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Battle of Stoke: The Battlefield Site

25/5/2016

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16th June 1487
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Looking towards Red Gutter
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Battlefield meadow, the incline of Burrand Funlong
Standing with your back to the bell tower of St Oswald’s Church in East Stoke, and looking across the site that was once a medieval village, you can see England's third longest river, the Trent. The River Trent and the Fosse Way play an important part in the story of Stoke Field, both run parallel to one another and between the two, and a just over a mile in length, are the fields on which the last battle of the Wars of the Roses was fought. ​​
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Arial view of the whole of the Stoke battlefield
The Trent winds its way north east from its source in Staffordshire until it meets the River Ouse to form the Humber Estuary, and as it does, it passes through the county of Nottinghamshire. After flowing under Trent Bridge in Nottingham it makes its way towards Newark. At one point it runs in an almost north to south direction passing the village of Fiskerton on its west bank, after another a mile of meandering it gradually turns eastwards, this curve forms a flood plain which it encompasses on three sides before turning north once more. It is at this point the Trent is only a quarter of a mile from the village of East Stoke. This village, often referred to as Stoke, has now been returned to the pleasant village it once was, no longer are its residents troubled by volumes of traffic trundling through the village centre, tooting their horns impatiently at the cross roads traffic lights, for the traffic that traveled along the Fosse Way, now pass at a pleasing distance along the new A46.
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East Stoke, looking down School Lane toward cross roads, (North east of the battlefield in on the right)
 The tiny village is dominated by Stoke Hall, a red bricked Georgian mansion once the home Sir Robert Howe Bromley, admiral and politician. Adjacent to the hall is the aforementioned St Oswald’s Church, in whose hallowed grounds lie the bodies of the slain of the Battle of Stoke.

​
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Stoke Hall
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St Oswald's from Church Lane
The village of East Stoke, the aforementioned River Trent and Fosse Way form natural boundaries to the battlefield, the Trent snakes its way east and the ancient Roman road, the Fosse way, runs from Exeter to Lincoln. Other significant landmarks are Humber Lane, an old drove road that runs through the middle and cuts the battle field in half, and a wooded area known as Stoke Wood that now covers a steep embankment that forms the side of what has come to be known as Red Gutter. ​
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​The Battle of Stoke, along with Hedgeley Moor, Hexham, Edgecote Moor and Lusecote Field are much overlooked when it comes to analysing the politics of the Wars of the Roses, in fact Stoke, is more often than not, not seen as part of this time period at all. The Battle of Stoke, which took place on the morning of the 16th June 1487, saw off the last of the Plantagenets and gave the Tudors a foundation on which to build their new dynasty, was an attempt by Yorkist loyalists to take the crown from the head of Henry VII and place it on the head of Yorkist figurehead Lambert Simnel, a claimant to the English throne, posing as Edward, Earl of Warwick. 
​
Following Simnel’s coronation in Dublin in May, the rebel army landed at Furness in Lancashire on the 4/5th of June. As they made their was south east, they gathered English soldiers and Irish and German mercenaries before coming face to face with the forces of Henry Tudor on the 16th. In 1487, the battlefield was referred to as the 'moor beyond Newark’ which suggests a grass, moss and bracken covered area where there would be no hedges and few trees as there are today. As time passed the battlefield succumbed to enclosure and the ‘moor’ was divided into a series of smaller fields, about twenty of them in all, bordered to the north by School and Church Lane in Stoke village and the south side by RAF Syerston's airfield. Just off centre is Rampire Hill, which actually is more of a bump than a hill which on one side slopes fairly steeply down towards the Trent near Hazelwood Lock, its other sides having more of a gentle incline. However, it is a hill none the less and its highest point has long been called Burrand Furlong. The vast majority of battlefield when we visited this weekend was filled with lush green crops, only the fields that runs along Stoke Wood and Church Lane are left uncultivated. The area, toward Stoke Wood that would have been used for strip farming by the residents of the ‘lost’ medieval village, is today exactly as seen in the above aerial photograph, a beautiful flower filled meadow.


