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Overview
The conventional view of Richard III's defeat at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 is that it was due to a loss of support for him after his usurpation of the throne. However, David Hipshon argues that the result might very well have been in his favour, had not his support for James Harrington in a long-running family feud with Thomas, Lord Stanley led to the latter betraying him. Bosworth was the last English battle in which the monarch relied on feudal retainers: at Stoke two years later professional mercenaries were the key to Henry VII's victory. The author examines how the power politics of the conflict between the Stanleys and the Harringtons, and Richard's motives in supprting the latter, led to the king's death on the battlefield, the succession of the Tudors to the throne of England, the 'death of chivalry' and the end of the Middle Ages.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752469157 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 08/26/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 224 |
| File size: | 386 KB |
| Age Range: | 12 Years |
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Read an Excerpt
Richard III and the Death of Chivalry
By David Hipshon
The History Press
Copyright © 2011 David HipshonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-6915-7
CHAPTER 1
THE SHADOW OF AGINCOURT
On 22 August 1485 Richard III, by the Grace of God King of England and of France and lord of Ireland, wearing a specially-made golden crown fitted around his helmet, spurred his horse and charged into battle. By his side were his knights of the Body, his friends and loyal servants who had worked with him, lived with him and fought with him over many years. As the trumpets and drums were sounded and the stocky war-horses began to canter, the royal standard was unfurled and held aloft for all to see. It bore the cross of St George, patron saint of England and of soldiers, the white rose encircled by the rays of the sun representing the house of York and the white boar of Richard himself. Woven into the design was the royal motto, Dieu et Mon Droit, 'For God and My Right'. The man entrusted with the honour of bearing into battle this heraldic symbol of majesty was James Harrington, friend, counsellor and retainer of the king. Around them were Harrington's kinsmen and associates, colleagues and comrades, the Dacres, Parrs, Middletons, Huddlestons and Pilkingtons. These men were bound together by ties of family, history, culture and aspiration. They were intensely loyal to their lord and master, Richard III, and were willing to fight for him even unto death.
As their horses began to gallop down the slope, with armour and swords glinting and ringing in the dank dawn air hanging over the Leicestershire fields, the lives of these men rose up from the mundane to the sublime, entering a sphere in which the heroic deeds of legend, myth and history could be emulated in a reality that they had each striven to realise. They were to be tested in battle and with their education and training behind them, their true characters would now be revealed. In this moment lived the hope of everlasting glory, fame and honour. Wedded to the service of their lord by oaths of fealty, and to each other through their shared values and kinship, this troop of the royal household, the knights of the Body, armed with swords, flails, hammers, axes and lances, presented a spectacle of power, courage and unity which would never be seen again on English soil. As the hooves of several hundred horses thundered across the battlefield, an ancient code of ethics and loyalty, of honour exemplified in action through religious and physical sacrifice, was charging to an impelling convulsion. This last charge of knights in English history was more than the last throw of the dice for a beleaguered king: it was also the end of an era and the death of chivalry.
As the king and his knights, several hundred strong, swept in a panoply of power past the vanguard of the duke of Norfolk to their right, they may have known already that the loyal duke had been killed, and that the royal men-at-arms in the marshy ground were being pushed back and were on the point of breaking. To their left stood the troops of Cheshire and Lancashire under the command of Thomas lord Stanley and his brother William. Ahead lay the isolated and vulnerable target presented by the rebel earl of Richmond, Henry Tudor, and his contingent of Lancastrians, exiles and French mercenaries. He had been moving towards the Stanley forces to encourage them to abandon King Richard and join him in his attempt to gain the throne. The tidal surge of horse and man pouring across the valley prevented that meeting and separated the untrustworthy Stanley brothers from the Tudor's troops. Before the king lay his prey, the inexperienced Henry Tudor with a group of knights uncertain and untested in quality. Richard's household troops crashed into the Tudor's guard and began to force their way forward towards him through a melee of flashing maces, axes and swords. At that moment when all hung in the balance and the life of Henry Tudor lay at the mercy of the last Plantagenet king of England, William Stanley made his move. In an act of calculated treachery he threw his men into the fray and hurled them at the backs of the royal knights. Within feet of his quarry, Richard, having killed Henry Tudor's standard bearer with his own hand, was surrounded and hacked to death, crying, 'Treason! Treason!'
