Richard III

by Seward, Desmond

  Henry’s army was three miles down the Roman road below, about three miles south-west. He had perhaps 5,000 men, compared with the King’s 12,000. He still hoped that he would be reinforced by the Stanleys. Indeed, he knew that he was doomed without them.

  It is clear that Lord Stanley and Sir William had not made up their minds. Accordingly they camped to the north of Ambion Hill, Sir William’s force in front of his brother’s, so that they could await the outcome of the battle and join the winning side. In consequence, as Gairdner points out, there were in fact four armies ‘placed, as regards each other, not unlike whist-players’. They still claimed that they had come to fight for Richard. The thought which must surely have been uppermost in the minds of both the King and the Earl of Richmond was: how would the Stanleys and their 8,000 troops act next day?

  If a romantic and undocumented tradition handed down among the family of the Earls of Winchelsea is true, Richard had a moving encounter on the day before the battle. About 1530 a Kentish landowner (and ancestor of the Earls of Winchilsea), Sir Thomas Moyle of Eastwell, met an old stonemason who told him that, as a child knowing nothing of his parents, he had been expensively educated in London. On one occasion, the boy was taken to a magnificent house where a gentleman with ‘a star and garter’ questioned him and gave him money. Later he was brought to a place which he afterwards realized was Bosworth and in the royal pavilion the same gentleman embraced him. It was the King who informed the boy that he was his father, promising to acknowledge him publicly as his son. ‘But, child,’ added Richard, ‘if I should be so unfortunate as to lose the battle, take care to let nobody know that I am your father, for no mercy will be shown to anyone so nearly related.’ Richard then said goodbye, giving him a purse of gold. After the battle the boy fled and apprenticed himself to a mason. Moyle, at any rate, believed the story. He gave the old man a cottage at Eastwell and had recorded in the parish register that a ‘Rychard Plantagenet’ was buried there in 1550.6

  Professor Ross emphasizes that ‘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.’ In particular, he writes that ‘Kendall’s account of the battle remains an astonishing mixture of imagination, speculation and purple prose, and his description of Richard’s last moments seems to suggest that he was perched on the crupper of the king’s horse.’7

  No proper eyewitness report has survived. A Spanish soldier of fortune who was actually present, Juan de Salazar, recounts his experiences in a letter but is too brief and confused to be of much value, though he confirms how Richard met his end and gives some useful details. Nevertheless, careful analysis of the information supplied by the Croyland writer, by Vergil, by the compiler of the Great Chronicle of London, and by the authors of the ballads ‘Bosworth Feilde’ and ‘The Most Pleasant Song of the Lady Bessy’ make possible an approximate recreation of one of the most dramatic conflicts in English history.

  Both contemporary sources and tradition suggest that the King was unable to sleep. There is a fantastic legend of considerably later date that he went round the camp in the dark and, catching a sentry dozing at his post, stabbed him to death – with the comment, ‘I find him asleep and I leave him asleep.’ It is certainly in character, or at least in character with what his subjects thought of him.

  Richard and his men rose in the dark before dawn, towards 4.00 a.m. One can reconstruct the scene in the royal pavilion where the King was being armed by his pages in a ritual with which he was very well acquainted. Various sections of his steel ‘harness’ would have been laid out on a trestle table together with his weapons; no exact description has survived, but it is possible to guess what they included with a fair degree of accuracy. The armour, which he had worn at Tewkesbury, is likely to have been a German one, perhaps from Nuremberg, since German armourers were then the best in Europe. (Those from Italy were made for elegance and show rather than for fighting.) First he put on a satin-lined fustian doublet, cut full of holes for coolness and worn next to the skin, worsted hose with padded kneecaps, and thick leather shoes. The pages began with his feet on which they placed pointed, articulated ‘sollerets’ to which gold spurs were attached. His legs and thighs were similarly covered in plate, his loins by a mail apron over which was a short skirt of horizontal, overlapping plate ‘tonlets’. His torso was protected by breast- and back-plates, the former reinforced by an extra thickness. His arms were guarded by ‘vambraces’ and ‘rerebraces’, though they were probably without the huge butterfly elbow ‘cops’ so popular until recently, his shoulders by deep, laminated ‘pauldrons’. Then came gauntlets of articulated steel. A loose belt was girded round his waist, from one side of which hung a triangular-bladed dagger and from the other a naked, double-edged sword thrust through a round ring so that it could be easily drawn. We know (from Salazar) that over all he donned a short-sleeved red and blue silk surcoat, slit at the sides, embroidered with the golden leopards and lilies of England and France. At last, after many minutes of buckling and strapping, his helmet was put on – to judge from his Great Seal this would have been a sallet rather than a closed bascinet, and could be pushed back off the face. Almost certainly it was of gold-plated steel and surmounted by a crown. The latter was not the massive diadem which he wore on state occasions, but none the less an unmistakably regal coronet of fabulous splendour and price; Salazar valued it at 120,000 crowns – £20,000 in the money of 1485.

