Bosworth 1485

A Battlefield Rediscovered

Glenn Foard, Anne Curry, Anne Curry

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781782971788
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Arqueología

Bosworth stands alongside Naseby and Hastings as one of the three most iconic battles ever fought on English soil. The action on 22 August 1485 brought to an end the dynastic struggle known as the Wars of the Roses and heralded the dawn of the Tudor dynasty. However, Bosworth was also the most famous lost battlefield in England. Between 2005 and 2010, the techniques of battlefield archaeology were used in a major research programme to locate the site. Bosworth 1485: a battlefield rediscovered is the result. Using data from historical documents, landscape archaeology, metal detecting survey, ballistics and scientific analysis, the volume explores each aspect of the investigation – from the size of the armies, their weaponry, and the battlefield terrain to exciting new evidence of the early use of artillery – in order to identify where and how the fighting took place. Bosworth 1485 provides a fascinating and intricately researched new perspective on the event which, perhaps more than any other, marked the transition between medieval and early modern England.

1

A BATTLEFIELD LOST

The ‘traditional’ interpretation of the battle, and that presented at the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre until 2009, placed the action on Ambion Hill in Sutton Cheney. This was based principally on the work of the eighteenth-century historian William Hutton, refined by Nichols in his 1813 edition of Hutton’s book, then variously reworked and repeated by others in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.¹ As we shall see from a number of early sources, the true location of the battlefield remained well known through the sixteenth and much of the seventeenth centuries. The way in which the site seems to have been transferred to Ambion Hill is an interesting story in its own right and one which has implications for the validity of the traditional sites of other battles.

In 1576 the location of the battle of Bosworth was shown by Saxton in his national Atlas, in what appears to be the earliest depiction of a battlefield on an English map (Figure 1.2). Yet early depiction in this way is no certainty that, today, the site is securely placed in the landscape. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cartography was in its infancy, in terms of accuracy of surveying and in the standardised representation of features – including battles. Thus the form and topographical detail of Norden’s depiction of Barnet, with troops arrayed either side of the road, is very different to the apparent definition of the spatial extent of Bosworth by Saxton, while neither is like the vaguely placed tents seen on other battles in Speed’s Atlas of the early seventeenth century.² The crossed swords of the Ordnance Survey, centred on the supposed site of the action, were a somewhat later invention. The travels of the 1471 battle of Barnet, the site of which has still not been determined with certainty, are a good example of the problems, not least because here the final shift seems only to have taken place at the end of the nineteenth century. It appears that only a handful of battlefields may have remained as securely placed in the landscape as Towton, from the time of the action until the present.³

A few years after Saxton’s map was published we find Holinshed adding a significant comment about Bosworth battlefield, to what is otherwise a direct copy of Hall’s account of the battle. ‘Betweene both armies there was a great marish then (but at this present, by reason of diches cast, it is growne to be firme ground) which the earle of Richmond left on his right hand …’ This implies the author had first-hand knowledge of the battlefield or access to those who did, something that seems quite likely because, by 1578, Holinshed was living in the village of Bramcote, which is just 6 miles (c. 9.7 km) south of the site.⁴

In the early seventeenth century the antiquary Burton (1575–1645), who lived in nearby Lindley Hall and owned land which abutted the battlefield, makes comment on the site of the battle.⁵ He was able to draw upon local tradition not many decades beyond living memory: he refers to various features and discoveries, as well as the fact that many of the dead from the battle were later re-buried in Dadlington churchyard. He also mentions finds of armour made when Stoke Golding township was enclosed in 1604–5. Some of these finds were in his possession in the 1620s and he believed them to have come from the battle, though this cannot now be confirmed as neither the objects nor images of them apparently survive.⁶ He also claims that John Hardwick of Lindley, a relation of his family, acted as Henry’s guide to the battlefield and that it was by his good offices that in the battle Henry gained the advantage of the ground, wind and sun.⁷ Most importantly Burton wrote:

‘…not that this field was fought at this place [Bosworth] (it being fought in a large, flat, plaine and spacious ground, three miles distant from this Towne, betweene the Towne of Shenton, Sutton, Dadlington and Stoke:) but that this Towne was the most worthy towne of note neere adiacent, and was therefore called Bosworth field…’⁸