* * *
Richard's death after a short reign of just over two years ushered in the Tudor era and, with it, the inevitable vilification of Richard and the destruction of his reputation. Richard was the most controversial king in English history even without the work of the Tudor propagandists. When his brother, Edward IV, had died in 1483, he had left his eldest son, twelve-year-old Edward V, as his successor. Within weeks the boy, with his younger brother, Richard, had been taken to the Tower of London from whence they never emerged. These two boys, the famous Princes in the Tower, were believed to have been murdered on the orders of Richard III, their uncle, so that he could become king instead. In a shocking and swift coup, Richard had seized power against all expectations, sweeping aside political opponents, ancient conventions and formal legalities. It is hardly surprising that the Tudor historians, keen to shore up the shaky credentials of Henry Tudor, should have had such an easy time in blackening Richard's name and thereby justifying the accession of Henry VII.
The mystery and continuing controversy surrounding the usurpation of Richard and the fate of the Princes in the Tower, has led many to assume that what happened at the battle of Bosworth Field was a direct consequence of those events. They argue that Richard's criminal actions in disposing so wantonly and callously of his nephews and taking the throne for himself, backfired in a reaction which brought him retribution and death. He received his just deserts, they say, and was killed at Bosworth because he could not rely on the loyalty of key men who had qualms about his stealing the crown, were shocked by the horrendous extinction of two innocent boys and felt morally obliged to rise up and oppose him. As we examine these events a little more closely, however, we will see that what happened at that battle had less to do with Richard's usurpation and the disappearance of the princes than it had to do with the threat his kingship posed to the Stanley family and to the earl of Northumberland. When William Stanley betrayed Richard at Bosworth he could not have cared less about the legalities of the usurpation or the whereabouts of Richard's nephews. What mattered to him was the wonderful opportunity presented by that magnificent charge of knights. By Richard's side was James Harrington, a constant thorn in the side of Stanley ambitions in the north-west, along with his kinsmen and supporters, many of whom shared Harrington's enmity of the Stanleys. Richard's rule seriously threatened the expansion of Stanley power because he supported these men and disliked the Stanleys. If Richard made a mistake it was to alienate such powerful men and to invest so heavily in the goodwill and friendship of the northern gentry that formed his affinity. Bosworth was important because it was the beginning of the end of such factionalism. The Tudor dynasty monopolised power and destroyed the medieval regional and personal bonds upon which it had been founded. That Richard was unable to rise above the partisan loyalties and conflicts which led to his betrayal had much to do with his character, his beliefs and the events that shaped them in the years before he took the throne.
Historians have struggled to free British history from the shackles of 1485. It was not the battle of Bosworth Field that brought the end of an era, they argue, but events and shifting cultural currents on a broader sea. The medieval world, which we associate with damsels in distress being rescued from picturesque castles by knights in shining armour, had already been brought to an ignominious conclusion by the advent of gunpowder and artillery. The world of illuminated manuscripts, village pageants and monasteries was approaching its denouement as the twin forces of the Renaissance and the Reformation swept all before them. The printing press and improvements in navigation were changing the world in ways that could scarcely have been imagined a generation earlier. The true end of the Middle Ages, they argue, was 1453 when the Ottoman Turks finally took Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire came to an end. Or, they suggest, perhaps it was 1492 when Columbus set sail for the New World. Either way, it had little to do with a muddy spat on the border between Leicestershire and Warwickshire in 1485.
The extraordinary events at Bosworth, however, cannot be so lightly dismissed. It was unusual enough for a king to die in battle. This event itself was sufficiently rare to expose 1485 to the glare of historical scrutiny. The only other occasion in English history in which a king was killed fighting for his throne and dynastic ambitions was in 1066. In that year two kings met their deaths on English soil: Harald Hardrada of Norway and Harold II of England. Other kings had died in the pursuit of martial exploits – William the Conqueror had been thrown from his horse while on campaign in Normandy and Richard the Lionheart had died from wounds received at a siege – but none had actually died in battle. It was a rare and unusual event. Before the Conquest in 1066 Edmund Ironside had died shortly after the battle of Ashingdon in 1016 but we have to go into the murky depths of the Anglo-Saxon past, before England emerged as a political entity, to find similarly dramatic ends to the reign of kings. In those days, when kings were expected to lead troops in battle, violent death was something of an occupational hazard. Ethelfrith of Northumbria, killed in 616, set a trend in the northern kingdom and was followed in similar style by his three successors, Edwin, Oswald and Oswy, all duly killed fighting their neighbours. Penda of Mercia met his death in battle and Edmund of East Anglia was killed by the Vikings in 868. All these kings were expected to fight and to face death if necessary. With so many kingdoms jostling for position on such a small island, casualties were inevitable. The Viking invasions made the situation worse, of course, but they also cleared away several kingdoms and reduced the number of rivals to a manageable level. By the time William the Conqueror had arrived, much of the business of kingship could be accomplished in councils and banquets. For Richard to die in battle was unusual enough, but to die at the head of his household knights in a flurry of sword strokes after a thunderous charge, four hundred years after the battle of Hastings, was positively anachronistic.
