Meanwhile a spy – Clifford? - had learned that the enemy’s ships would make for ‘Milford’, which was a tiny, port in Hampshire, and Lord Lovell assembled a flotilla at Southampton to intercept them.
The Great Seal was delivered to the King at Nottingham on 11 August. That very same day he received news that the Earl of Richmond had already landed, in a place where he had been least expected, and was marching towards him with his army.
Chapter Thirteen
‘THE KING’S ENEMIES BE A-LAND’
‘For the just depriving of that homicide and unnatural tyrant which now unjustly bears dominion over you.’
Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, letter of early 1485
‘How like you the killing of my brethren dear? Welcome, gentle uncle, home.’
Humphrey Brereton, ‘The Most Pleasant Song of the Lady Bessy’
Some time during the third week of August 1485 John Paston received a hasty note from his great neighbour, the Duke of Norfolk. It was almost certainly written on Saturday the 13th.
Well beloved friend, I commend me to you, letting you understand that the King’s enemies be a-land and that the King would have set forth as upon Monday but only for Our Lady Day [Feast of the Assumption], but for certain he goeth forth as upon Tuesday, for a servant of mine brought to me the certainty. Wherefore I pray you that ye meet with me at Bury [St Edmunds] for by the grace of God I purpose to lie at Bury as upon Tuesday night, and that ye bring with you such company of tall men as ye may goodly make at my cost and charge, beside that ye have promised the King. And I pray you ordain them jackets of my livery, and I shall content you at your meeting with me. Your lover.
J. Norfolk.
Similar summonses were going out all over England, sent by the henchmen. They were also being sent by the Stanleys and Northumberland. Richard was taken completely by surprise at the enemy’s choice of landing place – despite all his precautions he had not received news of the invasion for four days, when the Earl of Richmond was already approaching Shrewsbury. Nevertheless, on hearing of it, the King rejoiced ‘or at least seemed to rejoice,’ says the Croyland chronicler, who may have watched him with his own eyes.
The little Tudor fleet had made land on the north side of Milford Haven in south-west Wales, just before sunset on Sunday 7 August. As soon as he set foot on Welsh soil, Henry knelt, kissed the ground, crossed himself and then recited the Psalm ‘Judica me, Deus, et discerna causam meam’ – ‘O God, sustain my cause …’ Then he knighted several of his supporters. From the start he acted as though he were a rightful King come to claim his own.
Henry had chosen Pembrokeshire as the invasion point for a variety of reasons. His uncle Jasper knew the area well and still had influence there, while his agent John Morgan of Tredegar had sent a message assuring him that he would be joined by Rhys ap Thomas and Sir John Savage, whose mother was a sister of the Stanleys. The former commanded immense respect among the southern Welsh because of his descent from one of their greatest Princes, and his castle of Dynevor in Carmarthenshire was only a short distance away. Not only was Sir John Savage (of Clifton in Cheshire) one of Richard’s Knights of the Body and a trusted official who had received rich rewards, but he possessed influence all over Wales. In addition Sir Gilbert Talbot, on the southern Welsh border, had contacted Henry to say that he would come out with him. High Sheriff of Shropshire, Talbot was the uncle and guardian of the young Earl of Shrewsbury.
Yet, to begin with, the little expedition appeared to be in some danger. Henry was told that enemies had been waiting for him for months. There was no sign that Rhys ap Thomas and Savage, let alone Talbot, really were going to risk their necks. Admittedly lesser men such as Evan Morgan and William ap Griffith came in very quickly, bringing a handful of troops, as did a small band from the town of Pembroke, who had always stayed loyal to Jasper Tudor. Nevertheless, men of position reacted to news of Henry’s arrival with the utmost caution. He had to move as carefully and discreetly as possible. Although a rumour that a large force of troops loyal to Richard was about to intercept him proved false, it seemed that South Wales was firmly controlled by the King’s son-in-law, the Earl of Huntingdon (Katharine’s husband). Henry therefore marched north until he reached central Wales and then turned east through Powys to enter England. At any moment he might have been overwhelmed by the Stanleys – had they been faithful to Richard. Then the gates of Shrewsbury opened. Suddenly the Tudor army began to grow dramatically.
