicester for the battlefield of Bosworth, accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Surrey, the Earl of Northumberland, Sir Robert Brackenbury and the royal army. Shakespeare thought that this same white horse was subsequently the royal charger ridden by the king in the battle itself, and he gave the horse’s name as ‘White Surrey’ or ‘White Syrie’.

  It used to be thought that a horse called ‘White Syrie’ – Syria being a major source for horses of what we should now call ‘arab stock’, and of the finest quality – was listed among King Richard’s horses in a contemporary manuscript.2 However, this reading of the manuscript proved to be in error. Thus there is, in fact, no surviving indication of the name of the horse that Richard rode into his last battle, nor do we know for certain that he used the same white (or grey) horse which he had reportedly ridden into Leicester on Saturday 20 August. It is true that evidence exists that both noble stables in the second half of the fifteenth century, and the royal stable of Richard III, did contain horses whose names included a reference to their colour,3 so that, despite the lack of firm written evidence to support it, the oral tradition that Richard III owned a horse called ‘White Syrie’ is plausible.

  The story of ‘White Syrie’ is just one of a number of traditions associated with the final three days of Richard III’s life. While widely reported, these traditions lack contemporary written authority. They may all be worthless. On the other hand, some of them, at least, may be accurate. We shall therefore explore them as far as possible, while bearing in mind their unsubstantiated nature.

  One such tradition comprises a cycle associated with Richard III’s supposed bed and the Leicester inn at which he slept. There is a popular legend that Richard spent the night of 20–21 August at an inn, which was then called the White Boar in Northgate Street, a fine timbered building in the town centre, which supposedly bore his own personal badge as its sign, and which may therefore have had some pre-existing connection with Richard. Some medieval inns did have established
connections with aristocratic patrons, being either owned by them and run by a tenant ‘landlord’ on their behalf, or enjoying the patronage of a particular nobleman on a regular basis.4 The claim that Leicester’s Blue Boar Inn – which unquestionably existed under that name in the sixteenth century – was called the ‘White Boar’ prior to 22 August 1485, is traceable as far back as John Speede.5 However, no contemporary evidence survives to substantiate the existence of a Leicester inn called the ‘White Boar’ in the fifteenth century. Indeed, even the earliest surviving mention of the ‘Blue Boar’ dates only from the 1570s.

  Nevertheless, Richard III is reputed to have slept at this inn ‘in a large gloomy chamber, whose beams bore conventional representations of vine-tendrils executed in vermilion, which could still be seen when the old building was pulled down’ in 1836.6 Here the king is supposed to have had his own bed set up – having brought it with him from Nottingham Castle in his baggage train. On departing in the direction of the eventual battlefield the following morning, the story recounts that Richard left this bed at the inn. Perhaps it was too large and cumbersome to use in the royal tent, where he would doubtless have to sleep during the coming night, and where he would have to make do with a smaller but more easily transportable camp bed of some kind (see below). Perhaps Richard contemplated returning to the Leicester inn after the battle, and sleeping there again. Alternatively, he may have simply planned to send for the bed later.

  This account of Richard transporting his own bed from Nottingham to Leicester has an intriguing sequel, which we shall explore presently. It has also been claimed (once again, without written authority) that Richard happened to be one of those people who ‘slept ill in strange beds’.7 Possibly it was for this reason – rather than as a simple matter of ostentation – that he preferred to avail himself of his own familiar sleeping arrangements whenever possible. In the event, of course, Richard neither slept again in Leicester, nor had any opportunity to send for his bed. We may here digress briefly to trace the supposed subsequent fates of both inn and bed.

  When the news of the outcome of the battle reached Leicester, together with the intimation that Henry ‘Tudor’ and his victorious forces were already approaching the city, the innkeeper of the White Boar reportedly thought it wise to remove rapidly the inn sign that linked him so visibly with the defeated Richard. But time was short, and there was no opportunity to commission something new. Instead, he simply availed himself of some blue paint, by means of which he effected a speedy transformation in the colour of his boar. Blue boars were perfectly safe in the new, post-Bosworth world, since they comprised the badge of John de Vere, a supporter of Henry ‘Tudor’ (by whose decree John was now at last legally entitled to call himself ‘ Earl of Oxford’). Thus the old White Boar inn reputedly became the Blue Boar overnight in the aftermath of the Battle of Bosworth.8 While this story is not implausible, we have already seen that there is absolutely no evidence to support it.

  The royal bed, never sent for, reportedly remained at the inn. According to local legend, almost a century later Agnes Clarke (née Davy), whose husband was then the innkeeper at the Blue Boar, was making up this bed one day when she was surprised by a medieval gold coin dropping down onto the floor beneath it. A subsequent search supposedly revealed a whole hoard of such coins hidden in a false bottom under the bed. This was assumed to be Richard III’s money. The legend suggests that it was as a result of their lucky find that the Clarkes became prosperous citizens, and that Thomas Clarke went on to become Mayor of Leicester. In fact, however, Thomas had been involved in civic affairs since his late twenties – years before he became landlord of the Blue Boar.9

  As for the reputed royal bed, it allegedly still exists, and is now exhibited at Donington-le-Heath Manor House, Leicestershire (figure 20). Unfortunately, the Donington bed appears, for the most part, to be a seventeenth-century construction. Moreover, it also differs in detail from an engraving of Richard III’s supposed bed published by John Throsby in 1777. The differences between the eighteenth-century engraving and the surviving bed appear greater than can be accounted for by Throsby’s report, which claimed the bed had been lowered by the removal of its feet.10 It is, therefore, questionable whether any part of the Donington bed has a genuine connection with the king. Moreover, there are other contenders for the role of Richard III’s bed.11 Thus, in the final analysis, it is impossible to ascertain whether any part of the Blue (White) Boar bed story is based upon fact.

