Bosworth War Walks


Bosworth

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His helmet encircled with the golden crown,

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Richard III, King of England, prepared himself for ordeal by battle.

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He rode out against the man who had vowed to wrest the crown from his head

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and sought to kill him in hand-to-hand combat.

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That spectacular flourish took place here on the 22nd of August, 1485.

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These fields, just west of Leicester, near the little town of Market Bosworth,

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saw the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, that bloody clash between the Houses of York and Lancaster.

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Richard's supporters had advised him to flee. He declined, retorting,

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"This day will I die as a King or win."

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It was a heroic gesture, far removed from the sneering villain of Shakespeare's play.

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Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was a capable, energetic man.

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He was a brave soldier and popular commander.

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He spent much of his time in the north,

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which he successfully ruled for his brother, the Yorkist king, Edward IV.

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Edward, son of the Duke of York, had defeated Lancastrian rivals and secured the crown. The opening words

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of Shakespeare's Richard III evoked the mood of the time:

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"Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer

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"By this sun of York."

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But it was by no means a cloudless sky. As the story unfolds, we find a plot as murky

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as anything in Shakespeare. On Edward IV's death,

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his 12-year-old son succeeded to the throne as Edward V.

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His uncle Richard was appointed Protector until the boy came of age.

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The young King and his brother were lodged here in the Tower of London.

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In those days, the Tower wasn't just a prison, but the official royal residence in the city of London.

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The two young princes were looked after comfortably here in the royal apartments.

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Days before Edward's coronation, they were accused of being illegitimate.

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They couldn't succeed to the throne and Richard was invited to do so.

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In the weeks that followed, the princes were seen less and less in the Tower grounds.

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One day they disappeared altogether.

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In the 17th century, two bodies were found here behind this staircase.

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Were they the skeletons of the princes? Did Richard murder them or had servants done so on his behalf?

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The surviving evidence wouldn't convict Richard of complicity in their deaths,

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but he stood to gain by the demise of his nephews.

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Even today, it's a sensitive subject.

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There are people here

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that visit the Tower, some come purposely to see the bloody Tower.

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They feel strongly if we suggest Richard was responsible for their deaths.

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They jump on us with vengeance

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and it's difficult to defend yourself when talking to a large crowd.

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Whatever the truth, suspicion undermined the rightness of Richard's cause.

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His seizure of power opened old wounds.

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Discontented factions looked once more to the rival House of Lancaster.

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The spectre of bloody feud now threatened the peace Edward IV had brought to the country.

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The anti-Richard party turned to the Lancastrian claimant - Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond,

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grandson of a marriage between the widow of Henry V and a Welsh gentleman, Owen Tudor.

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The French King and the Duke of Brittany had given Henry a place of refuge for most of his life.

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And it was from across the Channel that he laid claim to the crown of England

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on Christmas Day, 1483.

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He was 26 years old and had few adherents, but he was determined to reach for the crown.

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The long road to Bosworth had begun.

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By 1485, Richard's position had worsened.

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He was over-reliant on advisers like Sir Richard Radcliff, Sir William Catesby and Francis, Lord Lovell.

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A piece of contemporary doggerel linked them to the King's white boar badge.

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"The cat, the rat and Lovell the dog rule all England under the hog."

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As Richard took up residence at Nottingham, it was not the hog that best described him,

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but the spider on his web - well-placed to pounce

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on the Welsh upstart.

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On the 1st of August, 1485, Henry Tudor assembled his forces at the mouth of the Seine.

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He set sail from Harfleur in a small flotilla funded by the French King.

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A week later, after carefully skirting the coast of England,

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he landed at Milford Haven in Wales.

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It was a foreign invasion.

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Apart from a small group of English exiles, Henry's army consisted of 2,000 French mercenaries.

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His choice of Wales

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should come as no surprise.

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Although the country had lost its independence, its sense of national identity remained very strong.

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Henry was proud of his Welsh roots and hoped to encourage powerful Welsh contingents to his standard.

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A week's march across mid-Wales brought him to the borders of England.

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Henry had decided to cross the River Severn

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here at Shrewsbury and demanded the town's surrender.

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The local bailiff, Thomas Mitton, had sworn that Henry would only enter over his dead body.

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When the townspeople opened the gates, Mitton lay down and feigned death

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and Henry's horse walked over him.

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This may be a tall story, but most people would join what looked like the winning side.

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Having got to England,

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Henry now considered his next move.

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He spent the night here while he debated his plans.

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He could either head for London

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or try to attract the private armies of those families not committed to Richard.

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Most likely to join him were the Stanleys whose power base lay in North Wales and Lancashire.

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Power broking in England at this time was in the hands of the great feudal dynasties.

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Kings ruled only with the support of these families and their armies. Allegiances would shift.

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The Stanleys were outwardly loyal to Richard, but were hedging their bets by maintaining contact with Henry.

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Their role was to prove crucial over the next few days.

