The Life and Times of Richard III (15 page)

In the event, the shameful confusion was not Henry’s but Richard’s. For on Monday 15 August his mounted scouts or ‘scurriers’ brought word that the Earl of Richmond had crossed the Severn at Shrewsbury and was heading in a straight line for Nottingham, his forces swollen by the Welsh levies raised to stop him. ‘At which message,’ according to Hall, ‘he was sore moved and broiled with melancholy and dolour, and cried out, asking vengeance on them that contrary to their oath and promise had fraudulently deceived him.’ Resisting the impulse to set out, as originally planned, on the following day, the King had to kick his heels for four more days, waiting for his army to reach its full strength.

More ominous news followed shortly. A message from Lord Stanley regretfully announced that the Steward was too sick with the sweating sickness to obey the King’s summons. Fearing Richard’s vengeance, Lord Strange tried to slip away from the castle. When he was apprehended in the nick of time, Strange confessed under interrogation that he, his uncle Sir William and Sir John Savage were indeed conspiring to ally themselves with Henry Tudor. But he would not implicate his father.

Rhys ap Thomas, Walter Herbert, Talbot and now Stanley – a fog of treason was closing in around Richard’s well-laid martial plans. On Tuesday the 17th, as he sought to relieve the tensions of his enforced idleness by hunting in Sherwood Forest, two messengers from York arrived to cast doubts on Northumberland’s loyalty too. Having learned of Henry’s landing, the city fathers were anxious to know why the commissioners of array had not called on the men of York to send armed help to their King. Perhaps the reason was the plague that had recently swept the city. Or was Northumberland trying to restrict the levy to his own retainers, men who would put their loyalty to the House of Percy above their allegiance to the reigning House of York?

Late on Thursday the 18th the Lancastrian army was reported to have changed its line of march. Turning south-east from Stafford towards Lichfield, Henry’s van now seemed to be headed not towards Nottingham, but towards Atherstone where Lord Stanley lay, and the main highway to London. Even if his muster was not yet complete, Richard must act now. The following morning the royal army, marching four abreast, left Nottingham by the southern gate and took the road for Leicester. ‘With a frowning countenance and truculent aspect’ Richard rode at the centre of the column, mounted on a great white courser, the yeomen of the Crown before him and wings of cavalry at his flanks. By 9 o’clock that same evening the King was at Leicester at an inn which displayed his own sign of the White Boar. The two halves of Richard’s host were now united: together with Northumberland’s contingent which was expected within the next twenty-four hours, they appear to have numbered more than ten thousand men. ‘Here’, states the Croyland Chronicle, ‘was found a number of warriors ready to fight on the King’s side, greater than had ever been seen before in England collected together in behalf of one person.’

This was, of course, an exaggeration, but Henry Tudor was heavily outnumbered all the same. His recruiting drive in Wales and Shropshire had added about three thousand men to the two thousand who landed at Milford Haven. Without the certainty of Stanley’s support his prospects seemed decidedly bleak. The mass desertions confidently predicted by his agents in the spring had simply not materialised.

Distracted by these unpalatable thoughts, Henry apparently paused by the roadside on the evening of the 19th while his army marched on to Tamworth. The only others with him were a bodyguard of about twenty armed men. When night closed in he was shocked to discover, in Vergil’s words, that ‘he could not discern the trace of them that were gone before, and so, after long wandering could not find his company, he came unto a certain town [village] more than three miles from his camp, full of fear; who lest he might be betrayed, durst not ask questions of any man, but tarried there all night’, as fearful of the present as he was of the perils to come. Reunited with his army on the morning of the 20th, Henry blandly assured his anxious followers that he had slipped away on purpose ‘to receive some good news of his secret friends’.

20 August was in fact the day appointed for Henry’s secret
rendezvous
with the Stanleys at Atherstone, some eight miles beyond Tamworth and barely twenty miles from Richard’s host at Leicester. Vergil’s details of this meeting are sparse, but they do indicate that it went some way to allaying Henry’s doubts about his step-father: ‘taking one another by the hand, and yielding mutual salutation, each man was glad for the good state of the others, and all their minds were moved to great joy. After that they entered in counsel in what sort to arraign battle with King Richard if the matter should come to strokes.’ When the conference was over, Lord Stanley withdrew his troops to Stoke Golding and Henry’s army took over Atherstone.