Unfortunately at no point does Burton give a more accurate location, thus providing an almost blank canvas for later historians. His description of the character of the ground – a ‘large flat plaine and spacious ground’ – cannot refer to Ambion Hill but does accords well with the battlefield as we now know it. Moreover, the latter is just over 3 miles (5 km) from Market Bosworth whereas Ambion at less than two. It might be argued that Burton was too far detached in time from the events and that his placing of the site between the four villages was simply drawn from Saxton, while his description of the ground derived from a reading of Hall or Holinshed. The same cannot be said of John Taylor, who went to Dadlington in 1639, from which he visited the battlefield. In his ‘Travels’ he states that from Leicester:

‘I went eight miles to see Red(mo)re field, where the King fell, which is a moorish kinde of ground, altogether unfruitfull, and the water doth seem red, which some foolish people do suppose to be the staine of K. Richards bloud; but it is onely the colour of the red earth that makes the water seeme so, and the ground close adjoyning is very fertile for Corne and Pasturage, but in the lower parts it is boggy and moory: by nature, and not either barren or bloudy by any reason of the Kings death.’⁹

This description accords well with what we now know of the true site of the battle, but as it must have been after the first phase of drainage and before both enclosure and the drainage were completed. It is certainly not a description of Ambion Hill, either as seen in our work or as Hutton described it. Indeed, Hutton knew Sutton Cheney before enclosure in 1797 and was clear there was not and had never been a marsh in the township.¹⁰ Another significant aspect of Taylor’s account is his reference to the red colour of the ground. Though he may have assumed this from the name Redmore, rather from observation of the site, it is interesting that already by the mid seventeenth century the name was being associated with the colour of the soil. The place name interpretation, as we shall see, is more strongly in favour of a different interpretation of the name Redemore. Yet, after two years detecting on the site, one is well aware of the reddish colour of the ground in the heart of the battlefield, compared to the rest of the landscape, and thus why the association should have been made.

Five years after Taylor’s visit, a news-sheet reported that a detachment of 80 parliamentarian cavalry from Leicester rode out ‘towards Bosworth Field, where they overtook One hundred and twenty of Hastings Forces, and there fought with them, in the very place where King Richard was slain…’. Thereafter the news-sheet lists the prisoners taken ‘at King RICHARDS field…’¹¹ While the latter could be derived from Saxton’s or Speed’s map, the site of Richard’s death is not shown on any map, yet the reference is so specific that it would appear the true site was still known at the time. In 1698, on her tour from Cambridge to Lichfield, Celia Fiennes also visited the battlefield:

‘From thence I passed to Bosworth 8 miles, and went by a Gentlemans house and thro’ a little parke where the deer were very tame, and passed through Bosworth and over ye ground where was ye battle between King Richard yt Lost his Life by ye hand of ye Earle of Richmond afterwards King Henry ye Seventh, who was Crown’d in this Bosworth field wth ye Crown taken off from King Richards head….. This is a great flatt full of good Enclosures….. From thence I went to Fallmouth (Polesworth?) 7 miles more and so into Warwickshire over a bridge. This is a little market town; thence 3 miles more to Tamworth…’

Fiennes seems to refer to a plain not a hill, so the original site may still have been identified to travellers. If so, then her route to Polesworth and Tamworth would be directly from the battlefield along the Hinckley to Tamworth road, for which the probable alignment is given on Figure 8.2.¹² Exactly how the true site of the battle came to be lost, and when this occurred in late seventeenth or eighteenth century, may never be fully understood. However, a key element in the process appears to be preserved in the sequence of county maps, between 1576 and 1777, which depict the location of the battlefield.¹³ The first, as we have seen, is Saxton’s map of Leicestershire, on which he outlines an area called ‘King Ric: Feld’ between the settlements of Bosworth, Shenton, Upton, Drayton, Lindley, Dadlington and Sutton. It is the only battlefield depicted in his whole Atlas of England and Wales, suggesting it was added because of its importance to the Tudor dynasty, under whose patronage he worked.¹⁴ His depiction was followed with slight but potentially significant embellishments by various map makers over the following two centuries.

The broad position relative to the named villages is significant, but the fine detail of position on such maps cannot be taken at face value. The extent of the area shown by Saxton towards the north-east, stretching some 6 km in length, is undoubtedly determined by the extent of the wording to be encompassed, for the area is far larger than any battlefield of the period. Our crude attempt to depict this area on a modern map base seems to suggest that it is the left hand side of the first word which, in reality, was intended to mark the centre of the battlefield (Figure 1.1 and 1.10). Moreover, the hill he depicts within the zone is the only hill he shows in this whole region of Leicestershire and so it is surely meant to be the hill, referred to by Polydore Vergil, upon which Henry VII was crowned. As we shall see, this can now be identified with some confidence as Crown Hill, which lies beside Stoke G...