  When the King emerged from his pavilion into darkness dimly lit by guttering torches, the captains waiting outside started back at the weirdly pale and haggard face and staring eyes beneath the crown. In response to their unconcealed alarm Richard explained, perhaps unwisely, that during the night he had had terrible dreams in which demons had tormented him. (It was an age which took such dreaming very seriously indeed; just before Arthur’s last battle the dead Sir Gawain appeared while he slept and warned him, ‘For an ye fight as to-morrow, doubt ye not ye must be slain.’) Still more ominous, no chaplains could be found in the camp to say Mass; considerable importance was attached to hearing it daily, as often as three times, and above all before such dangerous events as a battle. Yet the King, normally so conventional and punctilious in religious observance, did not send for a priest from a neighbouring village. Nor had anybody prepared breakfast for him.

  Having given his commands, he mounted a tall grey war horse. He may not have uttered Shakespeare’s superb line ‘Saddle White Surrey’, but we know that an animal with this name was in the royal stables, and, according to tradition if not eyewitness testimony, the King rode a white charger at Bosworth. He was handed his principal weapons, a battleaxe and a lance. The former was probably of the type sometimes known as a battle hammer, basically a hatchet with a spike above the small but very heavy blade or hammer, and with a long steel shaft; it was used as a bludgeon rather than an axe, to smash in an enemy’s armour and inflict lethal bruising. His lance would have been a much thicker and heavier weapon than the early twentieth-century cavalry lance, since it was intended to knock an opponent out of the saddle instead of skewering him, but for obvious reasons was only effective at the first impact.

  Even the hostile ‘Song of the Lady Bessy’ admits that Richard III arrayed himself for battle like a true monarch:

  Give me my battleaxe in my hand

  And set my crown on my head so high!

  For, by Him that made both Sun and Moon,

  King of England this day I will die.

  His captains remonstrated with him for wearing the crown – it made him immediately identifiable as well as offering a glittering booty – but he would not listen.

  Standing on a small hillock, Richard addressed his men in the cold dawn twilight. He prophesied wildly that, whoever won the battle, its outcome would destroy England – if victorious he would exterminate every rebel, just as Henry Tudor was going to slaughter all opponents should he win. The King had al
ready threatened that ‘Whoever should be found in any part of the Kingdom after the victory should have been gained, to have omitted appearing in his presence on the field, was to expect no other fate than the loss of all his goods and possessions as well as his life.’ The speech may have been an attempt to inspire ferocity in his troops but, in view of the mood which his captains noted with such alarm, it is more likely to have been dictated by rage. It could well be that the last Plantagenet King was on the verge of hysteria when he rode out to his last battle on Monday 22 August 1485.

  Nevertheless, he disposed his forces in a most elaborate formation on top of Ambion Hill. In front, just on the brow, was the van under the Duke of Norfolk; it consisted of billmen and gunners whose cannon, 140 light serpentines and as many bombards, were joined by chains to stop enemy horse riding through them, with lines of archers before and on the flanks. Cannoneers and archers would have been reinforced by several hundred sooty-faced hand-gunners, of the sort employed at Tewkesbury, whose primitive match-locks were now recognizable as arquebuses and increasingly effective. Richard was behind the van, with a small but picked force of men-at-arms – heavy cavalry – supported by more infantry. Behind him was the 3,000-strong contingent of the Earl of Northumberland. Vergil comments that the van was ‘of a wonderful length, so full replenished both with footmen and horsemen that to the beholders afar off it gave a terror for the multitude’. So unusual a formation has been attributed to a knowledge of the new Swiss tactics, which had annihilated the King’s late brother-in-law, Charles of Burgundy, only a few years before. Richard’s military studies went further than merely reading Vegetius. But, as will be seen, his application of what he had learnt was more ingenious than practical.