The Yorkist Battle line (Troops with their back to Stoke wood) they would eventually run in this direction towards Red Gutter.
At present, the exact positioning of troops on the battlefield is not known, this is due in part to no artifacts being found to confirm a definite position.  However, most accounts agree that the right flank of the Yorkist's held Burrand Furlong. The 'traditional' account of the battle suggest that the lines ran across the width of the battle field with the Yorkist forces facing towards Syerston, with the Lancastrain right flank and the Yorkist left both straddling the Fosse Way. An alternative deployment, and the one I favour, has the Yorkist line within the battlefield with its center point crossing the end of Humber Lane and its back to Stoke Wood and Red Gutter. (See map above)
Looking towards Burrand Furlong. The Yorkist force right flank were placed on Burrand Furlong (first image) and straddled Humber Lane (second image) and Lancastrian position at Burrand Furlong (Images four and five) 
The Battle of Stoke began by 

  " 9:00 am, after marching eight miles that morning from Radcliffe, the vanguard of the royal force, under the command of the Earl of Oxford, encountered the rebel army and deployed for battle. The rebel army advanced to the attack. Only the royal vanguard was engaged and, at first, they came under considerable pressure. Although probably outnumbered, these will have been the crack troops of the royalist army, better equipped and far more experienced than most of their opponents. As at Bosworth the Earl of Oxford's troops took the pressure and then counter attacked, first breaking the Yorkist army and then destroying them in the rout."


After three hours the Yorkist line was broken and all was lost. Blooded and frightened for their lives, those who survived the battle attempted to escape towards the top of the escarpment and down the embankment to Red Gutter, a gully that separates the battlefield from the floodplains of the River Trent. The legend that the vast majority of the Yorkist fled the battle making their escape from Rampire Hill via Red Gutter adds weight to the theory of the aforementioned 'alternative' battle line. 
Red Gutter and the Trent flood plain. Red Gutter is not so called because it ran red with blood of the slain, but because of the redness of the soil as
​you can see in the fourth image.
Slipping and sliding down the steep embankment into such a small gutter, slowed down the Yorkist escape, and made it easy for their slaughter at the hands of the sword wielding but victorious Lancastians. Those who managed to escape crossed the field and perished in the cold waters of the River Trent. While his men striped the dead of their belongings, Henry VII made his way to Burrand Furlong, the highest point on Stoke Field, to proclaim his victory, here he placed the Tudor standard, a symbolic gesture reminiscent of Bosworth.

The estimate of the number of men killed at Stoke varies quite considerably, it ranges from 4000 to 7000, all but a few hundred were Yorkist dead. Those who did not escape with their lives were carried or dragged the short distance into grounds of St Oswald’s Church where they were hastily buried in a large pit. Evidence of the burial site is quite plain to see, the ground level of the churchyard is notably higher than the surrounding area, and it is significantly higher than the floor level within the church itself. A neat and well kept grassed mound in a pretty English churchyard is all that remains of a battle that took place here so very long ago. ​
Raised burial ground of St Oswald's thought to be the burial pit of thousands slain on the battlefield. 
Today, there are few monuments to the dead, one stands in the churchyard tucked unobtrusively to one side and the other, the Burrand Bush Stone, is totally inaccessible. Legend has it that a tree was planted on the spot where the Henry placed his standard (A hawthorne bush? An attempt to reinforce the Lancastrian claim to Richard III's crown?)  Later a small grey monument was placed where a tree once grew, it reads:

                        Here stood the Burrand Bush planted on the spot where Henry VII placed his standard after the 
                                                                           Battle of Stoke June 16th 1487.
Walking around this battle site you would never know anything happened here, it is quite heart breaking to think that only two
grey stones mark this area where such an important event in our history took place. The Battlefield Trail that at one time circled the site has fallen into disrepair, only a few rotting steps remain in place, the Burrand Bush Stone can no longer be seen, the memorial stone to the fallen blends into the wall of the St Oswald’s bell tower so much so that if you don’t know it’s there you’ll miss it. The information boards that lie within the church are actually quite informative but again not easily noticed or accessed, both the porch latch and the doors to the bell tower were stuck so tight that pressure had to be applied for them to open.
Remains of the Battlefield Trail, Battle of Stoke Memorial Stone, Information board and gates into St Oswald's church porch.
Something should be done to make more of this site, in memory of and giving the reason why 7000 men lost their lives here if nothing else! I’m not talking about a heritage centre,  just a couple of brown road sign pointing to this historic site* and few information boards placed at points along School Lane and Church Lane that lead to Red Gutter will do or maybe just a flag pole standing proudly on Burrand Furlong with a white and red rose flag  fluttering in the breeze, just something that would catch the eye of walkers and those motorists who drive past on East Stoke's brand new road to get people asking

​                                                              “I wonder what went on over there?"

