The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III's Lost Burial Place and the Clues It Holds (27 page)

As Richard was well aware of such danger, we can assume he consciously chose to take the risk, aiming to enact his cavalry manoeuvre successfully, and thereby prove his right to be king through courage on the battlefield. Such a bold course would also pre-empt any intervention by the Stanleys. With Sir William Stanley’s forces close by, the sooner Richard could finish the battle, the better his chances of victory.

It was Tudor, not Richard, who had most reason to be nervous and fearful on the eve of combat. While Richard marched to battle, Henry had spent the day in Atherstone, locked in fruitless discussions with Sir William Stanley. As the king’s army was so near, it was vital that Tudor and Stanley now combine their forces, but Sir William would not commit to doing so. He was of course still worried about the fate of his nephew, who Richard would surely execute as soon as Sir William joined Tudor’s army. He may also have been pessimistic about Henry’s chances of securing victory. Stanley would only promise to advance in the direction of the king’s forces, but keeping his men separate and at a distance from Tudor’s, with a vague assurance that he would intervene directly when the opportunity was right. Henry may or may not have believed him, but he had to act as if he did, for without Stanley’s assistance he was outnumbered three to one by the royal army and facing almost certain defeat.

On his return to Merevale Abbey that night Henry consulted with his principal captains, the Earl of Oxford and Philibert de Chandée, and together they decided on their battle tactics. Unusually, they would advance towards Richard’s army with the largest part of their strength concentrated in the vanguard, including many of the French mercenaries. The hope was to force an early advantage, which would persuade Stanley to commit himself at last to Tudor’s cause. This was a desperate gamble, and all knew that if it failed, their forces would be overwhelmed and destroyed. Accordingly, it was agreed that Henry would place himself among the rearguard, and this would be positioned a substantial distance from the main battle line – almost a mile behind it – to give him a chance of escaping the field. These battle dispositions could hardly have filled Tudor’s men with confidence, and yet it seems that this forlorn hope was embraced with grim determination. With Henry so far from the majority of his troops, he would be unable to exercise any meaningful control over his army and the command was instead given to Oxford. Once again Tudor was relegated to the role of a helpless bystander, watching while his fate was decided by others.

Henry’s inner feelings at this critical moment can be glimpsed from his later donation of a stained-glass window to Merevale Abbey, in commemoration of the battle. The window was of St Armel, a little-known Breton saint adopted by Tudor at an earlier time of crisis, when his ship was caught in a storm and buffeted by winds off the coast of France, and seemed certain to sink. Henry had appealed to Armel, and credited his survival to the saint’s miraculous intercession. The window portrait of Armel – a fourth-century bishop – uniquely depicted him in plate armour, strongly suggesting that Tudor had prayed to him for assistance in the forthcoming battle. Henry was once more in mortal danger, and very much at the mercy of events.

The mood in the royal camp was rather different. On the morning of 22 August Richard assembled his army and, once it was fully gathered, paraded before it, displaying to them in a procession along the battle line ‘the rich crown of England’, part of the coronation regalia – and possibly the crown of Edward the Confessor. This was a solemn ceremony that required time and careful preparation to enact. The king wished to show his men, through this ritual, that success in battle would at last firmly establish the Yorkist dynasty and mark a new beginning to his reign. This powerful statement of intent by the ruling monarch belied later Tudor claims that Richard awoke troubled and demoralized, with his men in disarray. Rather, the king was confident and ready for the fight. After the ritual was complete, he led his men out on to the Roman road, and, moving westwards, took up battle positions several miles along it, between the small villages of Fenny Drayton and Dadlington, there to await the arrival of Tudor’s army.

Tudor’s forces had further to march, and after leaving the vicinity of Merevale Abbey they struck out over its adjoining fields. It was harvest time, and Henry later paid out compensation to the parishes of Atterton and Fenny Drayton as his troops, fanning out towards Richard’s expected position, trampled down the crops. They then formed up along the road, and pushed forward towards the village of Fenny Drayton. Beyond it lay the royal army.

Battle began in the middle of the morning, when Richard’s guns opened up on Tudor’s approaching vanguard. It must have been a demoralizing moment for Oxford and Chandée, seeing for the first time the full size of the army deployed against them and now on the receiving end of an artillery bombardment. But in this desperate situation they responded with skill and ingenuity. To lessen the effect of Richard’s guns they resolved to close with his troops quickly, devising a flanking attack that took advantage of the protection of a nearby marsh, which enabled them, with the benefit of the strong morning sun behind them, to bring their full strength down on the wing of Richard’s vanguard. The king’s forces – commanded by the Duke of Norfolk – were taken aback by the force of this attack and, while fighting stalwartly, began to be pushed back by their assailants. Now Stanley’s troops could also be seen – drawn up some distance from the fighting – but despite the initial success of Tudor’s army Sir William made no attempt to intervene.

It was at this opening stage of the battle that Richard III first caught sight of his Tudor challenger. Henry and his rearguard had now appeared, at a considerable distance behind the main body of his forces. In Richard’s eyes, a battle-winning opportunity was opening up before him. The two vanguards were still closely engaged, Stanley’s forces stood immobile and seemingly removed from the fighting and Tudor and his small contingent were now in view, dangerously isolated from the rest of his army. Richard quickly made his decision. He had the opportunity that he had hoped for. He would launch a massed cavalry charge at his opponent, and finish with Tudor once and for all.

