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You are here: Home / Arts / Pivotal History Moments – Bosworth 1485

Pivotal History Moments – Bosworth 1485

November 24, 2017 By Allison Symes 3 Comments

I don’t know how much the arts contribute in terms of income but it must be billions. The same can be said for history. Our tourism industry depends on it and we have a significant historical heritage in our part of the world.

The Bargate in Southampton (think Sir Bevis of Hampton as well as the Roman walls), the remains of Henry V’s ship The Grace Dieu in the River Hamble, Portsmouth Naval Dockyard, Winchester Cathedral (and Salisbury Cathedral with one of the few original copies of the Magna Carta, a quick train ride away from our railway station too. I highly recommend the run if you haven’t done it. The Chandler’s Ford to Salisbury line goes through some lovely country. Seeing the Magna Carta for yourself is something special too I think.).

Chandler's Ford railway station – it’s “by the railway”, but wasn’t open in 1988.
Chandler’s Ford railway station. Image from CFT archives.
Salisbury Cathedral
Salisbury Cathedral in all its splendour and easily accessible via our direct train service from Chandler’s Ford. Image by Allison Symes
Winchester Cathedral where Jane Austen is buried, image via Pixabay
Winchester Cathedral which is even easier to get to from Chandler’s Ford! Image via Pixabay

History is a strange beast in how it turns hinges on results and those results can be changed by the smallest of things. There is much truth in the old rhyme “for want of a nail, the horse was lost; for want of the horse, the battle was lost”. Given I’m going to talk a little about the Battle of Bosworth, this is an appropriate rhyme to use, given it is believed to refer to this.

A battle win means regime change. A loss means change too funnily enough. The supporters of those on the losing side can expect reprisals for a start! And one of the biggest examples of this is the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The entire country was affected by that result so why is it not commemorated more?

Richard III - image via Pixabay
Richard III – Villain or Maligned? image via Pixabay

History is written by the winners. All supporters of Richard III, including me, know how true that statement is, given the king’s “image” in the eyes of so many is that of a man who killed his nephews to take the throne. The “murders” are not proven. Richard did kill, as did all monarchs of his era, including his successor, but that does not make him guilty of the murder of the young Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York.

Allowing for the fact Richard did have motive and opportunity to do away with the Princes if he so wished, it does make it difficult to understand why he left all the other heirs of York, at least one of whom had a better claim to the throne than he did (John de la Pole, another nephew), not just alive, but well and thriving and in his government!

Henry VII - image via Pixabay
Henry VII – won Bosworth thanks to treachery. The way Henry’s men treated Richard III’s body was considered disgraceful even at the time. Image via Pixabay

I suspect we will never know the truth. All we can do is read what is known and draw our own conclusions. I followed Phillipa Langley’s quest to find the body of Richard III with great interest (and happily recommend her book too, detailing how this came about, which is called The Search for Richard).

Will we ever know what really happened to the Princes in the Tower - image via Pixabay
Will we ever know what really happened to the Princes in the Tower – image via Pixabay

Her next quest is The Missing Princes Project. I would love it if she was able to track down the missing Princes’ remains. I strongly believe the urn in Westminster Abbey that is marked as containing the boys does not. I would like there to be DNA testing on what is in there, given a known descendant of Richard was found and DNA was taken from him to prove the link to the king.

Medieval equipment - not for the faint of heart
Medieval equipment – not for the faint of heart. Image by Allison Symes and taken at the excellent Medieval Weekend held at Manor Farm, Bursledon earlier this year.

When all is said and done, thanks to treachery, Richard lost at Bosworth. It was a close run thing too.  It was the betrayal by Lord Stanley that made the difference.  Ironically, only a few years later he was to be executed by the man he put on the throne, Henry VII.  Why?  Stanley betrayed him too!

Richard III did kill Henry Tudor flag bearer and almost got Henry himself - image via Pixabay
Richard III did kill Henry Tudor flag bearer and almost got Henry himself – image via Pixabay

The Tudors came in and Richard’s name was mud from then onwards, helped no end by Shakespeare. Much as I love the Bard, I don’t rely on him for historical accuracy. You can’t trust us storytellers, can you? We deliberately make up lies (aka tell stories) and flog them (or the performance of them) to the public.

Richard III by the Bard of Avon - image via Pixabay
Richard III by the Bard of Avon – image via Pixabay

Bosworth is one of many pivotal moments in our country’s history yet is overlooked. Had Richard won, there would have been no Tudors, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and so much of what happened in our history simply would not have done, including one historical event that does get some attention – the Spanish Armada’s defeat in 1588. It defined us as a seafaring nation but Richard’s direct descendants would’ve been on the throne, they would still have been Catholic, there would have been no Armada sent unless Richard had gone out of his way to upset the Spanish. Richard’s policy in his short reign had been to negotiate where possible.

A fallen knight - Richard III was the ultimate one - image via Pixabay
A fallen knight – Richard III was the ultimate one and even Henry VII recognised Richard’s courage – image via Pixabay

I find it hard to imagine a history without Elizabeth the First in it but had Richard stayed on the throne, she would not have existed. Richard, shortly before his death, had been planning to remarry into the Portuguese royal house – and was planning his niece, Elizabeth of York, would also do so. There would have been no marriage with Henry Tudor to unite the warring families of York and Lancaster. There would have been no Mary Stuart either given her descent was from Margaret Tudor, Henry VII’s daughter.

