Treason he cried as he charged into the carnage: David Leafe recreates a war hero king's last hours
With the sun glinting off their swords and their giant steeds raring to charge down the Leicestershire hillside and into battle, Richard III’s troops must have looked a terrifying sight indeed.
They outnumbered by two to one the forces of Henry Tudor, gathered in the valley below them on that August morning in 1485, but still the King seemed unduly troubled as he prepared to defend his crown near the town of Market Bosworth.
‘He had seen dreadful visions in the night, in which he was surrounded by a multitude of demons, as he himself testified in the morning,’ wrote a chronicler of the time.
End of the line: An artist's impression of the Battle of Bosworth, 22 August 1485, shows the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, on white horse
‘He consequently presented a countenance which, while always drawn, was on this occasion more livid and ghastly than usual.’
The King’s fears would prove well-founded. At sunset two days previously he had been on horseback, leading his troops towards Leicester, when his stirruped foot struck the parapet of a bridge.
Legend has it that an old woman in the crowd prophesied that his head would strike the same stone on the way back.
And she was said to have been proved right when, following his catastrophic defeat at Bosworth, with his naked corpse flung across the back of a mule, his dangling head smacked against the stonework of the same bridge.
The villain king: But there are those who suggests Richard III's bad reputation is more down to Tudor propaganda than his actual actions
Whether Henry Tudor was aware of this detail of his opponent’s final indignity we do not know. But, if so, he would surely have applauded it, because for his enemies it was not enough that Richard should merely die.
They wanted to humiliate him, too, as became clear this week when scientists revealed the manner of his death.
arrowhead was lodged in his back, but his death was probably caused by
one of two injuries to the base of the head, possibly inflicted by a
This fearsome-looking double-bladed axe was fully capable of slicing through the skull, as early investigations suggest may have happened to the King.
Perhaps the most disturbing wounds, however, were what the archaeologists described as ‘humiliation’ injuries, including a pelvic wound most likely caused by an upward thrust of a weapon through the buttock.
The idea that his killers went far beyond what was necessary to dispatch the King is consistent with gory contemporary reports of a battle which changed the course of English history, bringing about the start of the Tudor reign and the huge influence on national life of monarchs such as Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
would argue that Richard, the last of the Plantagenets, got exactly
what was coming to him, a view encouraged by Shakespeare’s portrayal of
him as a Machiavellian hunchback who stopped at nothing in his craving
to become King.
Born in 1452, he was a member of the House of York and the younger brother of King Edward IV, who died in 1483 and was succeeded by his 12-year-old son Edward V.
That same year, Richard seized the throne, having both Edward V and his younger brother declared illegitimate and imprisoned in the Tower of London where, it was alleged, he had them murdered.
But the Princes in the Tower scandal made Richard highly vulnerable to the scheming of Henry Tudor, a descendant of the rival House of Lancaster — and a pretender to the throne.
Five years Richard’s junior, Henry had lived in France since 1471, but in the summer of 1485, accompanied by 2,000 French mercenaries, he set sail across the Channel to Wales, where his family wielded its greatest influence, to fight for the English throne.
The hunchback king: The skeleton, unearthed in a dig last September, showed evidence of the same curvature of the spine and battle injuries thought to have been suffered by the last Plantagenet king
Richard, who had been King for barely two years by then, had laid contingency plans for just such a move.
These included a misguided attempt to
enlist the support of the hugely wealthy Stanley family, which
commanded a great private army and in effect had the power to win the
coming battle for either side.
To guarantee their co-operation, Richard took hostage Sir Thomas Stanley’s son, Lord Strange — a move which would later contribute to his undoing.
As Henry Tudor marched through Wales and into the Midlands, consolidating an army of 5,000 men along the way, Richard was massing a force of 12,000 soldiers moving towards them from the south.
Like all battles of the time, the outcome would depend primarily on hand-to-hand combat, with weapons designed to maim and kill and none of the chivalric courtesies shown to opponents in tournaments.
The face of a king: There were cheers from media
who had gathered from around the world as the announcement was made at
the University of Leicester this morning
Ironically, although the discovery of his skeleton suggests that Richard suffered from curvature of the spine, as has been suspected for so many centuries, he was in some ways better equipped for the fray than Henry.
Small and slender, he may not have had the robust physique associated with many of his Plantagenet predecessors.
