CHAPTERXIVBOSWORTH FIELD

Warwick, August 29, 1889.—It has long been the conviction of the present writer that the character of King Richard the Third has been distorted and maligned by the old historians from whose authority the accepted view of it is derived. He was, it is certain, a superb soldier, a wise statesman, a judicious legislator, a natural ruler of men, and a prince most accomplished in music and the fine arts and in the graces of social life. Some of the best laws that ever were enacted in England were enacted during his reign. His title to the throne of England was absolutely clear, as against the Earl of Richmond, and but for the treachery of some among his followers he would have prevailed in the contest upon Bosworth Field, and would have vindicated and maintained that title over all opposition. He lost the battle, and he was too great a man to survive the ruin of his fortunes. He threw away his life in the last mad charge upon Richmond that day, and when once the grave had closed over him, and his usurping cousin had seized the Englishcrown, it naturally must have become the easy as well as the politic business of history to blacken his character. England was never ruled by a more severe monarch than the austere, crafty, avaricious Henry the Seventh, and it is certain that no word in praise of his predecessor could have been publicly said in England during Henry's reign: neither would it have been wholly safe for anybody to speak for Richard and the House of York, in the time of Henry the Eighth, the cruel Mary, or the illustrious Elizabeth. The drift, in fact, was all the other way. TheLife of Richard the Third, by Sir Thomas More, is the fountain-head of the other narratives of his career, and there can be no doubt that More, who as a youth had lived at Canterbury, in the palace of Archbishop Morton, derived his views of Richard from that prelate,—to whose hand indeed, the essential part of theLifehas been attributed. "Morton is fled to Richmond." He was Bishop of Ely when he deserted the king, and Henry the Seventh rewarded him by making him Archbishop of Canterbury. No man of the time was so little likely as Morton to take an unprejudiced view of Richard the Third. It is the Morton view that has become history. The world still looks at Richard through the eyes of his victorious foe. Moreover, the Morton view has been stamped indelibly upon the imagination and the credulity of mankind by the overwhelming and irresistible genius of Shakespeare, who wroteRichard the Thirdin the reign of the granddaughter of Henry the Seventh, and who, aside from the safeguard of discretion, saw dramatic possibilities in the man of dark passions and deeds that he could not have seen in amore human and a more virtuous monarch. Goodness is generally monotonous. "The low sun makes the colour." It is not to be supposed that Richard was a model man; but there are good reasons for thinking that he was not so black as his enemies painted him; and, good or bad, he is one of the most fascinating personalities that history and literature have made immortal. It was with no common emotion, therefore, that I stood upon the summit of Ambien Hill and looked downward over the plain where Richard fought his last fight and went gloriously to his death.

BOSWORTH FIELD

The battle of Bosworth Field was fought on August 22, 1485. More than four hundred years have passed since then: yet except for the incursions of a canal and a railway the aspect of that plain is but little changed from what it was when Richard surveyed it, on that gray and sombre morning when he beheld the forces of Richmond advancing past the marsh and knew that the crisis of his life had come. The earl was pressing forward that day from Tamworth and Atherstone, which are in the northern part of Warwickshire,—the latter being close upon the Leicestershire border. His course was a little to the southeast, and Richard's forces, facing northwesterly, confronted their enemies from the summit of a long and gently sloping hill that extends for several miles, about east and west, from Market Bosworth on the right, to the vicinity of Dadlington on the left. The king's position had been chosen with an excellent judgment that has more than once, in modern times, elicited the admiration of accomplished soldiers. His right wing, commanded by Lord Stanley, rested on Bosworth. His left was protected by a marsh, impassable to thefoe. Sir William Stanley commanded the left and had his headquarters in Dadlington. Richard rode in the centre. Far to the right he saw the clustered houses and the graceful spire of Bosworth, and far to the left his glance rested on the little church of Dadlington. Below and in front of him all was open field, and all across that field waved the banners and sounded the trumpets of rebellion and defiance. It is easy to imagine the glowing emotions,—the implacable resentment, the passionate fury, and the deadly purpose of slaughter and vengeance,—with which the imperious and terrible monarch gazed on his approaching foes. They show, in a meadow, a little way over the crest of the hill, where it is marked and partly covered now by a pyramidal structure of gray stones, suitably inscribed with a few commemorative lines in Latin, a spring of water at which Richard paused to quench his thirst, before he made that last desperate charge on Radmore heath, when at length he knew himself betrayed and abandoned, and felt that his only hope lay in killing the Earl of Richmond with his own hand. The fight at Bosworth was not a long one. Both the Stanleys deserted the king's standard early in the day. It was easy for them, posted as they were, to wheel their forces into the rear of the rebel army, at the right and at the left. Nothing then remained for Richard but to rush down upon the centre, where he saw the banner of Richmond,—borne, at that moment, by Sir John Cheyney,—and to crush the treason at its head. It must have been a charge of tremendous impetuosity. It bore the fiery king a long way forward on the level plain. He struck down Cheyney, a man of almost gigantic stature. He killed Sir William Brandon.He plainly saw the Earl of Richmond, and came almost near enough to encounter him, when a score of swords were buried in his body, and, hacked almost into pieces, he fell beneath heaps of the slain. The place of his death is now the junction of three country roads, one leading northwest to Shenton, one southwest to Dadlington, and one bearing away easterly toward Bosworth. A little brook, called Sandy Ford, flows underneath the road, and there is a considerable coppice in the field at the junction. Upon the peaceful sign-board appear the names of Dadlington and Hinckley. Not more than five hundred feet distant, to the eastward, rises the embankment of a branch of the Midland Railway, from Nuneaton to Leicester, while at about the same distance to the westward rises the similar embankment of a canal. No monument has been erected to mark the spot where Richard the Third was slain. They took up his mangled body, threw it across a horse, and carried it into the town of Leicester, and there it was buried, in the church of the Gray Friars,—also the sepulchre of Cardinal Wolsey,—now a ruin. The only commemorative mark upon the battlefield is the pyramid at the well, and that stands at a long distance from the place of the king's fall. I tried to picture the scene of his final charge and his frightful death, as I stood there upon the hillside. Many little slate-coloured clouds were drifting across a pale blue sky. A cool summer breeze was sighing in the branches of the neighbouring trees. The bright green sod was all alive with the sparkling yellow of the colt's-foot and the soft red of the clover. Birds were whistling from the coppice near by, and overhead the air was flecked with innumerable black pinions of fugitive rooksand starlings. It did not seem possible that a sound of war or a deed of violence could ever have intruded to break the Sabbath stillness of that scene of peace.

