(Cover images – © Unknown Artist – Wikipedia)
History blesses us every day with more and more information about the lives of those who have lived before us and of the battles, births, deaths and even miracles that happened in another age. New discoveries and funded research brings us secrets hidden deep and finally answers some of the burning questions that historians have been seeking the answers to for decades, perhaps even centuries. But today marks a day of which is famed within the history books and almost every single detail that can be found out about this event is already known to historians and to the children they dictate we teach it to.
Today marks the 537th anniversary of the fate-altering Battle of Bosworth which occurred on 22nd August 1485, the very battle that brought the Tudors to the throne of England with the first of this famous dynasty; Henry Tudor or as we know him, King Henry VII of England. So, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the famed Battle of Bosworth, let us here at The Ill-Fated Wives of Henry VIII take you on a journey 537 years back in time.
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But what is the cause of this Battle of Bosworth?
Well, that is a long story.
The Battle of Bosworth’s story starts many years before in 1455 at St Albans, which lies twenty miles northwest of London, where King Henry VI and his Lancastrian forces were defeated by the Yorkist army and he was forced to relinquish his crown in favour of his cousin, Richard of York. From this moment, the eloquently labelled War of Roses commenced where parties from the houses of York and Lancaster fought over the throne like a pack of wolves for almost thirty years. The war may have appeared to have finished with the established rule of Edward IV, the maternal grandfather to Henry VIII through his mother, Elizabeth of York, who was Edward’s eldest child. But even he had enemies on all front, not just his rivals who wished to place their own choice of king upon the throne—now even his own brother George, the Duke of Clarence, was rebelling against him, though his attempts failed and he would later be executed on the grounds of treason against the Crown.
And the bloodshed would not even end when Edward IV’s death left the throne of England open for the taking when Edward’s other brother, Richard of York, has always been thought by history to be the one who murdered Edward’s two legitimate sons and heirs in the Tower of London (where they had been placed for their ‘safety’ by Richard) in order to claim the throne and become King Richard III of England. And in the year of 1485, when Richard III was still the ‘rightful’ King of England as he decreed himself so, that our beloved Henry Tudor and the Battle of Bosworth comes into play.
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So, who were the belligerents or parties behind the war and what information do we have about them before they entered this battle for the throne of England?
The three important figures of the Battle of Bosworth were as follows; the leader of the Yorkist army; King Richard III of England, the leader of the Lancastrian army; Henry Tudor, and the clever strategist Thomas Stanley of the noble Stanley family. And now we shall examine each of them in detail, starting with Richard III.
Defending themselves in the Battle of Bosworth was Richard III who had now been King of England for just two years, in which he had watched the death of his son Edward, the Prince of Wales, and his wife and Queen, Anne Neville—yes, the daughter of the ‘Kingmaker’—just months before the battle even took place. Though he still had two sons and a daughter (though we know very little of her) who could succeed him should he fall in battle, he still felt he had to defend himself against his enemy, Henry Tudor, to prove he was the rightful heir to the throne simply because he was the former King’s brother and a York, who must remain in favour after his brother cast away the old Lancastrian King. The exact number of men within his army are not known but it is estimated that he had between 8,000 and 10,000 men at his disposal. King Richard himself led his army into the battle, believing that he would prove victorious and his son would one day succeed him to the throne, and it costed him greatly indeed.
Turning to the second party, the leader of the Yorkist army; Henry Tudor, the future King of England, Henry VII. Henry Tudor rose to question the validity of Richard’s rule because it was his brother who stole the crown from the former Lancastrian King, Henry VI, who was Henry Tudor’s uncle through his father Owen Tudor through his marriage to Catherine of Valois, Henry VI’s mother. Therefore, by marriage, he was an heir to the throne of England, when Edward IV stole it from his uncle, and through the encouragement of his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, who strongly believed that her son had a claim to the throne of England, saying it was God’s will and devoted her entire life to making her son King. Though Henry would go on to win, it appeared at first that he was the one who might lose as he had only around 5,000 to 6,000 men, which comprised of 2,000 French men from which Henry gathered during his exile to France, where he fled many years before out of fear for his own safety, should he be killed by the King (Edward at the time). The odds were against Henry, at this point but if he should succeed, it was his plan (though he would have been guided heavily in this matter by his mother) to take the crown of England as it was rightfully his as well as take Elizabeth of York, Princess of England and daughter of Edward IV, as his wife, as a way of uniting the houses and getting the Yorkist to accept his rule as King. Luckily, this would come to pass.
And the final party in this great Battle of Bosworth is Thomas Stanley; a man who held the fate of the kingdom in his hands by one simple matter; he chose not to definitively support a side until he reached the battlefield. This was a smart play; whichever side he chose to support would have a higher chance of winning the battle but even though he managed to maintain favour with both of these men (as one of them would be his King and he needed to show support for the one he believed would win), Thomas Stanley inevitably sided with the future King, Henry Tudor, who was his stepson after his mother remarried to establish a bigger presence in court (most likely so she could plan her son’s succession to the throne whilst watching her enemies closely), and King Richard had just taken Thomas Stanley’s son as hostage, so no wonder he chose Henry’s side. As Thomas was a powerful member of the famous Stanley family, one of the most influential families in English history, it is no wonder that he was able to provide his stepson with an army estimated to have had between 4,000 to 6,000 men waiting to support Henry’s claim to the throne (and Thomas’ brother William is said to have contributed 1,000 men to that figure). The aim for Thomas Stanley following the battle was that his efforts towards supporting Henry would allow him to rise more in favour and have more influence over the English court. Of course, it would mean that his wife achieved her wish of seeing her one and only son placed upon the coveted English throne.
