After five hundred years, history is revised

For those of you who, like me, are history buffs (particularly military history), news from England today would have made you sit up and take notice.

It saw the death of Richard III, ushered in the Tudor dynasty and gave Shakespeare one of his best known quotations.

Now, 500 years after one of the most important clashes in British history, archaeologists have finally found the location of the Battle of Bosworth Field - two miles away from where historians thought it was.

Battle of Bosworth Field, as depicted by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812) (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The discovery follows an extraordinary piece of detective work in which experts combed three square miles of fields with metal detectors, took dozens of soil samples and scoured the historical records for clues.

Over four years, they found evidence of a major medieval battle, including the remains of swords and buckles, lead cannonballs and shot fired from handguns.

The experts say the evidence is 'compelling' that the site lies near Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire, two miles from the Bosworth heritage centre and memorial.

Battlefields Trust archaeologist Glenn Foard said: 'We are not releasing the exact location yet because we fear illicit treasure hunting.'




The curator of the heritage centre, Richard Knox, said: 'It is fantastic. When we had the first discovery we were very excited but we had to wait to get more evidence. Now we are confident.'

The Battle of Bosworth, fought on August 22, 1485, marked the end of the War of the Roses, the 30-year civil war between the houses of York and Lancaster.

It was the final confrontation between the Yorkist King Richard III and his challenger Henry Tudor.

In Shakespeare's Richard III the king, thrown to the ground in the heat of battle, cries: 'A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!'

Richard was killed, and his rival was crowned King Henry VII.

There's more at the link.

This is interesting from all sorts of angles. The Battle of Bosworth has traditionally been regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. Its effects rumbled on for decades; despite it being 'officially' regarded as the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, unrest and rebellion continued for some decades, and even resurfaced during the reign of Henry VIII.

One result of the Battle of Bosworth that's still with us is the military unit known as the Yeomen of the Guard.

Yeomen of the Guard on parade (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Henry VII formed them as his personal bodyguard after his victory at Bosworth, while still on the battlefield, and they've been in existence ever since. Their uniforms are still of the Tudor pattern established by Henry VII. (They should not be confused with the Yeomen Warders of Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, popularly known as Beefeaters, one of whom is shown below.)

Yeoman Warder of the Tower of London (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Definitely something to explore next time I get to England.

Peter