Bosworth Field: The battle that ended the Plantagenets
The Battle of Bosworth Field ushered in the Tudor dynasty’s rise, but how exactly did the medieval conflict unfold? A new Sky HISTORY series seeks answers.
Image: Public Domain
The Battle of Bosworth Field is one of the best-known in British history. It ended the Wars of the Roses - where, from 1455 to 1485, the royal houses of York and Lancaster competed for the English throne.
On 22nd August 1485, Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor defeated Richard III on a Leicestershire battlefield. Henry subsequently took Richard’s place as king of England.
The battle’s modern fame is largely due to Shakespeare, who made it a centrepiece of his 1590s play The Tragedy of Richard the Third.
Of course, as Shakespeare was primarily a playwright rather than a historian, he was not obliged to adhere strictly to historical accuracy with his plays. A new Sky HISTORY series, Britain’s Lost Battlefields, looks afresh at Bosworth to sort the facts from the myths.
What were the Wars of the Roses?
For more than three centuries before the Battle of Bosworth Field, the Plantagenets held the English throne. However, they did not consist of just one royal house. Over time, they split into two distinct factions: the Yorkists, represented by a white rose, and the Lancastrians, with the red rose as their emblem.
The Lancastrian king Henry VI’s incompetence eventually led him to be deposed by his Yorkist successor, Edward IV, in 1461. Though Henry briefly regained the throne in 1470, Edward otherwise held it until his death in April 1483, when his son Edward V succeeded him.
Richard III squanders a decade of goodwill
Since Edward recovered his throne in the early 1470s, his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had loyally governed the north of England on his behalf. So, when the 12-year-old Edward V became king, Richard must have seemed like the sensible choice to rule England during his nephew’s minority.
However, the young boy was soon declared to be the product of a bigamous marriage, rendering him illegitimate for the throne. The newly crowned Richard III left Edward and his younger brother Richard lodged in the Tower of London. Rumours that Richard III later had them killed severely damaged his reputation.
Increasing disenchantment about Richard III’s rule led more and more of his enemies to throw their weight behind a pretender to the throne. His name was Henry Tudor - and, having long lived in exile in Brittany and France, he launched an invasion of England in August 1485.
How the Battle of Bosworth Field got underway
Henry actually chose Wales as his launchpad for invading England. Wales was his ancestral homeland, where he was able to swell his army’s ranks on the way to the English border.
It is notoriously tricky to discern the exact sizes of medieval armies. However, Henry’s is thought to have grown to roughly 5,000-6,000 soldiers by the time he encountered Richard III’s forces at Bosworth. As for those troops, they are generally thought to have numbered more than 10,000 - and possibly even as many as 15,000.
The long and short of it is that Henry’s troops were outnumbered about two or three to one. Fortunately, Tudor did have the advantage when it came to tactical nous. For a start, having never directly commanded an army, he wisely delegated this task to John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.
The battle’s biggest turning point
Unlike Henry, Oxford had not only hands-on experience of warfare but also an impressive pedigree in that area. He also fared well against Richard’s army. Meanwhile, though Richard had counted the Earl of Northumberland and Sir William Stanley as allies, neither of their armies came to the king’s rescue.
Stanley, at least, appears to have held off to judge which side stood the best chance of winning. He only joined the fray after Richard attempted to charge directly at Henry Tudor.
The Battle of Bosworth Field’s legacy
The Battle of Bosworth Field is said to have claimed a hundred lives on Henry’s side and a thousand on Richard’s side. According to reports shortly after the conflict, Richard himself fought hard but was killed after finding himself cornered by Stanley’s men.
The new king, Henry VII, had Richard’s remains deposited in Leicester. They remained buried in the city until 2012, when they were famously retrieved. Long before then, however, the Tudor dynasty’s propaganda machine demonised the slain Richard as a monster guilty of the ‘shedding of infants’ blood’.
The Battle of Bosworth Field is now often seen as the end of the medieval period. Not that you have to say goodbye to it! You can long stick with it by subscribing to the Sky HISTORY newsletter.
