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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
To make a satisfactory study of the story of a battle it is no doubt desirable to visit the field of action and examine it carefully with one's own eyes. Where much time has elapsed and many changes have taken place in the aspect of the country the written records are not always easy to interpret; and where even these are scanty and obscure a large number of open questions will naturally be the result. Such has been the case with the famous battle of Bosworth Field, of which we possess virtually only one narrative, and that not written by an eye-witness or even by an Englishman, but by an intelligent foreigner who settled in England some years after. Polydore Vergil, the first writer of a connected history of England, arrived in this country about eighteen years after the battle, and doubtless gained his information about it from those who had seen and taken part in it. The accounts given by the subsequent English chroniclers, Hall, Grafton, and Holinshed, are little more than translations, a little amplified, of the description given by Polydore. Nevertheless, their additions to the narrative, as we shall see, are not without significance.
page 160 note a The name is supposed to mean “One Tree Hill.” I cannot tell whether the etymology be correct, but if it be so it by no means follows that it refers to any feature which existed in the fifteenth century. Otherwise it fits my argument pretty well, that the hill was long conspicuous for having but a single tree.
page 161 note a Burton, , in his Description of Leicestershire (p. 158, 2nd ed.)Google Scholar, says that his great-great-grandfather, John Hardwick, of Lindley, near Atherstone, a man of very short stature, tendered his services to Henry at Atherstone as a guide, and advised him in the attack, and how to choose his ground and profit by the sun and wind. No doubt some one did advise him in these matters; but as Hutton (p. 65) remarks, there is no evidence that John Hardwick was rewarded for his pains.
page 165 note a Hutton's Bosworth, 69.
page 165 note b Ibid. 97.
page 166 note a Hutton'a Bosworth Field. Advertisement at the beginning of the second edition, p. iv.
page 167 note a Both armies must have crossed it after the battle, even in the hurry of the flight and the pursuit, a quarter or half a mile further up.
page 168 note a The following extracts from Tartaglia's early treatise on artillery (pp. 27, 28) show the weights of some of the pieces of ordnance as compared with that of the balls used for them in Henry VIII.'s time:
“A faulconet whose pellet of leade weigheth 3 pounde waight is 5 foot and ½ foote long, and commonly containeth 400 pounde waight of mettall, and must be drawne with two horses.
A faulcon whose pellet waigheth 6 pound waight, being 7 foote long, containeth 890 pound waight of mettall, and must be drawne with foure horses.
A saker whose pellet wayeth 12 pounde waight, being 8 foote long, containeth 1400 pound waight of mettall, and must be drawne with eight horses.
A saker whose pellet wayeth 12 pound waight, being 9 foote long, containeth 2150 pound waight of mettall, and must be drawne with ten horses.
A saker whose pellet wayeth ten pound waight, being 8 foote long, containeth 1300 pound waight of mettall, and must be drawne with sixe horses.
A culvering whose pellet of yron wayeth sixteen pounde waight, being 7 foote and ½ foote long, containeth 1750 pound, and must bee drawne with eight or ten horses.
A culvering whose pellet wayeth 14 pounds waight, being eight foote and ½ foote long, containeth 2233 pound waight of mettall, and must bee drawne with five yoke of oxen.”
It is unnecessary to quote the proportions of heavier pieces.
page 169 note a Book V. ch. xviii.
page 170 note a See Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 1135–6.
page 170 note b Inquis. p. m. 14 Hen. VII. No. 10.
page 170 note c See Calendar of Patent Rolls in Ninth Report of Deputy-Keeper of Public Records. Patent 1 Ric. III. p. 1, m. 5 d. (26 June), m. 8 d. (30 July), m. 7 d. (9 August), m. 10 d. (5 Dec.); also pt. 2 m. 2 d. (1 August).
page 170 note d Dugdale's Baronage.
page 170 note e His name is on the Commission for Warwickshire on the dorse of Patent Roll 22 and 23 Edw. IV., Part I., and doubtless in earlier rolls.
page 171 note a “Licet magno esset animo, et ejus copiæ passim augerentur, tamen in timore non parvo erat, quod nihil certi videretur sibi polliceri posse de Thoma Stanlejo (qui, uti demonstravi, propterea quod a Ricardo periculum filio metuebat, neutro adhuo inolinabat) et de Ricardi rebus, longe aliter ac amici significarant, nuntiaretur nihil firmius esse, nihil paratius.” Polydore Vergil, lib. xxv.
page 172 note a See Paston Letters, No. 884.
page 172 note b Page 54.
page 173 note a He and his brother Sir William had held a conference with Henry at Atherstone, which must have been on the 20th, probably early in the day.
page 174 note a “At the which encounter Lord Stanley joined with the Earl.” Hall, 418. This is a piece of original information inserted by Hall in translating Polydore.
page 175 note a See Hutton's Bosworth Field, second ed. p. 245.
page 175 note a “In eo vero loco ubi comes Northumbriæ cum satis decenti ingentique militia stabat, nihil adversi neque datis neque susceptis belli ictibus cernebatur.” Cont. Croyl. 574.
page 176 note a Sir William Brandon, as he is called by Hall and the subsequent chroniclers; which led me to suppose when I wrote my History of Richard III. that he could not have been killed, as stated, but only knocked down in the battle; for I found Sir William Brandon alive months and even years after. Sir James Ramsay in his Lancaster and York (ii. 550, note) has sought to correct my error, which I had already discovered some time before, showing that there were two Sir William Brandons, father and son; but he has made at least one mistake of his own, saying that the survivor was the son, for it was the son whom Richard killed, and I do not know that this son was a knight, as the designation given him by Hall would imply. He was the father of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the favourite of Henry VIII., and had been abroad with Richmond in Britanny, while the elder was in sanctuary in England taking refuge from Richard's tyranny,, Rolls of Parliament, vi. 291–2.
page 177 note a Drake's Eboracum, 122.