That same evening at Leicester, King Richard conducted a final review of his troops. All the most important Yorkist leaders were with him now, including the two late arrivals, Northumberland and Brackenbury. Early on Sunday morning a vanguard of archers and men at arms, wearing the silver lion badges of the Duke of Norfolk, led the royal army west towards the Lancastrian camp at Atherstone. The two armies would not clash on a Sunday, but Richard was anxious to narrow the gap as much as possible, both to forestall a Lancastrian dash down Watling Street, and to establish visual contact with the two forces led by the Stanley brothers. Twelve miles from Leicester, just beyond the village of Sutton Cheney, he found a position ideal for his purpose. Overlooking Redmore Plain, Sutton Cheney stood on high ground at the eastern end of a ridge, about one and a half miles to the west of Sir William Stanley’s camp at Shenton, and just over two miles north of Lord Stanley at Stoke Golding. Less than three miles beyond Stoke Golding lay Watling Street, the highway to London.

As the afternoon wore on, Richard’s scouts informed him that the Earl of Richmond’s van had left Watling Street and taken the old Roman road towards Redmore Plain, soon to be renamed Bosworth Field. The long wait was over. Henry Tudor had decided to commit his cause to the test of arms. That night the campfires of Richard’s enemies lit up the sky less than three miles from the King’s tent.

Predictably enough, our two contemporary voices – Croyland and Vergil – attribute to Richard a sleepless night, interrupted by ‘dreadful visions’ and premonitions of disaster. At daybreak, says the Croyland Chronicler, his drawn features were even more livid and ghastly than usual. Moreover ‘there were no chaplains present to perform divine service on behalf of King Richard, nor any breakfast prepared to refresh the flagging spirits of the king’. If he did indeed dispense with early morning Mass and breakfast, it was because a vital strategic manœuvre had to be performed before the Lancastrians stirred from their bivouacs. This was the occupation of Ambien Hill, the western end of the ridge on which Sutton Cheney stood. Ambien Hill jutted out some four hundred feet above the level of Redmore Plain: on its northern side the steep slopes would protect the right flank against Sir William Stanley’s men, just as the swampy ground on the gentler southern slopes would deter his brother from an attempt on Richard’s left.

As the Lancastrian van, under the Earl of Oxford, skirted the swamp and moved towards Ambien’s western slopes, they were greeted by the sight of Norfolk’s men already ensconced on the brow of the ridge above them. The archers crouched in the front ranks, equipped with their six-foot longbows of yew, oak or maplewood. The longbow, with a range of up to two hundred and fifty yards was still the favoured weapon of the common soldier, and an expert could discharge a dozen arrows within a single minute. However, since the end of the wars in France the general level of expertise had declined – so much so that in 1478 an act of Parliament specifically outlawed football and other frivolous pastimes which were held responsible for the decline. Like the archers, the ordinary infantrymen drawn behind carried swords at their sides, but their main weapon was a stout wooden pike, about the same length as the longbow and tipped with a heavy metal spearhead for jabbing their victims to death. The common soldier was lightly armoured, if at all. His tunic, or jack, was made up from layers of boiled hide, stuffed with hemp to give added protection. It was said that an English jack, which reached down to its owner’s thighs, could stop an arrow or a swordthrust more effectively than a knight’s hauberk of chain mail. On his head the common soldier wore a sallett, or plain metal helmet, without a vizor to protect his eyes and face.

The cream of Richard’s army were his men-at-arms. They had come to the battlefield mounted, but they would fight on foot, clustered round the pennons of the simple knights, or the more gorgeous silken banners of the knights banneret to whom they were bound by their contracts of indenture. There was a gesture of bravado in this tradition – as in the story that the Earl of Warwick slew his horse on the eve of the battle of Towton, swearing that he would not live to run away. Less nimble than the common soldier, the man-at-arms was encased from the waist up in two metal plates, one to guard his chest, the other his back. He carried a variety of weapons – sword, dagger, pike, battleaxe or the formidable halberd which could stab like a pike or be swung like an axe. A few were equipped with firearms of wrought iron or brass, but loading the lead pellets was a cumbersome business and they were of little use when it came to hand-to-hand fighting.