*I am pleased to say that since writing this blog two years ago something has been done (I cannot say how excited I am) and now the story of what when on here in 1487 can be told from the exact site. You can now walk a trail that circles the battlefield and see, almost exactly, what all those men saw in those awful moments before the first charge. You can read the story of the last battle of the Wars ​of the Roses on a series of five oak panels which describe the background to the battle, the bloody events of the day and the aftermath. 
​

You can find out more about these new boards, a joint project between Nottinghamshire County Council and the Battlefields Trust here:   www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/media/1494449/battlefield-leaflet.pdf

What is important to remember though, is that today, the land on which the battle was fought in 1487 is private land and the owner will not want people wandering all over his property and straying from the trail, it is important that this is always be respected. 

Most of my photograph's were taken in 2016 on the boundaries of the battle field, from behind fences and gates, which is as close as we could get to the site. Others were taken from Humber Lane, however we did walk a short distance up a well used track to get some photographs of 
Burrand Furlong, at no point did we trample
 through the landowner's crops. Other photo's added since then are from a tour, lead by Mike Ingram in 2017, in which permission was granted by the land owner to visit the Burrand Stone (That brought a lump to my throat I must say!) and in April of this year. 
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Birth of the Edmund, Earl of Rutland

17/5/2016

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17th May 1443

​Accompanied by the words "Thy father slew mine; and so will I do thee and all thy kin" Edmund, Earl of Rutland is remembered for his tragic death, supposedly at the hands of John Clifford, than anything else.
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Taken from The Murder of Rutland by Lord Clifford' by Charles Robert Leslie, 1815.
Rutland was the second son of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville and born in France while his father was Lord Lieutenant.

Sadly, this young boys life can be viewed through that of the last years of his fathers, that is the events following Ludford Bridge, Ireland and his time in France. He was with the Duke of York in early December quashing Lancastrian unrest in the north of the country and by the end of that month at Wakefield, where the poor boy met his death along with his father.

Forever in his fathers wake, Edmund has no real story of his own, his early death gave him no chance to shine as his two brothers Edward and Richard did, or to make a fool of himself like George.
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Edmund, as you can see in this painting by Charles Robert Leslie is depicted as a child, when in fact, he was actually seventeen when he died. The Victorian artists liked to romanticise everything, a result of a shift from themes focused on the industrial revolution and fashion towards that of the medieval era. This one is my favourite - a very dramatic painting don't you think - the murder of an innocent child by a dastardly Clifford!
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Birth of Margaret Beaufort

11/5/2016

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On the 31st May 1443 Margaret Beaufort was born at Bletsoe Castle to Margaret Beauchamp and John Beaufort,
​Duke of Somerset. 
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Margaret Beaufort's Funeral Effergy at Westminster Abbey by Pietro Torrigiani
In 1455, at the age of just twelve years old Margaret had married Edmund Tudor as her second husband.

Margaret was soon pregnant and gave birth to the future Henry VII a year later. The birth of Henry, while Margaret was just a child herself, did irreparable damage, and this could account for the fact that she never gave birth again. Thirty years later, Henry was aided at the Battle of Bosworth by Thomas Stanley, her fourth husband whose family famously stood and watched
the battle, deciding at the last moment to take the side of the Lancastrian's against Richard III's Yorkist forces.

Although Margaret never recognised it as a marriage she was firstly married to John de la Pole, the son of William de la
​Pole and Alice Chaucer. This marriage was later annulled.
​
Margaret's third husband was Henry, son of Humphrey, Duke of Buckingham, their marriage was said to be a happy one.
In Henry VII's court, Margaret liked to be referred to as 'My Lady the King's Mother' she intensely disliked the fact that
she was of a lower status than both Elizabeth of York, Henry's queen and her mother Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of
Edward IV. She also disliked the fact that she had to adhere to court protocol and walk behind the queen and was probably responsible for ​the banishment of Elizabeth Woodville in 1487. Henry was said to have been a devoted son, his death in
​the April of 1509 was probably the beginning of the end for Margaret as she was dead only two months later.
Margaret Beaufort is famous as much for her piety and gifts to churches and collages as she is for being domineering,
pushy and intimidating, she was a force to be reckoned with, but her achievements prove that medieval women did not
always take the back seat to men.