As it approached Newport in Shropshire, Rhys ap Thomas joined Henry with a thousand men. Sir Gilbert Talbot then arrived with every Talbot retainer capable of bearing arms, another 500. Significantly he was a neighbour and friend of the Stanley brothers. Hitherto the Tudor’s recruits had been mainly Welshmen, no doubt flattered by his marching under the ‘family’ banner of the red dragon of Cadwallader; many of them would have responded to the Celtic combination of flattery and threats he was sending out, as in his letter to his distant cousin John ap Meredith, which promised to restore the people of Wales to their ‘erst liberties’ while commanding John to come and fight for him ‘as ye will avoid our grievous displeasure and answer it unto your peril’. However, Talbot’s troops were Shropshiremen, and as Henry marched further into England, he was joined by still more English knights and gentry.
None the less it was reasonable for Richard to anticipate no difficulty in crushing ‘so contemptible a faction’.
‘Shakespeare conjures up his mood:
‘Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway’d?
Is the King dead? The empire unpossess’d?
What heir of York is there alive, but we?
And who is England’s King, but York’s great heir?’
On Thursday 17 August he went hunting in Sherwood Forest, spending the night at a convenient lodge – a good way of displaying confidence and dispelling tension. He was the King and he had a mighty army – Henry was an adventurer with forces which seemed hopelessly inadequate. One should also take into account the Boar’s inflated reputation as a military commander, and the sheer dread and terror which he inspired, ‘such great fierceness and such huge force of mind he had’.1 So far no English peer who was not in exile had come out for the Tudor. Yet, as news of defections by apparently reliable officials began to arrive, Richard grew steadily more suspicious. His nervousness showed when he sent orders for Sir Robert Brackenbury to bring with him to Leicester two of Buckingham’s former supporters about whom he was doubtful – Sir Walter Hungerford and Sir Thomas Bourchier.
Then the King was given real cause for alarm. George, Lord Strange, who had come to Nottingham to be a hostage for the Stanleys’ good behaviour, was caught trying to escape from the castle. Only a day or two before, his father, Lord Stanley, had written to say that he was suffering from the current outbreak of the sweating sickness and would not be able to join the royal army at Leicester. Obviously Strange was interrogated with savage efficiency; if he was not tortured, he was almost certainly threatened with the ‘question’. He broke quickly, making an abject confession and begging for mercy. He admitted that he and his uncle Sir William, together with Sir Gilbert Talbot and Sir John Savage, had been planning to join the Earl of Richmond. However, Lord Strange insisted that his father was nevertheless unshakeably loyal to Richard; this may have been a deliberate lie, a shrewdly calculated attempt at self-preservation. Presumably under strict direction, he wrote to Lord Stanley, explaining the peril in which he stood and beseeching him to come to Leicester and save his life. While Strange remained a hostage in imminent danger of death, the King had some chance of controlling the Stanleys, though Sir William and Savage were at once proclaimed as traitors. It is very likely that the wily Catesby had a good deal to do with fending off Strange’s beheading; in the revealing will, which he dictated just before his own execution, he says, ‘My Lords Stanley, Strange and all that blood, help and pray for my soul, for ye have not for my body as I trusted in you.’