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Henry raised his red dragon standard and went east.

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He kept open his line of retreat into Wales, while moving closer to the Stanleys.

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There were two Stanleyite armies - one under Thomas, Lord Stanley,

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the other under his brother, Sir William. Lord Stanley just happened to be Henry's stepfather.

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The dragon, the hart and the white boar were on a collision course

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that would end on Bosworth Field.

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In a secluded vale near Merevale Abbey,

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Lord Stanley rode in for a secret meeting with Henry.

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We can't be sure what passed between the two men,

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but Henry agreed to offer battle the next day, confident the Stanleys would support him.

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This support was far from certain as Richard held Stanley's son

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as hostage for his father's good behaviour.

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Henry only had 5,000 men and knew that Richard would command far more.

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Without the Stanleys, he had little chance of winning any battle.

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Richard had indeed got his superior army, in numbers at least.

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On hearing of Henry's movements, he marched from Nottingham to Leicester where he assembled his army.

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On Sunday, the 21st of August, he led more than 10,000 men across this bridge towards Bosworth.

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As he crossed, his spur struck against the stone.

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We are told that one of those wise women who always seem to be on hand

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warned that this was where his head would be broken.

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Scarcely an encouraging prophecy.

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Richard was an experienced commander who helped beat the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury 14 years before.

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And he chose this rising ground just south of Market Bosworth to deploy his army.

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It gave him a good view of the surrounding countryside and the movements of his enemy.

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It was a strong position and he had the bigger army, but he was clearly a worried man.

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Richard camped for the night

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near Sutton Cheney within striking distance of his opponent.

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It is said that he spent a troubled night.

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Was it a guilty conscience or concern about desertions

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and the loyalty of those who had sworn allegiance to him, especially the Stanleys?

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It is said that just before the battle, Richard heard Mass here in Sutton Cheney church.

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He was a devout man, and as he prayed, he must have hoped the Lord would protect him from treachery.

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He knew he had the superior force, but did he have the hearts of men?

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Betrayal was his greatest fear, yet he was committed to fighting, whatever the risk.

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In Sutton Cheney today,

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there's a lot of sympathy amongst the villagers for Richard.

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I feel that Shakespeare did a lot of bad for him,

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but I don't think he was that bad a man.

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People around here are more for Richard because of the local connections.

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He was around Leicester and also Warwick, so therefore people around this area, it was close...

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-He's a bit of a local hero?

-That's right, yes.

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The church has become something of a shrine.

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People pay their respects to the man they see as the victim of Shakespearean misrepresentation.

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I got around to reading a prayer of King Richard's.

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Anyone who can write as profoundly as that...

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Basically a Christian man couldn't possibly have done those deeds.

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I'm certain of it.

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So you think that he was a good man who has been misjudged by history?

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Exactly. And if he was physically handicapped, in those days that was enough to condemn anyone.

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But, um... I don't believe that he was the bad man that he was painted.

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I think it's just a prayerful place.

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And he probably found that, if he was a pious man, that was the place to be

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a short while before the battle.

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It's almost never easy to be absolutely sure of the location of a medieval battle.

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In the case of Bosworth, although contemporary accounts speak of a battle in Redmore Plain,

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that place name no longer survives. The landscape has changed.

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There are more hedges and the Victorians built this railway line

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across part of the site.

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Happily, it now has its terminus at the point where Henry lined up his troops

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to confront Richard's forces up there on Ambion Hill.

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At 5.15 that morning, as the sun rose,

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Richard drew the whole of his army out of their encampments and arrayed his battle line to face the enemy.

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We can't be sure of the exact position of the rival armies,

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but the Stanleys were on the sideline when battle commenced.

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The Bosworth Visitors' Centre puts Richard here on Ambion Hill,

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Henry down there at its foot

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and the Stanleys over there able to intervene on either side.

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The two armies manoeuvred into battle formation.

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They drew up in lines facing each other - tightly packed

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because of the cramped contours of the hill.

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Richard, King of England!

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The rival commanders were experienced. The blue boar of the Earl of Oxford led Henry's vanguard.

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The King's trusted commander was John Howard, Duke of Norfolk.

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Richard himself sat on the crest and watched anxiously.

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If he trusted Norfolk, he was not sure of the Earl of Northumberland who commanded the reserves.

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DEATH TO THE TRAITOR, RICHARD!

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First to engage were the archers, ranks of longbowmen

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who sent a withering rain of arrows down on their enemy.

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But the longbow was not the winner

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it had been at Agincourt. Both sides had them in numbers, and except at close range,

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they were unlikely to penetrate plate armour.

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-More deadly in this respect was the crossbow.

-This is a 15th-century crossbow.

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This attachment at the top is a windlass.

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It operates pulleys at the bottom which were attached to the string.

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What happens is, as I turn it,

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the pulley system allows the string to be drawn up towards the nut where it's held.

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It's not taking much pressure

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for me to draw this up.