Tudor rose - image via Pixabay
Tudor rose – image via Pixabay

As for us here in Hampshire, our emblem is the Tudor Rose, the symbol of the uniting of York and Lancaster. Err… somehow I think we would have chosen differently if Richard had stayed on his throne! The article I link to here shows Hampshire had been linked with Lancaster and the red rose. I suspect this was one of those things “not drawn attention to” during the reigns of the Yorkist kings, Edward IV and Richard III. It would not have had any advantages to Hampshire at the time, quite the opposite in fact.

Hampshire supported the red rose, Lancastrian, cause - image via Pixabay
Hampshire supported the red rose, Lancastrian, cause – image via Pixabay

So how else did Bosworth affect us in Hampshire? Mary Tudor would not have married Philip II of Spain in Winchester Cathedral for one thing. Nor would she have gone down in history as Bloody Mary with all that entails.

One thing I think would’ve still happened is the building up of Portsmouth as a naval port. One of the few good things I do have to say about that monster, Henry VIII, is he did develop the navy (though even here Henry isn’t the innovator, King Alfred centuries before was – and remembered still, especially in Winchester), but Richard was a good soldier and strategist and there is a strong probability he would have done this himself, even if he didn’t have to face threats from the Spanish etc.

Medieval armour - image via Pixabay
Medieval armour – image via Pixabay

One of the odd things about Richard, which those who do think he murdered the Princes, have never explained is the fact he brought in what we would recognise now as the beginnings of human rights legislation. For example, he extended the right to bail. Now isn’t that an oddball thing to do if you are a ruthless killer? Just a thought…

The other major thing about Bosworth is had Richard won, he would almost certainly have strengthened defences around the country afterwards to act as a warning to others and to reinforce his position. This would have impacted on us all in the South, especially around Southampton and Portsmouth, given our part of the world has always been a tempting starting point for any potential invader.

Medieval battle re-enactment, image via Pixabay
Medieval battle re-enactment, image via Pixabay

Richard as a character has long attracted storytellers (Shakespeare must have relished writing that story, there is so much drama in it!), and, over the next few weeks, I’ll be talking to friend and fellow author, Jennifer C Wilson, who has made Richard her leading man in her books. In another, he is the romantic lead, not a role usually reserved for him (The Last Plantagenet?). Intrigued? I hope so. If you like books that are different, do check out Jennifer’s work.

More on this to come including Jennifer’s thoughts on the joys and woes of writing her stories, which are categorised as paranormal historical fiction (Kindred Spirits: Tower of London and Kindred Spirits: Royal Mile). If you like historical fiction and ghost stories, you will love Jennifer’s work.

And the funny thing about fiction? It can sometimes bring out truths facts will not and is one of so many reasons why I love it. Unlike history, it does not hinge on results (which, after all, can be fixed if you try hard enough!).

Ricardians prefer their roses white for York - image via Pixabay
Ricardians prefer their roses white for York – image via Pixabay

Related Posts:-

Revisiting Medieval Hampshire in 2017

Medieval Weekend – 15th and 16th July 2017

Vital History by Allison Symes

Impossible Interviews: Richard III

Would You Live a Medieval Life?

Following the King: on the Great Ships Trail

Book Review: The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.

Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.

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Tags: Hampshire, history

About Allison Symes

I'm a published flash fiction and short story writer, as well as a blogger. My fiction work has appeared in anthologies from Cafelit and Bridge House Publishing.

My first flash fiction collection, From Light to Dark and Back Again, was published by Chapeltown Books in 2017.

My follow-up, Tripping the Flash Fantastic, was published by Chapeltown Books in 2020.

I adore the works of many authors but my favourites are Jane Austen, P.G. Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett.

I like to describe my fiction as fairytales with bite.

I also write for Writers' Narrative magazine and am one of their editors. I am a freelance editor separately and have had many short stories published online and in anthologies.

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Comments

  1. Mike Sedgwick says

    November 24, 2017 at 12:38 pm

    We were discussing, just a few nights ago, when the medieval age ended. It seems historians agree that it ended in England with the battle of Bosworth 1485. Historians of other countries mark the end at other dates when a King died or other big change. Generally it ended around 1500.
    Thereafter began world discovery, Columbus, Vasco da Gama, (1498 landed in India) Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe some 20 years later. England joined the game late, Sir francis Drake circumnavigated the world in 1580 in the `Golden Hind but his main interest was in piracy.

    Reply
    • Allison Symes says

      November 24, 2017 at 5:27 pm

      The Tudors liked to see themselves as ushering in a new era so they too would have thought the medieval age ended with Richard!

      I believe the phrase “in living memory” refers, officially, to events since the reign of Richard I, though I can’t think of anyone who has lived that long for it to be accurate in terms of numbers!

      Reply

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  1. Stepping Back in Time: Part 2 of Jennifer C Wilson Interview - Chandler's Ford Today says:
    December 30, 2017 at 9:56 pm

    […] and I both adore Richard III and prefer our roses white but how difficult was it to keep bias out of writing your first book in […]

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