On August 22 in 1485 an upstart Welshman with a dubious claim to the throne defeated Richard III, who (probably) murdered his nephews, (definitely) usurped the throne, and despite all that was still actually a decent King. We can look back at Bosworth now as the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, but it’s important to keep in mind that for the people living then, it was just another battle in the decades-long family argument that got terribly out of hand. Henry Tudor still had one more battle to fight, Stoke, after Bosworth, and it wasn’t really until Henry VIII was crowned – the first bloodless transfer of power in over 50 years – that England finally got the memo that the Cousin’s War was really over.
So here are five fun facts about Bosworth Field:
- This was Henry’s second attempt at taking England. He had been living in Brittany with his uncle Jasper and other disaffected Yorkists who were frustrated at Richard’s usurpation, and were willing to let family disputes settle in exchange for Henry marrying Elizabeth of York. Henry had tried to sail to England once before but was turned back. This time he landed in Wales on August 7, and marched 200 miles up to the village of Stoke Golding.
- This wasn’t actually called Bosworth until over 25 years later. It was a marshy land that would be reclaimed later when England was reclaiming much of its marshland, and for a while it was known as the Battle of Redemore – place where there were lots of reeds.
- Richard had a huge army – three times the size of Henry’s. And he was so sure that he would win that he put off leaving his base in Nottingham for an extra day to celebrate a feast day.
- Henry didn’t really fight. He was at the back, having never really participated in battle before. Richard, on the other hand, fought bravely. Everyone on both sides agrees to his valor – when he was offered a horse to escape, he refused. Still, that didn’t stop the winning side from stringing his dead body up on a horse and parading it around doing nasty things to it, and then burying it without any honor. Battle is a bitch sometimes.
- The Stanleys kind of saved the day for Henry. They had 6,000 men. Richard had about 15,000 and Henry had 5,000. So their force more than doubled Henry’s army. Thomas Lord Stanley was married to Henry’s mother Lady Margaret Beaufort, but his son was being held hostage by Richard to guarantee his good behavior. The Stanley brothers tried to stay out of it until they saw the tide was turning for Henry, and that Henry was in danger of being killed. Then they hopped in, doubled the size of the army, and saved the day.
There you go – five fun facts on Bosworth you can talk about all day today. Annoy your coworkers, and amaze your friends.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.