Tudor sources later derided Richard’s charge as an impulsive gamble, one that was prompted by the discovery of treachery amid his followers. They imply that – after the clash of the vanguards – the king was rapidly losing control of his army, which showed little stomach for the fight, and that his attack on Tudor was an ill-prepared and desperate act that stood no chance of success. But these accounts are unconvincing, for Richard gathered his cavalry force with calm deliberation. We have already invoked Richard’s ritual preparation for battle. A signal was given to the chosen men of his main division, the king placing a loose-fitting robe displaying the royal coat of arms over his armour. His followers mounted up. Richard then donned a battle crown, a specially made helmet with a circlet crown welded to it. His men readied themselves for the charge. Finally, the king lifted his battle-axe. The line of horsemen began to move forward, slowly at first, then with increasing momentum, swinging wide past the clashing vanguards before gathering speed to close on Henry’s position.

Tudor was taken completely by surprise by this bold attack, and pandemonium broke out among his retinue when Richard’s force was suddenly sighted. It was now too late for the challenger to flee, and an account by one of the French mercenaries in Henry’s army related how Tudor instead decided to dismount and was then hidden among the men of his personal bodyguard, to present a less visible target. ‘He wanted to be on foot – in the midst of us,’ the soldier said candidly. But once again, at a moment of crisis Henry was blessed by good fortune. A small body of French pikemen was standing nearby, placed there by Oxford – in reserve – as an additional precaution. There were few of them, but they were well-trained, and, following a desperate appeal for help, these men quickly dropped back and enclosed Henry in a mass of bristling weaponry.

The pike was an eighteen-foot-long wooden stave with a steel head. It was formidable in tight, unbroken formation. These troops had been a special parting gift to Tudor from the French king. And, luckily for Henry, they were trained in a recently adopted Swiss technique to counter a cavalry charge, in which a front rank would kneel with their weapons sloping up, the second standing behind them with their pikes angled, the third with their weapons held at waist level. It had been found that a mounted attack would be considerably slowed by such a formation. But this was only a small force; the majority of the pikemen had been deployed with the Earl of Oxford in the vanguard of Tudor’s army. King Richard still had the chance to fight his way to victory.

The majority of Tudor’s forces were still on horseback and Richard and his followers ploughed straight through them. There must have been a terrible collision between the king’s mounted troops and Tudor’s retinue, the clattering shock of impact followed by sheer chaos as riders crashed into each other, and those behind into their fellows. Tudor stood dismounted, protected by his French soldiers, as the king drove his way towards his standard.

King Richard was close to victory. But the phalanx of pike-men formed around Henry had bought him precious time. Richard was fighting with extraordinary determination, but he was also cut off, far from the main part of his army, his picked body of horsemen isolated and vulnerable. Sir William Stanley, watching proceedings from higher ground nearby, was being offered a most tempting target. As Richard sought out his opponent, one of Henry’s mercenaries recollected the king crying out in rage and frustration, cursing the body of pikemen: ‘These French traitors are today the cause of our realm’s ruin.’ This has the ring of a genuine memory from someone close enough to hear. Although it is impossible to know the exact sequence, it seems likely that Stanley now decided to commit his forces against the king. The battle was nearing its awful climax.

Richard now faced a crisis. Most sources agree that the king’s supporters urged him to flee at some stage of the fighting, and this appears to be the likeliest moment. Richard was told to quit the battlefield and save his life. Richard spurned the opportunity. His reply was grimly defiant. He would finish the matter, and kill Tudor, or die in the attempt.

This was a heroic way to fight. All contemporaries, even the most critical, now spoke with admiration of Richard’s courage, that he ‘bore himself like a gallant knight’ and he ‘fought manfully to the very end’. There was a sense of awe as he and his men now hurled themselves into the thickest press of their opponents. But Stanley’s men were approaching; there was so little time. The king’s men seemed to have joined in a body around his banner and smashed their way through Tudor’s forces towards the slender pike wall that offered Henry his last protection. The rival standards were only yards apart as this ferocious surge carried Richard towards his challenger.

At this critical point in the battle, Richard reached Tudor’s standard, cutting it down and killing the standard-bearer, Sir William Brandon. He was now tantalizingly close to Henry himself. Tudor – still dismounted – made no attempt to engage his opponent, and it was left to others to try to fend off Richard’s attack. A flux of horsemen was now swirling around Henry’s pike position. A strong knight, Sir John Cheney, rode in front of them, blocking Richard’s way, and further protecting his master. The king flung him aside. Tudor would have been only a few feet from him, but Richard no longer had time to cut his way through the screen of pikemen and strike him down. Stanley’s men had arrived and as they pitched in to assist Tudor’s beleaguered force it was now Richard’s followers who were being overwhelmed. In the battle’s terrible climax the royal standard-bearer was brought to his knees, his legs cut from underneath him.

The king fought on, engaging another of Henry’s followers, Sir Rhys ap Thomas, in fierce mounted combat. But he was being pushed further and further away from Tudor by the sheer press of numbers. On the edge of some nearby marshland, several hundred yards from Henry Tudor’s position, Richard turned to rally his troops. In the desperate mêlée his horse lost his footing and plunged into the marsh. The king was thrown to the ground. He gathered himself, but he was now surrounded by his enemies.