The water of King Richard's Well is a shallow pool, choked now with moss and weeds. The inscription, which was written by Dr. Samuel Parr, of Hatton, reads as follows:

AQVA. EX. HOC. PVTEO. HAVSTASITIM. SEDAVIT.RICHARDVS. TERTIVS. REX. ANGLIAECVM HENRICO. COMITE DE RICHMONDIAACERRIME. ATQVE. INGENTISSIME. PRAELIANSET. VITA. PARITER. AC. SCEPTROANTE NOCTEM. CARITVRUSII KAL. SEP. A.D.M.C.C.C.C.LXXXV.

AQVA. EX. HOC. PVTEO. HAVSTA

SITIM. SEDAVIT.

RICHARDVS. TERTIVS. REX. ANGLIAE

CVM HENRICO. COMITE DE RICHMONDIA

ACERRIME. ATQVE. INGENTISSIME. PRAELIANS

ET. VITA. PARITER. AC. SCEPTRO

ANTE NOCTEM. CARITVRUS

II KAL. SEP. A.D.M.C.C.C.C.LXXXV.

There are five churches in the immediate neighbourhood of Bosworth Field, all of which were in one way or another associated with that memorable battle. Ratcliffe Culey church has a low square tower and a short stone spire, and there is herbage growing upon its tower and its roof. It is a building of the fourteenth century, one mark of this period being its perpendicular stone font, an octagon in shape, and much frayed by time. In three arches of its chancel, on the south side, the sculpture shows tri-foliated forms, of exceptional beauty. In the east window there are fragments of old glass, rich in colour and quaint and singular. The churchyard is full of odd gravestones, various in shape and irregular in position. An ugly slate-stone is much used in Leicestershire for monuments to the dead. Most of those stones record modern burials, the older graves being unmarked. The grass grows thick and dense all over the churchyard. Upon the church walls are severalfine specimens of those mysterious ray and circle marks which have long been a puzzle to the archæological explorer. Such marks are usually found in the last bay but one, on the south side of the nave, toward the west end of the church. On Ratcliffe Culey church they consist of central points with radial lines, like a star, but these are not enclosed, as often happens, with circle lines. Various theories have been advanced by antiquarians to account for these designs. Probably those marks were cut upon the churches, by the pious monks of old, as emblems of eternity and of the Sun of Righteousness.

Shenton Hall (1629), long and still the seat of the Woollastons, stood directly in the path of the combatants at Bosworth Field, and the fury of the battle must have raged all around it. The Hall has been recased, and, except for its old gatehouse and semi-octagon bays, which are of the Tudor style, it presents a modern aspect. Its windows open toward Radmore heath and Ambien Hill, the scene of the conflict between the Red Rose and the White. The church has been entirely rebuilt,—a handsome edifice, of crucial form, containing costly pews of old oak, together with interesting brasses and busts, taken from the old church which it has replaced. The brasses commemorate Richard Coate and Joyce his wife, and Richard Everard and his wife, and are dated 1556, 1597, and 1616. The busts are of white marble, dated 1666, and are commemorative of William Woollaston and his wife, once lord and lady of the manor of Shenton. It was the rule, in building churches, that one end should face to the east and the other to the west, but you frequently find an old church that is setat a slightly different angle,—that, namely, at which the sun arose on the birthday of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The style of large east and west windows, with trefoil or other ornamentation in the heads of the arches, came into vogue about the time of Edward the First.