  19. Sir Gervase Clifton, a former Esquire of the Body to Edward IV, who fought for Richard at Bosworth but survived and was later pardoned by Henry VII. From a brass at Clifton, Notts.

  Even at this very last moment the King does not seem to have distrusted Northumberland, although he must have known that some sort of treachery was being planned. During the night a jingle had been nailed to Norfolk’s tent:

  Jack of Norfolk, be not too bold,

  For Dickon, thy master, is bought and sold.

  No doubt all the King’s suspicions were centred on the Stanleys. He sent an order to Lord Stanley to join him at once, if he wanted Strange to stay alive. The reply came that Lord Stanley did not feel like joining him and had other sons. Richard at once ordered that Lord Strange be beheaded. But his captains refused to obey the order, so instead he gave instructions for the young man to be kept under close arrest until he could deal with him after the battle. He realized that not only the Stanleys but some of those closest to him were of questionable loyalty.

  As the King pondered his strategy, he was looking on a forest of banners. On both sides peers and knights banneret (such as Ratcliff and over a hundred others) had their personal standards borne before them as rallying points for their men. Banners were still the best – indeed the only – method of grouping combatants into semi-coherent formations.

  Henry Tudor’s forces were so heavily outnumbered that he had only the sketchiest of centres. It was commanded by the Earl of Oxford, who was in charge of the little army’s tactics. Sir Gilbert Talbot had the right and Sir John Savage the left. Henry was behind them, with a pitiful reserve which consisted of a single troop of horse and a few foot soldiers. A frantic plea to Lord Stanley to join him received an alarmingly evasive answer. Even Vergil admits that the Tudor was ‘no little vexed and began to be somewhat appalled’. He was in what seemed to be a hopeless situation.

  Looking up, he could see the dread King’s mighty host on the hill, poised to hurtle down and destroy him and his outnumbered troops. A vivid eyewitness memory of the terror on Mount Ambion above is preserved by ‘The Most Pleasant Song of the Lady Bessy’; the challengers saw how the Plantagenet Satan ‘hoveth upon the mountain’. Since the Stanleys appeared to have deserted them, Henry’s followers had only two choices. They could run for it – and no doubt many wanted to – but everyone knew that their merciless enemy would pursue them to the death. The sole alternative was an attack uphill despite all the odds. There was just a chance that Richard’s narrow front would prevent him from making full use of his overwhelming numbers; it would be impossible for Northumberland to march down and round to take them in flank in time. Furthermore, firing downhill may have made the royal army’s serpentines even less accurate than usual. Oxford, a brilliant commander, took what in the circumstances was the only possible decision. If those with him could not match his bravery, they had at least the courage of despair.

  Oxford skirted the marsh at the bottom of Ambion Hill, and then began to lead his troops up the slope. Richard’s archers shot flight after flight at them. The King, determined to smash them while they were deploying and before they could launch a proper attack, ordered the Duke of Norfolk to advance. The old warrior and the front ranks of the van charged downhill. In all logic he should have annihilated so puny an enemy. But he was faced by Oxford, who knew just what to do. The Earl ordered his men to group round his banners – i.e. around their officers – and not to move more than ten feet away from them, bunching the troops into a tight wedge which cut Norfolk’s attack in two. The royal soldiers were taken aback by this manoeuvre and, fearing a trap, withdrew to regroup. There was a brief lull in the fighting. Then the opposing centres came to grips again in a savage hand-to-hand struggle. Tradition says that the Duke engaged Oxford in personal combat and wounded him slightly, but that the Earl hacked off his chinpiece, whereupon a stray arrow hit the old man in the throat. Surrey was surrounded and gave up his sword to Gilbert Talbot. The murderous slogging match continued, though it is clear that the King’s troops were astonished by such a reception.

  They had never before encountered, new Swiss style infantry, whose pikes fended off mounted men-at-arms with ease. Nor had they faced arquebuses that fired armour-piercing bullets.