These are the three men whose lives were changed forever on the Battle of Bosworth, but what exactly happened on this historic day, and how did Henry Tudor successfully secure the throne for his future dynasty?
Let’s find out!
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Though Henry Tudor’s ‘war’ against the ‘pretender’ King Richard III of England would have been many months, possibly years, in the making, Richard III must have been blindsided that an exiled member of the Lancastrian family would even think to challenge his rule as King and wish to dethrone him. This means it would have been very stressful and overwhelming to think that he had to make preparations for a battle and gather a large enough army to defeat Henry. After all, he would have had no accurate details of Henry’s army or what plans had been made to ensure that Richard would be dethroned so he had to work tirelessly to make sure England was prepared for another war and wait anxiously day and night for any news of sightings of Henry’s army coming ashore in England.
The news would finally come to him in the early days of August 1485 when Henry Tudor landed in South Wales with his initial army of 2,000 French soldiers after crossing the English channel from France. By the time Henry and his army had crossed the long and tiring Welsh countryside to reach the town of Shrewsbury, his army had almost tripled in size after gaining more support from his fellow countrymen. After this, he made the journey to the field of Bosworth, near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire. He was now prepared to battle Richard and take the throne that was rightfully his once and for all. Confident and ready to be King, Henry Tudor and his army waited for his enemy to arrive and he did not have to wait long as, upon hearing of Henry’s landing in England, King Richard mustered his Yorkist army to arrive at Leicester ahead of the battle. By then, his army was at its largest and victory was sure to be his, if the numbers were anything to go by. Ready for battle, the King deployed his troops to stand at the ready on a hill top which lay to the south of the battlefield, directly adjacent to Richard was Lord Stanley and his army, who chose to simply stand and observe the bloody battle ahead.
Some minor yet interesting details to the Battle of Bosworth might be of interest to some of you so I have decided to include them. Did you know that both the armies of Henry Tudor and Richard III relied upon strong forces of longbowmen who were men who stood either at the highest point of battle or at the front of lines in order to kill the enemy before you’ve even engaged in face-to-face battle. Or that even with new technology allowing the creation and arming of handheld firearms, they were still much too unreliable and dangerous for soldiers to discharge, meaning that they relied upon the more traditional sword, lance and shield with the commanders, knights and noble supporters of each army rode and fought on horsebacks whilst the rest of the army remained on foot?
Historians have even found that, despite common belief and their wide use in warfare, artillery was not relied upon within the battle because they proved ‘heavy, cumbersome and difficult to operate’. It was in fact cannons that appear to have been utilised by both belligerents which were found in a field quite close to the site of the battle and would have been left there afterwards.
Back to the battle commencing—at first, the battle seemed to not be entirely sided to one of the ‘Kings’ favour, at one point Richard was winning but then it would change and Henry would have the upper hand but with Richard growing sick of being ‘frightened’ of this challenger, he decided to make the decision that would cost him his life—by leading a charge aimed directly at Henry Tudor, separating him from the rest of his force. Upon seeing this, Lord Stanley finally made up his mind about whether to support his stepson or his King and seeing how his stepson was on the verge of being defeated, he took his men and aided the men he wished to see on the throne.
Fortunately, Lord Stanley’s men alongside Henry’s managed to overwhelm Richard as his horse soon became trapped in soggy ground, the King was thrown off his horse and immediately surrounded by enemy soldiers, and he fought until his dying breath. It is not known precisely what ended Richard III but his body was abandoned by his troops and was buried in a plain unmarked tomb in Leicester and forgotten about until it was recently rediscovered in September 2012 in a Leicester car-park. And once it was discovered, historians found that he sustained many injuries in his final moments which include but are not limited to; multiple skull fractures with many being fatal, wounds and fractures to the jaw and cheeks, innumerable injuries to the mandible, rib and pelvis which would have made it unbearable to move or to fight, meaning that he would have been susceptible to injuries to the skull or face. And so, with his death, Richard III was known as the last Plantagenet ever to be crowned King of England as well as the last monarch of England to be killed in battle, in his final moments, Richard clung deeply to his belief that he was still King as he spoke the words; ‘I will die king of England. I will not budge a foot. Treason! Treason!’
As his final breaths left him, his crown was lifted from his broken head and brought forth to the winner of the Battle of Bosworth; Henry Tudor, who was now proclaimed King on the nearby Crown Hill. The casualties for the Battle of Bosworth are not truly known but it is believed that whilst Richard’s men died in their thousands, Henry’s and Lord Stanley’s were only in their mere hundreds. Lord Stanley, whose support had brought forth Henry’s victory, would forever remain in Henry Tudor’s favour, for the rest of his life and Henry Tudor was the first monarch of one of the greatest English royal dynasties of all time.
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Remarkable, isn’t it, how one day can forever change a nation, never mind the world. Today marks a day in history that will never be forgotten, a day in which a man exiled for most of his life fought bravely in a battle and came out a King on the other side. Henry Tudor, despite having been overshadowed by his much more ambitious and scandalous son Henry VIII, was a King who should be remembered for his own glory at the Battle of Bosworth, a battle for the crown well fought.
Let us know what you think of this mighty day in the comments below and whether you thought Henry was the rightful victor of the battle or whether Richard was wrongly dethroned.
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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