As so often before, Richard�
�s fatal incapacity to judge other men had betrayed him. The key mover in the Stanley conspiracy, Sir William, was even more treacherous than his brother and had a long record of changing sides. It had been extremely profitable, William Stanley having done very well for a younger son. He was fifty, the same age as the head of the family whose twin he may have been. In his case the ‘second son’ complex expressed itself in greed and ruthlessness and was richly rewarded. He had also made a wealthy marriage with ‘Butcher’ Tiptoft’s widow. Half a century afterwards Leland referred admiringly to the mansion William built himself at Ridley in Cheshire as ‘the fairest gentleman’s house in all Chestershire’. The King had had quite enough opportunity to observe him since he worked closely with William Stanley, too closely for his comfort; declining an invitation to a hunting party, Stanley wrote that he was ‘so busy with old Dick that I can have no leave’. This clever and daring intriguer was more than a match for his master.2
Every day Richard had increasing reason to suspect treachery all around him. News of more and more defections arrived. Sir Thomas Bourchier and Sir Walter Hungerford gave Brackenbury the slip to join Richmond near Stony Stratford. Sir John Savage – who, it will be remembered, was one of the henchmen – would join Henry at Tamworth with men-at-arms in white hoods and jerkins. Even so, the Tudor’s army was still too small to face Richard with any chance of success in a straightforward battle. However much they may have disapproved of their ruler, too few noblemen and gentry, let alone burgesses and common folk, were prepared to risk their lives and fortunes after nearly thirty years of dynastic warfare.
It is astonishing how many English gentlemen preferred to ‘stay a-bed’ and thought themselves in no way accursed at missing what would not exactly be another Crispin’s Day. And it was they who provided the troops; in consequence, whereas perhaps as many as 50,000 men, on both sides, had fought at Towton in 1461, no more than 25,000 were to fight in 1485. Thirty-three noblemen – almost the entire English peerage who were not minors or under attainder – had attended Richard’s Coronation, yet only a dozen would be with him at Bosworth, and two of them were traitors.3 A magnate like the third Lord Stourton, whose family had become briefly pre-eminent in the West Country because of the Courtenays’ eclipse, was not going to gamble on the outcome of the present campaign, even though the King’s defeat would mean the return of his rivals.4
Neither would Stourton’s brother and eventual heir, despite being married to Richard’s niece, Catherine de la Pole. Lesser people, knights and gentlemen, simply disregarded the King’s summons and ignored the threat in his Commissions of Array that they would do so ‘on peril of their lives, lands and goods’. The city of York too was growing tired of Richard’s incessant demands for its inhabitants to risk their lives for him. It sent a force of only eighty men, who did not arrive in time. This lack of enthusiasm is a damning indictment.
Even so, one should not underestimate the terror inspired by the King’s threats and menaces. It is vividly preserved in the ballad ‘Bosworth Feilde’ which makes Richard promise
Ladies ‘well-aday!’ shall cry,
Widows shall weep and their hands wring;
Many a man shall regret that day
That ever they rose against their King.
Apparently the Earl of Richmond’s strategy was simply to advance on London and hope for the best, like Bonny Prince Charlie in 1745. The fact that Shrewsbury opened its gates to him was encouraging – they had stayed firmly shut during Buckingham’s campaign, when the Duke tried to enter. Henry had sent messages to the Stanleys – and almost certainly to Northumberland as well, though there is no firm proof – begging for support. He knew very well that if they did not give it, he was lost. The Stanleys were willing enough, as Richard himself now appreciated, but were held back by the perilous situation of Lord Strange. The King hoped to neutralize them and did not want to drive them into the arms of the Earl of Richmond; it was better to have them on the sidelines rather than as open enemies.
What Richard did not suspect for one moment was that he had another, more secret enemy – the Earl of Northumberland. His inability to judge other men was to prove his final undoing. It is likely (despite Gairdner’s belief that the Tudor’s agents failed to reach him) that the Earl had been in touch with Richmond. On the other hand, he was not Henry’s stepfather. There are some slight indications that Northumberland contemplated a totally different outcome. First, he would let the Stanley–Richmond faction and the King do each other as much damage as possible, and with luck ensure that Richard was killed. Then he would proclaim the young Earl of Warwick as King and become the power behind the throne.5
If Richard was to survive, he had to intercept and destroy Henry Tudor’s army. On Friday 19 August the King marched down the hill from Nottingham Castle and set out for Leicester where his levies were assembling. He rode warily, he and his household men in the van, which was flanked on both sides by mounted men-at-arms who scouted far and wide; suspicious as ever, he did not discount the possibility of ambush. It was an impressive sight, yet Vergil – if he is not indulging in poetic licence – says that its effect was marred by the worried frown on Richard’s grim face. Behind their terrifying little leader, his captains must have been equally uneasy. He arrived at Leicester just before sunset the same day, having covered twenty-five miles, entering through one of the north gates and riding down what is now High Cross Street. The town’s cannon roared out a salute. Ignoring the ruinous castle, he installed himself at the reassuringly named White Boar Inn, a large, cantilevered, half-timbered building. Servants at once furbished his apartments with his furniture and hangings – as was the custom for great lords, he had even brought his own bed with him. (The bed had a false bottom containing about £300 in gold coin, which was not discovered for a century, until Elizabeth I’s reign.) The Duke of Norfolk and his troops were also billeted in the town, soon to be joined by the Earl of Northumberland and his contingent.