But he was said to have enjoyed rough
sports and activities that were considered manly and, unlike Henry, he
had previous experience of the battlefield.
When they met at Bosworth on the morning of August 22, the inexperienced Henry handed command of his army to the Earl of Oxford — a veteran of many conflicts — and retired behind the front line with his bodyguards.
His men had the double disadvantage
of fighting up the grassy hill upon which Richard had gathered his
troops, and also being hemmed in by marshland.
But there was a crucial element that both commanders knew could be decisive: on rising ground on the far side of the battlefield stood the 6,000-strong army commanded by the Stanleys.
They had pledged their allegiance to the King, but they were known to be fickle, often watching the progress of a battle before they decided which side they would support.
True to form, they kept their troops back as the two sides prepared to fight.
The fatal blows? This image of the skull shows where Richard III was injured
This X-ray tomography image shows the two injuries which could have killed Richard: The area in the middle marked A is where the spine meets the skull. There are two injuries to the left (B) and right (C) of this that could have led to death if inflicted in life. The right hand injury, possibly from a halberd would have damaged the cerebellum. The left hand injury was probably caused by a sword and could also have been fatal
When Richard sent a message to Stanley, telling him his son would be executed if he did not join the attack on Henry, Stanley replied that he had other sons (in the event, his son’s life was spared).
With the Stanleys still undecided, the Earl of Oxford ordered Henry Tudor’s men to advance in a single tight formation, flanked by their horsemen. Manoeuvring away from the marsh, they held their position on firmer ground.
High on his hilltop, Richard gave the order to advance. As the opposing archers exchanged fire, hails of arrows pierced even chain-mail, and men fell screaming and dying in the front ranks of both armies.
As the first blood was drawn, the King’s men thundered downwards, some 1,500 mounted knights engaged in the last great cavalry charge of the medieval era.
Seeing this writhing wall of steel and horseflesh galloping towards him, Henry appeared briefly dumbstruck, but recovered his faculties as his men formed a tight knot and braced themselves for the impact.
Over the next two hours, with nobles and foot soldiers alike fighting hand-to-hand in a sea of severed limbs, Henry’s men held their own and the King’s troops looked for reinforcements as men were hacked or clubbed to death where they stood. Others gave up the fight and ran.
As they were found: The remains of King Richard III were found in a hastily dug grave beneath a council car park in Leicester last September, in what were once the precincts of Grey Friars church
Fearing a defeat, the King, never one to lead from the rear, seized the initiative and threw himself into the battle. Finally, he saw a chance of winning outright — by killing Henry.
As he and his mounted knights charged, the King’s lance pierced the armour of Henry’s standard-bearer Sir William Brandon and snapped in half. But still Richard fought on, unhorsing one of his burliest opponents and dealing him a blow on the head with his broken lance.
He might have succeeded in killing Henry himself, but the press of men and horses carried him off course as the tide began to turn against him.
One of his supporters, Sir Percival Thirwell, lost his legs in a spray of blood, but continued to hold the Yorkist banner aloft until he was hacked to death, while the King’s horse became mired in soft ground and he was forced to continue his fight on foot.
The skull of the king as it was found by archaeologists: Trauma to the skeleton showed the king died after one of two significant wounds to the back of the skull - possibly caused by a sword and a halberd
Hunched in death as he was in life: The skeleton was found in good condition with its feet missing
This, of course, is the point in the battle immortalised by Shakespeare in the phrase: ‘My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse!’
Yet in reality, though the King’s followers offered him their steeds to escape, Richard refused, even after the Stanleys finally agreed to lead their men into the fighting at Henry’s side and, with his army disintegrating, he found himself outnumbered by his foes.
Shouting ‘Treason! Treason! Treason!’ according to reports of the time, he soon met his end.
‘One of the Welshmen came after him,’ wrote one historian of the time, ‘and struck him dead with a halberd, and another took his body and put it before him on his horse and carried it, hair hanging, as one would bear a sheep.’
As we now know, it seems likely the 32-year-old Richard also suffered a series of other horrific injuries before he was carried back to Leicester and buried in a local monastery.
This week’s announcement will rekindle debate about whether he was a good king or bad, but what has never appeared to be in doubt is that he was a brave soldier.
The evidence of his skeleton appears to confirm that — bearing the injuries of a man never afraid to be at the thick of fighting, right until his brutal end.
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