Love her or hate her she was a very strong and determined woman.
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Death of Henry VI and The Ceremony of the Lilies and of the Roses. 

9/5/2016

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The Wakefield Tower is the second largest in the Tower of London, it was built between 1220 and 1240 by King Henry III,
within this tower was the King's private room. King Henry VI, was held prisoner in this tower by Edward IV and was said to have been murdered whilst praying in the oratory of the tower on this night of the 21st 
May 1471. 

Henry VI was born on the 6th of December 1421 and was the founder of Eton College and Kings College Cambridge.
​Most, if not all, of English colleges celebrate Founders Day and Eton have been celebrating the birth of Henry VI since 1905 when two boys laid a bouquet of white lilies on Henry's tomb. By 1947 King's College Cambridge were given permission to join the ceremony. Since then Kings, lay white roses in purple ribbons alongside the Eton lilies in pale blue ribbons on the spot where Henry VI is said to have been murdered.
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Micklegate Bar Roundel's

9/5/2016

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Photograph credit Philip Corlis
Fitted to a metal gate on the steps of York's city wall at Micklegate Bar is this roundel made in Fetter Lane by C Dearlove. 

Dearloves were whitesmiths, a company who worked with white iron, that is tin, the workers at Dearloves would have
finished or polished the tin ready for it to be painted and decorated as you see with this fine emblem of York, the White Rose. 


Fetter lane forms part of medieval York, it runs to the south of Micklegate Bar and joins Skeldergate which runs parallel to
the River Ouse. Incidentally, the word fetter refers to a chain or manacle, made out of iron that was used to restrain a
prisoner around the ankles. 

I wonder if Richard Duke of York and his son Edmund were restrained with such manacles before their decapitated heads ended up on Micklegate Bar in 1460. 

You needn't worry, Dearloves were not involved in such a barbaric practice, the company worked in York during the
​nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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Royal and Noble Tombs: Modern and Fifteenth Century Choices.

8/5/2016

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   Richard III,  Kingship, Religion and the World Today

Once a king was no more, plans that had previously been set in place were put into action, resulting in a finished
piece that was more often than not quite magnificent.  

Edward IV's is a fine tomb, Henry VII's in particular stands out and Henry VIII's would have been grand if he had got his act together and spent less of his father's money.  The greatness of a royal tomb is a fine example of royal breast beating
and loud shouts of "take note of how great I once was." You can be sure that many a king did not worry too much about the consequences of what they did in life, however they were extremely worried about these consequences once they had
shuffled off their mortal coil, this does not apply just to the monarch, it applied to most of the nobility too. 

The wealthy saw to it that the clergy were paid to light candles on a daily basis once they were entombed, and then
​yearly on the anniversary of their deaths. More importantly they made sure that prayers were offered for their souls. Fear of eternal damnation was the main driving force behind medieval and Tudor funeral art.
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The Tomb of Henry VII
Of course we cannot tar all nobility with the same brush, as early as 1430 people were considering the transiency
of their lives by opting for the Transi tomb. Bishop Robert Flemings tomb can be found in Lincoln Cathedral and
John Fitzalan's at Arundel Castle. Alice de la Pole's tomb at 
St Mary's Church, Ewelme in  Oxfordshire is magnificent. 


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The Tomb of Richard Fleming at Lincoln Cathedral
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The Tomb of John Fitzalan at Arundel Castle

So today, as in the past, the choice of a tomb for an English King has to be made and this is yet another chapter in the journey of the remains of King Richard III. How many of us have become saddened and disappointed by the way this journey has descended into squabbling, back biting and side taking, we may as well be reading a book on the War of the Roses,
​ its the Percey's verses the Neville's all over again. And now we have a new addition to the latest controversy, a new tomb design, and I seem to be the only one who actually likes Leicester Cathedrals design.