The Earl of Richmond was in a far from enviable state of mind. It seems that Sir William Stanley had met him briefly at Stafford and had arranged for him to meet Lord Stanley secretly at Atherstone, between Coventry and Leicester, to discuss the situation. Henry then lost contact with his army on the night of 19 August, while marching from Lichfield to Tamworth. He found himself with only twenty men. They hid in a small village, fearful of being caught by Richard’s men. However, at daybreak they discovered that they were only three miles from Tamworth and were able to rejoin their friends without incident. The Tudor told his army that he had been on a discreet expedition to receive a message from some allies who were not yet ready to come out openly for him; in reality, as he seems to have confided in Vergil many years later, he had probably been terrified by the danger and by what lay ahead. The same day he again made contact with Sir William at Atherstone. His stepfather was not there. Beyond question the Stanleys were well disposed towards him, yet, despite their assurances of help, they knew – and he surely guessed – that with Strange in the King’s hands they were powerless. They dared not move, even though fully aware that if Richard won the forthcoming battle, he was likely to wreak a merciless revenge; but someone so cruel and so ruthless, with so much at stake, would not hesitate to execute the young man, and would give orders for him to be killed instantly if they joined his rival. No one dreamed that the King would present Henry with the one tactical situation which would enable them to act.
18. An early-nineteenth-century engraving of the White Boar (later renamed the Blue Boar) Inn at Leicester, where Richard spent the night before marching out to Bosworth Field.
Henry Tudor can have had little hope of success. But he could not now avoid a battle. For their part the Stanleys decided that their only course was to take their troops to the battlefield. If Henry looked like winning they could support him – if Richard swept all before him, they would join his side instead, and pretend that they had always been loyal. This is certainly the most plausible explanation of their conduct.
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Richard marched out of Leicester on Sunday 21 August. He did so with great pomp, wearing a crown so that all might see that the King of England was going forth to battle. With him were the Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Northumberland, Lincoln, Nottingham and Surrey, Viscount Lovell, Lords Scrope of Bolton, Scrope of Masham, Dacre, Greystoke, Zouche and Ferrers of Chartley, and most of the henchmen – including Sir Robert Brackenbury, who had only just arrived. As they rode forth, the King’s spur scraped the brickwork of the narrow old Bow Bridge over the River Soar – a hag prophesied that very soon his head would bang against the very same bridge.
There is no adequate description in any contemporary chronicle of the battle ahead, while revisionist archaeologists argue eloquently that it was not even fought on the traditional site, although they are unable to agree on a precise alternative. What seems beyond dispute, however, is that it took place over a four mile area around the village of Sutton Cheney. It is also likely that many of the topographical features in the few sources which we possess are in fact the correct ones.
Richard and his army, flanked by a wide screen of scouts, proceeded along the Roman road in the direction of Atherstone. At Sutton Cheney the scouts reported that the enemy was near. It was evening and for his camp that night he selected a position near the summit of some rising ground called Ambion Hill. Although only about 400 feet above sea level, it gave an excellent field of vision over the low-lying Redmore Plain beneath and was protected by a marsh at its foot. It also commanded the road below between the villages of Shenton to the west and Sutton Cheney to the east. (Market Bosworth was two miles north.)
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