  Looking down, Richard must have been badly shaken by Norfolk’s death and by the enemy’s advanced weaponry. Plainly he was already pessimistic enough about the way the battle might go. He had had his cannon roped together to stop them being overrun by a more formidable force than that of his rival – it was the Stanleys whom he feared. But so far they had shown no sign of moving.

  Below, Henry was still waiting forlornly. He had taken up a position where the Stanleys could join him, but they had not done so. Without them, despite Oxford’s heroic performance, he knew that his defeat was inevitable. Henry decided that his last hope lay in throwing himself on their mercy; if they would not come to him, he would go to them. With his small bodyguard and his Red Dragon banner, carried by William Brandon, he began to ride towards their lines. He was taking a desperate risk. Had he reached the Stanleys, he might well have been seized and handed over to the King as a proof of their loyalty.

  On the hill above, Richard was further alarmed by the Earl of Northumberland’s totally unexpected refusal to try to bring his troops into action. The Earl might not have been able to take Oxford in flank, but he could probably have prevented the Stanleys from joining the enemy by placing his force between them. In any case the King must have been worried by his own men’s increasingly poor morale; there was the possibility of large-scale desertion. As it was, he himself was over-excited.

  Then Richard identified his rival’s party behind the unmistakable dragon banner cantering over the plain beneath on its way to the Stanley lines. ‘Now tide me death, betide me life,’ he may well have exclaimed like Arthur on beholding Mordred at the last battle. ‘Now I see him yonder alone he shall never escape mine hand.’ If he could intercept Henry, he might win the battle and the entire campaign at one blow. Yet in doing so he would place himself at the mercy of the Stanleys. It was not a brilliant tactical manoeuvre, as is sometimes claimed, but an insane gamble – his father had thrown away his life in exactly the same foolhardy gesture a quarter of a century ago. After a qui
ck drink from ‘Dickon’s Well’ (as it is still known) Richard ‘all inflamed with ire’ ordered his Household to charge. The heavily armoured horsemen couched their massive lances.

  The Knights and Esquires of the Body thundered down the hill with their master, under the banner of the white boar. The two little forces – the King had no more than a hundred men with him, Henry perhaps fifty – collided on Redmore Plain. At the first shock of impact Richard killed William Brandon with his lance, sending the banner of Cadwallader crashing to the ground. He then struck down the gigantic Sir John Cheyney out of the saddle with his axe. The Household did equally lethal execution, they and the King ‘making way with weapon on every side’, as Vergil was informed long after. Richard personally slew more of his rival’s party in the mêlée – he may even have exchanged blows with the Tudor himself. The latter’s men began to despair, though the inexperienced Henry, who had never been in battle before, was fighting better than they had expected. But in a matter of minutes he too would have been cut down.

  20. John Sacheverell of Snetterton and Hopwell, Derbyshire, and his wife. He was killed at Bosworth fighting for Richard. From a brass laid down forty years later at the church of St Matthew, Morley, Derbyshire.

  Only a short distance away, barely more than half a mile off, Sir William Stanley could see what was about to happen. If Henry died, he himself would be doomed. (Ironically the new Tudor King was to behead him ten years later.) With his 3,000 men in their red jerkins shouting ‘Stanley! Stanley!’, he charged to the rescue – just in time.

  The Royal Household was overwhelmed. Robert Brackenbury had already been slain by his old friend Walter Hungerford, one of the Tudor’s escorts. Others of the henchmen fell – Richard Ratcliff, John Kendall, Robert Percy, Walter Hopton – and the King was told that he must flee. He refused. ‘I will die King of England,’ he replied fiercely, ‘I will not budge a foot!’ His horse was killed under him and somehow a fresh horse was brought to him, but he would not mount it. With wolfish courage he went on swinging that murderous axe on foot. The far from uncritical Croyland writer says that at last, ‘pierced with numerous and deadly wounds, he fell in the field like a brave and valiant Prince’. Even the violently hostile Rous tells us, ‘He bore himself like a noble soldier and, despite his little body and feeble strength, honourably defended himself to his last breath, shouting, again and again that he was betrayed and crying “Treason! Treason! Treason!” ’ Vergil too admits that ‘King Richard alone was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies.’