The choice of a tomb for Richard III should reflect three things, his kingship, his religious beliefs and the world today, and I think that this design doe's just this.  The simpleness of this new design, I feel, is a reflection of the latter, after all we are living in a country were many people have little and a world where the vast majority have nothing, a fancy tomb will not do. The deeply incised cross is a symbol of Richards faith and a reminder that Richard and his contemporaries were religious people even if we are not. Lastly the base has, placed within it, three Ricardian icons, the boar, Richard's motto and the white rose, a representation of his early life and his kingship.
​
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New design and setting for the tomb of Richard III
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King Richard III's Tomb at Leicester Cathedral 19th March 2015
NB This is a blog from Tuesday, 24 September 2013 reposted from a site that I am closing down, since then  Richard III remains have been re interned and his tomb placed on top, with a redesigned plinth. 
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Death of Jack Cade

8/5/2016

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12th July 1450  
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In 1450, a proclamation was issued offering 1000 marks to any person who could capture Jack Cade dead or alive, it did not take long, Cade was eventually found hiding in a garden in Sussex, by one Alexander Eden/Iden.

Cade may have died in the scuffle, but he was dead by the time he was transported in a cart on his way to London. Eden got his reward -
a marriage to Elizabeth, the widow of William Cromer and daughter of James Fiennes, Baron Saye who had been  beheaded five days earlier, and Cade, according to the authorities, got his. Like rebels Wat Tyler over a hundred years before, or Michael Joseph An Gof and Thomas Flamark twenty seven years later, Jack Cade met a grizzly end, his body was beheaded, quartered and dragged across London Bridge where is head was placed on a spike for all to see.

Of all of these rebellious heroes, its Jack Cade who stands out for me. Tyler, Gof and Flamark were of low birth, they acted against the mighty forces of government for something they passionately believed, a cause that stemmed from a genuine grievance. To say that Cade didn't have the same grievances would be unfair, but what is interesting is the motive behind the reason he stood up to fight, this is not as clear as that of the others.

Was Cade a real hero like Tyler, Gof and Flamark or was he working to undermine government on behalf of someone else?
With this in mind then, Jack Cade shouldn't fascinate me, but the truth is, he does.
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Battle of Tewkesbury

4/5/2016

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"The King full manly set forth even upon them, entered and won the dyke, and hedge, upon them, into the close, and,
with great violence put them up towards the hill, and so also, the king's vanguard in the rule of the Duke of Gloucester."

Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV


The Battle of Tewkesbury was fought on the 4th of May 1471 on The Gastons, a field that lies just south of Tewkesbury.
Yorkist forces under Edward IV, and the Lancastians under the Duke of Somerset collided just twenty days following the Yorkist victory at Barnet.  Somerset's army were protected by low lanes, dikes and heavy undergrowth, which the Arrivell states as being 

"strongly in a marvellously strong ground pight, full difficult to be assailed’ ​​
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The battle saw Edward and Hasting at the rear, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester leading the vanguard. Sir John Wenlock inactivity on the battlefield was the focal point for Gloucester's men who made their attack, but it was cause for concern for Somerset. Following a ‘mistake’ by Wenlock, many of Lancastrians men lost their lives fleeing across a field called Bloody Meadow. Wenlock died that day, wearing his Lancastrian coat, allegedly slain by Beaufort for holding back his men. Somerset is said to have accused him of treason and killed him there and then. Among those who who died that day was John Courtenay, it was his brother’s head that Edward had impaled on a spike in place of his father and brother’s after Towton in 1461. Edward Beaufort was executed two days later.


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Battle of Tewkesbury by Graham Turner http://www.studio88.co.uk/index.html
The most notable death at Tewksbury was Edward, Prince of Wales, Henry VI’s son and heir.  Shakespeare, as you might image, makes much of the manner of the boy’s death, having Edward, slapping the eighteen year old with his gauntleted
hand before Gloucester and Clarence both stab him to death, another story that has passed down to us through time is that
he was found and beheaded, allegedly by the Duke of Clarence.  What most probably happened was that the boy lost his life during the battle. What of Margaret of Anjou, the thorn in the side of the Yorkist?  Following her capture, she spent a number
of years of her captivity in the charge of a Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, a kindred spirit, another woman who ruthlessly
pursued the interest of her son. ​
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The execution of the Duke of Somerset.
Edward was once again in possession of the crown of England, the Lancastrians were defeated, there was a new royal heir, Clarence was onside once more, Richard had married Warwick's second daughter Anne and the vast Beauchamp/Neville inheritance was now part of his families estates. For Edward, this would be the last time he would deal with 
Lancastrian forces, he was dead by the time they reappeared, but in the meantime Jasper Tudor had whisked the teenage Henry Tudor over to Brittany, the Earl of Oxford who had beaten Hastings forces at Barnet was hiding among the Scots.