Seven thousand men or more were stretched along the top of the ridge, from the summit of Ambien Hill to the outskirts of Sutton Cheney where the line was anchored by Northumberland’s rearguard of three thousand. At the centre of the vanguard a knot of horsemen under the banner of the silver lion signalled the presence of the Duke of Norfolk, his son Thomas, Earl of Surrey and his chief lieutenants, Lords Zouche and Ferrers. At the centre of the ridge, a larger mounted concourse marked the King himself, surrounded by his close advisers Lovell, Ratcliffe and Catesby, by the knights and esquires of his bodyguard, and by the men who led the contingents of the North and Midlands, Lords Dacre, Graystoke and Scrope of Bolton.

Richard’s mood was both determined and resigned. In Vergil’s words: ‘Knowing certainly that that day would either yield him a peaceable and quiet realm from thenceforth or else perpetually bereave him of the same, he came to the field with the crown upon his head, that thereby he might either make a beginning or end of his reign.’ From his own bitter experience he knew that war was no chivalric adventure, as recounted in the ballads of Crécy and Agincourt. If he won, he told his captains, he meant to crush every one of the rebels marching under Henry’s banners. If he lost, Henry would do the same to them. In this spirit he sent his last message to Lord Stanley. Declare for Richard now, or Lord Strange would be instantly beheaded. Back came the answer that Lord Stanley had other sons, and would not join the King. Either because Richard relented when his bluff was called, or because his orders were disobeyed, Lord Strange survived his ordeal.

The knights who fought for Richard and Henry Tudor at Bosworth wore plate-armour, riveted at the joints. Plate provided protection against sword and lance thrusts, and to a certain extent against primitive firearms, but was extremely bulky and uncomfortable to wear. Knights would carry swords, daggers and battle-axes. Men-at-arms wore armour to protect only the upper parts of their bodies, while common soldiers usually depended for protection upon tunics of leather stuffed with hemp, for they had to be agile in battle. On their heads they would wear salletts, and they would carry a variety of staff weapons, including pikes and halberds.

As the gap between the opposing vanguards narrowed, Henry Tudor too sent a last appeal to Lord Stanley, whose men were moving slowly forward towards the swamp. Would he now join forces with Oxford in the assault on Ambien Hill? Stanley still hesitated. He would make his own dispositions, and join his stepson when the time was ripe. The trimmer’s steadfast refusal to declare himself left Henry, in Vergil’s words, ‘no little vexed’, but he was now too far committed to draw back. With Talbot’s Shropshiremen on his right and Sir John Savage commanding the Welshmen on his left, Oxford planned to throw the entire Lancastrian army into the attack. Henry, who had no experience of war, would remain in the rear, protected by a slender screen of footmen and a single troop of horse.

The rebel troops reached the lower slopes and began to climb. As soon as they were within range Norfolk’s troops unleashed a shower of arrows. Then Norfolk’s trumpets sounded the order to charge, and the royal army streamed down the slopes. The Lancastrians were under strict orders not to stray more than a few feet from the standards of their company commanders. Under the shock of Norfolk’s charge, Oxford’s close-packed formations wavered but did not break. All around the lower slopes of Ambien Hill, the two front lines were locked in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Slowly at first, the Yorkists began to give ground. Norfolk himself thrust his way to the front in the effort to rally his men. Then disaster struck. Norfolk was down. Soon his men were in full retreat towards the top of the hill. Richard immediately gave orders for Northumberland to bring up his rearguard. But Henry Percy, taking his cue from Lord Stanley, had no intention of risking his neck in the dynastic blood feud which had already killed his father and his grandfather. When the battle was over, he would give his allegiance to the victor. Politely but firmly he let Richard know that he would stay put, to guard against a possible move by Lord Stanley’s men.

The situation was dangerous but not desperate. The vanguard was badly mauled, but the Yorkist centre was still intact. Northumberland refused to move for Richard, but neither of the Stanleys had yet moved against him. Nonetheless Richard was too impatient to let the grim mêlée on Ambien Hill decide the day. While his best captain lay dead, the King’s sword was still unblooded. The morale of his personal followers was sinking. Some faint hearts suggested flight: in the North there were still plenty of able-bodied men who would take his part against Henry Tudor.