Dadlington was Richard's extreme left on the day of the battle, and Bosworth was his extreme right. These positions were intrusted to the Stanleys, both of whom betrayed their king. Sir William Stanley's headquarters were at Dadlington, and traces of the earthworks then thrown up there, by Richard's command, are still visible. Dadlington church has almost crumbled to pieces, and it is to be restored. It is a diminutive structure, with a wooden tower, stuccoed walls, and a tiled roof, and it stands in a graveyard full of scattered mounds and slate-stone monuments. It was built in Norman times, and although still used it has long been little better than a ruin. One of the bells in its tower is marked "Thomas Arnold fecit, 1763,"—but this is comparatively a modern touch. The church contains two pointed arches, and across its roof are five massive oak beams, almost black with age. The plaster ceiling has fallen, in several places, so that patches of laths are visible in the roof. The pews are square, box-like structures, made of oak and very old. The altar is a plain oak table, supported on carved legs, covered with a cloth. On the west wall appears a tablet, inscribed "Thomas Eames, church-warden, 1773." Many human skeletons, arranged in regular tiers, were found in Dadlington churchyard, when a much-beloved clergyman, theRev.Mr. Bourne, was buried, in 1881; and it is believed thatthose are remains of men who fell at Bosworth Field. The only inn at this lonely place bears the quaint name of The Dog and Hedgehog.

The following queer epitaph appears upon a gravestone in Dadlington churchyard. It is Thomas Bolland, 1765, who thus expresses his mind, in mortuary reminiscence:

"I lov'd my Honour'd Parents dear,I lov'd my Wife's and Children dear,And hope in Heaven to meet them there.I lov'd my Brothers & Sisters too,And hope I shall them in Heaven view.I lov'd my Vncle's, Aunt's, & Cousin's tooAnd I pray God to give my children grace the same to do."

"I lov'd my Honour'd Parents dear,

I lov'd my Wife's and Children dear,

And hope in Heaven to meet them there.

I lov'd my Brothers & Sisters too,

And hope I shall them in Heaven view.

I lov'd my Vncle's, Aunt's, & Cousin's too

And I pray God to give my children grace the same to do."

Stoke Golding church was built in the fourteenth century. It stands now, a gray and melancholy relic of other days, strange and forlorn yet august and stately, in a little brick village, the streets of which are paved, like those of a city, with blocks of stone. It is regarded as one of the best specimens extant of the decorative style of early English ecclesiastical architecture. It has a fine tower and spire, and it consists of nave, chantry, and south aisle. There is a perforated parapet on one side, but not on the other. The walls of the nave and the chancel are continuous. The pinnacles, though decayed, show that they must have been beautifully carved. One of the decorative pieces upon one of them is a rabbit with his ears laid back. Lichen and grass are growing on the tower and on the walls. The roof is of oak, the mouldings of the arches are exceptionally graceful, and the capitals of the five main columns present, in marked diversity, carvingsof faces, flowers, and leaves. The tomb of the founder is on the north side, and the stone pavement is everywhere lettered with inscriptions of burial. There is a fine mural brass, bearing the name of Brokesley, 1633, and a superb "stocke chest," 1636; and there is a sculptured font, of exquisite symmetry. Some of the carving upon the oak roof is more grotesque than decorative,—but this is true of most other carving to be found in ancient churches; such, for example, as you may see under the miserere seats in the chancel of Trinity at Stratford-upon-Avon. There was formerly some beautiful old stained glass in the east window of Stoke Golding church, but this has disappeared. A picturesque stone slab, set upon the church wall outside, arrests attention by its pleasing shape, its venerable aspect, and its decayed lettering; the date is 1684. Many persons slain at Bosworth Field were buried in Stoke Golding churchyard, and over their nameless graves the long grass is waving, in indolent luxuriance and golden light. SoNature hides waste and forgets pain. Near to this village is Crown Hill, where the crown of England was taken from a hawthorn bush, whereon it had been cast, in the frenzied confusion of defeat, after the battle of Bosworth was over and the star of King Richard had been quenched in death. Crown Hill is a green meadow now, without distinguishing feature, except that two large trees, each having a double trunk, are growing in the middle of it. Not distant from this historic spot stands Higham-on-the-Hill, where there is a fine church, remarkable for its Norman tower. From this village the view is magnificent,—embracing all that section of Leicestershire which is thus haunted with memories of King Richard and of the carnage that marked the final conflict of the white and red roses.

Higham-on-the-Hill.

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