​Between them, these three men would see the end of the mighty Plantagenet dynasty and replace it with the name of Tudor.
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Battle of Tewkesbury

4/5/2016

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The Battle of Tewkesbury was fought on the 4th of May 1471, just twenty days following the Yorkist victory at Barnet on a field known as 'The Gaston' that lies south of Tewkesbury itself. ​
The Lancastrian forces were protected by low lanes, dikes and heavy undergrowth, which the Arrivell it states as being
"strongly in a marvellously strong ground pight, full difficult to be assailed’ 
​The battle saw Edward IV and William Hasting at the rear, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester leading the vanguard. Sir John Wenlock inactivity on the battlefield was the focal point for Gloucester's men who made their attack, but it was cause for concern for Somerset. Following a ‘mistake’ by Wenlock, many of Lancastrians men lost their lives fleeing across a field called Bloody Meadow. Wenlock died that day, wearing his Lancastrian coat, allegedly slain by Beaufort for holding back his men. Somerset is said to have accused him of treason and killed him there and then. Among those who died that day was John Courtenay, it was his brother’s head that Edward had impaled on a spike in place of his father and brother’s after Towton in 1461. Edward Beaufort and his sixteen year old brother John were executed two days later.
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The Battle of Tewkesbury, depicted in a Ghent manuscript
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The most notable death at Tewkesbury was Edward, Prince of Wales, Henry VI’s son and heir. Shakespeare, as you might image, makes much of the manner of the boy’s death, having Edward, slapping the eighteen year old with his gauntleted hand before Gloucester and Clarence both stab him to death, another story that has passed down to us through time is that he was found and beheaded, allegedly by the Duke of Clarence.  What most probably happened was that the boy lost his life during the battle. What of Margaret of Anjou, the thorn in the side of the Yorkist?  Following her capture, she spent a number of years of her captivity in the charge of a Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, a kindred spirit, another woman who ruthlessly pursued the interest of her son. ​
Edward was once again in possession of the crown of England, the Lancastrians were defeated, there was a new royal heir, Clarence was onside once more, Richard had married Warwick's second daughter Anne and the vast Beauchamp/Neville inheritance was now part of his family's estates. For Edward, this would be the last time he would deal with Lancastrian forces, he was dead by the time they reappeared, but in the meantime Jasper Tudor had whisked the teenage Henry Tudor over to Brittany, the Earl of Oxford who had beaten Hastings forces at Barnet was hiding among the Scots.

​Between them, these three men would see the end of the mighty Plantagenet dynasty and replace it with the name of Tudor.
​


​
​
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Richard III Monday 4th February 2013

3/5/2016

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 Anticipation and Worries over Monday 4th of February.

As the 4th of February approaches there will be many of us waiting with bated breath wondering what the outcome of all the tests run on the human remains found last September in a Leicester car park are likely to be. Whatever the findings there is likely to be a media furore. I worry what they will be saying and how they will be approaching this episode in our history. If the results go in our favour then only good can come out of it but if the tests turn out to be in the negative I hope that there will not be a lot of gloating or a return to slandering this mans good character and name. 

There have been many biographies written about Richard III over the years where his finer qualities have been emphasized 
notably Paul Murray Kendall’s Richard III and more recently Annette Carson’s The Maligned King. 
One of Richard III’s most ardent defender was Thomas Carte who wrote of the kings reign in his History of England in 1754.  Carte is quoted in The Betrayal of Richard III by V B Lamb.
Picture

“Facts, and the general tenour of a man’s conduct best show his real character, and all the virulent and atrocious calumnies founded purely on surmises, a perverse imagination, or downright falsehood, and thrown upon Richard by the flatterers of his successor whose cruelty came by that means to be overlooked, will never efface the just praise due to Richard or his excellent laws and his constant application to see justice impartially distributed and good order established in all parts of England”

 To be able to write an in depth book like the authors mentioned above is one of my greatest dreams but until then I like many people have to rely on reading a well written book or informative and sensible newspaper articles. Whether a positive or negative outcome on Monday it should be a opportunity not missed. Accredited historians and enthusiastic followers must continue Richard III’s story.


(Re blogged from a site I am now closing down)
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