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The back has a lever

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and that locks this nut in position.

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And this allows me then

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to loosen off the pulley system.

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And the pulley system actually comes right off.

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Now you're in position to put a bolt on.

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These bolts have leather fletchings.

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Why leather rather than feathers?

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The power which the crossbow produces,

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it folds back feathers and this makes the bolt spin out of control. The advantage of the crossbow

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is that it can be held in one position while it is loaded until it's ready to fire.

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With a longbow, you would have to stand up, draw and then fire, so there's a difference in the time.

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The disadvantage is that it takes so long to fire that 15 or 16 arrows could be shot in the time

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that it takes one crossbowman to load and fire.

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But if the bow was on the way out, another form of firepower was making its early appearance.

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These stone cannonballs were found at Bosworth. They're evidence

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that if much that happened wouldn't have shocked the men who fought at Hastings 400 years before,

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in one respect war had moved on.

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Into the stench of blood, sweat and ordure

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was now laced the bad-egg stink of black powder.

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This early breech-loader could smash bones. It may not have been accurate, but it was noisy.

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And a mass target didn't require precision.

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The two lines of infantry moved steadily towards each other.

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The impetus of Richard's downhill charge failed to push the enemy back.

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Oxford held his line. This led to an hour of bitter hand-to-hand fighting.

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Medieval battle is well summed up

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as bloody murder. Many of the infantrymen on both sides would have carried weapons like this.

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It's called a bill. It can stab, hack or drag a horseman from his charger.

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It might have started life as an agricultural implement and it's cheap and nasty.

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This is an up-market version - a poleaxe, used by men-at-arms on foot.

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It can cut, stab and this is designed

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to break armour by sheer physical impact.

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It was a time to settle old scores.

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Personal enemies sought each other out and engaged in hand-to-hand duels.

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Richard had his own grudge.

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Furious that the Stanleys sat in the wings, he ordered the beheading of Lord Stanley's son,

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whom he held as hostage.

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Richard's order was never carried out,

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perhaps through confusion, but more likely because his men were hedging their bets.

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In armour weighing seven stone, men were quickly exhausted

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and commanders needed to bring up reserves of fresh men.

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Unfortunately for Richard, his rearguard under Northumberland

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displayed what has been described as "masterly reluctance to intervene".

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Battles at this time

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were rarely fought to the bitter end. With the King making little progress,

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his men, it is said, broke off from their fighting for a little while,

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and there are suggestions that some of them, their hearts never really in the battle, began to slip away.

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With the battle turning against him, Richard's companions urged him to flee. He would have none of it.

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Then from his vantage point up here, he saw Henry with a small escort ride round to their left flank,

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perhaps to confer with the Stanleys.

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If he could kill Henry in single combat, the battle might yet be won.

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Richard, fired by anger, charged out of the side of his line of battle

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towards him.

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Even those who had no love for Richard, or who wrote when Henry or his descendants were on the throne,

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cannot deny Richard the glory of his last moments. At full charge, he headed straight for Henry.

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To his opponents, he was a formidable sight.

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With the point of his lance, he transfixed Sir William Brandon, Henry's standard-bearer.

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Then with sword or battle-axe, he hacked his way towards the Pretender and nearly reached him.

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At the critical moment,

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the Stanleys threw in their lot with Henry.

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Sir William Stanley with a force of 5,000 men plunged into Richard's escort with the war cry, "Stanley!"

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Lord Stanley remained behind and didn't take part in the fighting,

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but Sir William's intervention was decisive.

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Richard's position was hopeless. He lost his horse,

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possibly in this boggy ground, and his companions offered him another to escape on.

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He refused, and as a contemporary tells us, "He was pitifully slain,

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"fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies."

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This memorial marks a possible spot where he fell and was hacked to death as he writhed on the ground,

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last of the Plantagenets.

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It was probably on this hill at Stoke Golding, overlooking part of the battlefield,

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that Henry thanked his comrades-in-arms and had the crown placed on his head.

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Even today, it's still called Crown Hill.

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Those present were seeing the beginning of one of the most successful dynasties

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in English history - the Tudors.

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And what of Richard? His body was brought back to Leicester

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slung across a packhorse.

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It is said that his head hit the same stone that his spur had clipped on his way to Bosworth.

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Richard was stripped of the dignity of kingship.

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His naked body, spattered with blood and mire, was put on public display

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before being buried in a nearby Franciscan friary.

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Going back to the quincentenary in 1985, a family visited a week after that.

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I said, "Why didn't you come last week?"

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"We daren't. Our name's Stanley!"

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Henry was the victor and history was written by his apologists,

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but we love an underdog, and Richard still lives in people's imagination, while Henry is largely forgotten.

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There are no statues of Henry,

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but here in Leicester, this striking figure of Richard proclaims his last act of defiant chivalry

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on Bosworth Field.

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Subtitles by Calum Short, Subtext, for BBC Subtitling 1997

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