We now know that it was for want of a helmet, not a horse, that Richard III’s kingdom was lost. Tradition has it that, as battle raged across fields near Bosworth on the 22 August 1485, Richard saw Henry Tudor and his escort detach themselves from the rest of their army. Sensing an opportunity to decide the battle – and secure his throne – Richard charged. Whether it was overconfidence from an impetuous warrior king or a last roll of the dice from a man with nothing left to lose is impossible to say. But whatever provoked this final act of Plantagenet generalship, it proved a gamble too far.
At first Richard’s personal intervention looked to be a masterstroke. His band of knights scythed through Tudor’s bodyguards, and Richard himself is credited with slaying Henry’s standard-bearer. But just when victory seemed to be within Richard’s grasp, he was betrayed. Lord Stanley, who was watching from a nearby hilltop, ordered his men to the aid of Henry rather than their king. Suddenly it was Richard who was exposed too far from the rest of his force. Outnumbered and then cut off, England’s last Medieval king went down fighting.
Even the notoriously antagonistic Tudor chroniclers respected Richard’s bearing during that bitter last stand. John Rous, writing around 1490, is on record claiming that Richard was ‘retained within his mother’s womb for two years, emerging with teeth and hair to his shoulders.’ Despite peddling such shameless innuendo, Rous does not attempt to sully the nature of Richard’s end, writing that ‘if I may say the truth to his credit, though small in body and feeble of limb, he bore himself like a gallant knight and acted with distinction as his own champion until his last breath, shouting oftentimes that he was betrayed and crying “Treason! Treason! Treason!”.’ Now, confirmation that the human skeleton unearthed in the former Grey Friars church is that of Richard III has provided a graphic insight into the brutal passing of the last Plantagenet king, and the nature of Medieval battlefield justice.