  Richard III rode out of Leicester on Sunday 21 August, reportedly crossing the little River Soar by means of Bow Bridge, which was then a stone-built structure with a humped back, supported on four low arches (figure 22). This stone bridge survived until the 1860s, when it was replaced by the present cast-iron construction. The old bridge was quite narrow, with a low stone parapet on either side. According to folklore, as he rode across the bridge the king’s heel struck the stone parapet and an elderly pauper woman, whose cries for alms the king had ignored, foretold that ‘where his spurre strucke, his head should be broken’.12 This may well be a prophecy invented with the benefit of hindsight – though medieval fortune tellers certainly did exist.13

  There is no surviving source which tells us that on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth Richard III made his will, but this was the common practice, just before an important conflict, and it is therefore highly probable that he did so. He was a king about to embark upon an important battle, with no direct heir in prospect. This last point, at least, may have required Richard to make some written provision detailing who should succeed to his Crown in the event of his death. It would be extremely interesting to be able to read Richard III’s will, but unfortunately no such document has come down to us. Surviving medieval wills are generally copies made when the wills were proved – a process which Richard III’s will never underwent.

  It is often reported that Richard III’s tent the night before the Battle of Bosworth was a very unquiet place, as the king tossed and turned in a troubled sleep; the prey of visions and nightmares. This account is based on two early sources for the battle: the Crowland Chronicle continuation (1486) and Polydore Vergil (early sixteenth century). The former says that ‘the king, so it was reported, had seen that night, in a terrible dream, a multitude of demons apparently surrounding him, just as he attested in the morning when he presented a countenance which was always drawn, but was then even more pale and deathly’.14 Vergil tells us:

  yt ys reported that king Rycherd had that night a terrible dreame; for he thowght in his slepe that he saw horrible ymages as yt wer of evell spyrytes haunting evidently abowt him, as yt wer before his eyes, and that they wold not let him rest; which vision trewly dyd not so muche stryke into his brest a suddane feare, as replenyshe the same with heavy cares: for forthwith after, being troublyd in mynde, his hart gave him theruppon that thevent of the battale folowing wold be grievous, and he dyd not buckle himself to the conflict with such lyvelyness of corage and countenance as before, which hevynes that yt showld not be sayd he shewyd as appallyd with feare of his enemyes, he reportyd his dreame to many in the morning.15

  The problem with these accounts is that, naturally, neither the Crowland chronicler nor Polydore Vergil had actually been present in the royal camp during the night of 21/22 August, and they therefore had no personal knowledge of this matter. Thus, at best, we are dealing with hearsay evidence. In fact, we may be dealing with nothing more than the deliberate invention of early ‘Tudor’ propagandists.

  It is nevertheless interesting to extract from Vergil’s mass of hearsay the point that, up until 21 August, at least, Richard III was considered, even by his enemies, to have been preparing for the forthcoming conflict with ‘lyvelness of corage and countenance’. In addition, it is reasonable to conclude that, since both the Crowland text and Vergil report that Richard had a troubled night, there may have been a fairly early tradition to this effect, and that this story was not simply invented either by the chronicler or by Vergil. Nor should we
discount the possibility that Richard III’s reported lack of sleep contains a kernel of truth at its heart. Earlier, the suggestion was made that Richard III may have been one of those people who find it difficult to sleep comfortably in an unfamiliar bed. Given the fact that Richard had reportedly left his particular bed – no doubt a large and cumbersome piece of furniture – at the inn in Leicester, and was therefore obliged to make do with a smaller camp bed for the night of 21/22 August, this may be sufficient to explain why the king passed a somewhat uncomfortable and sleepless night. Incidentally, parts of his royal camp bed are also reputed to survive, in the form of a chair preserved at Coughton Court in Warwickshire (see figure 21).16

  There is one other conceivable (but novel, and probably controversial) explanation of Richard III’s troubled night, which would involve neither ghosts nor a guilty conscience. In chapter 6 we saw that early in August 1485 the sweating sickness struck England. If Richard had happened to fall victim to this unpleasant – but not necessarily fatal – complaint, its symptoms might perhaps account for the fact that the king passed a restless night.17 Since the main course of this malady lasted typically for about twenty-four hours, such an illness might also arguably correspond with certain aspects of the king’s conduct on the battlefield the following morning.18 Richard III is reported to have been thirsty, and to have stopped to drink from a local well. There would have been no opportunity to do this once the king had initiated his final and fatal charge, so the incident must have occurred at an early stage of the battle, and, therefore, at a time when he had not personally undertaken any strenuous activity (other than wearing full armour on a possibly warm morning) to account for his thirst. Subsequently, Vergil reports that Richard, ‘inflamyd with ire … strick his horse with the spurres’ and initiated a charge which may have been an unwise move, in that it carried the king down from what was possibly a commanding position. This charge certainly led ultimately to Richard’s own death. It led also to the defeat of the royal army, despite the fact that the royal forces are generally acknowledged to have been far superior, numerically, to those of Richard’s rival.19 We shall return to the subject of the battle of 22 August presently. First, however, let us conclude our review of Richard III’s reported experiences during the night before the conflict.