It certainly never happened again. Two years later at the battle of Stoke, Henry VII kept a safe distance from the action and was never in danger. Henry VIII in the sixteenth century toyed with the idea of war but had learnt from his father the benefits of profitable posturing and diplomatic grand-standing. War was expensive and rather risky. Kings became adept at delegation when it came to these tricky matters. Elizabeth famously braved her own body in war against the Spanish, but only as far as reviewing her own troops at Tilbury before sitting back to receive news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Charles I found himself with plenty of fighting to do in the English Civil War of the seventeenth century but left it largely to his nephew, Prince Rupert. James II was present at the battle of the Boyne in Ireland but had enough good sense to allow himself room to escape when things got nasty. William III was brave enough but also fortunate to win over John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough. With the greatest commander on the planet at one's disposal it is safer to spend one's time dodging mole hills at Hampton Court and letting the professionals fight it out on the battlefields of Europe. The last king of England to be present at a battle was George II, at Dettingen in 1743, but he was kept safely in the background while he displayed his warrior credentials to his own grandiloquent satisfaction, marching his horse about in fine style.
After the twelfth century hereditary succession had become well established and this meant that the military skills were not an essential qualification for the job of monarch. The lottery of birth would determine the martial abilities of the king, and this could hardly be relied upon. There were easier and more conventional ways of solving disputes. If fighting war was necessary then it should be left to those whose business it was. It was not in a king's best interests to place himself in unnecessary danger and present an easy target for his enemies. Only in extreme circumstances would he do so. He might, however, place himself at the head of his army and invoke an ancient royal obligation to conquer enemies and lead his warriors to fame, wealth and victory, but in order to do so he would have to be the sort of man who bought into that concept and had the ability to sustain it. There were such men, and their reigns were lauded by the people in songs, chronicles and folklore. The ideal was still very much alive in Richard's day in the memory of the great English conquests in France under Henry V. His victory at Agincourt in 1415 was still bright in the memory of many of those who fought at Bosworth, kindled and kept alight by the knowledge of their own family traditions and their forebears who were there on that glorious day.
As it happens, Richard would dearly have loved to be fighting another Agincourt, with the flower of French chivalry arrayed before him, rather than Henry Tudor with his motley collection of rebels, disaffected Lancastrians and international mercenaries. Ten years earlier, on the sixtieth anniversary of Agincourt, Richard, as duke of Gloucester, had been at that very place in France where the battle had taken place. Leading his men to battle he had eagerly anticipated invoking the spirit of Henry V and crushing the perfidious French beneath the heroic onslaught of English arms. Unfortunately for Richard, and to the disappointment and disbelief of a considerable number of his men, King Edward had other ideas. He had led the expedition to France, but was only too keen to be paid off by the French king and to return home again. Two years later their sister, Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, had appealed to them for help as Louis XI of France ravaged her dowager lands. Richard was desperately keen to help but was again thwarted by his more pragmatic and circumspect brother. Now that he was king himself it would only be a matter of time before Richard turned his attention to reviving hostilities against France. Indeed it was this very fact that had enabled Henry Tudor to receive the backing of the French king. Richard's father, the duke of York, had been the last Englishman to achieve military success in France and everyone knew how keen his son was to emulate him.
The duke of York, also called Richard, had his own reasons for wanting to keep the flame of Agincourt alive. His own father, Richard earl of Cambridge, the grandfather of Richard III, had been executed by Henry V for his treasonable involvement in the Southampton Plot, on the eve of the expedition to France. This had left the four-year-old Richard in a difficult situation. As his mother had died giving birth to him he had become an orphan. His uncle, Edward, duke of York, went on to fight with Henry V at Agincourt and was killed, leaving no children. In view of this praiseworthy service, and out of pity for the small boy, Henry adopted Richard and gave him his uncle's title and lands. The fortunes of the house of York were rescued by the great king and Richard, duke of York, began his life-long obsession with retaining, defending and finally retrieving Henry's conquests in France. He had died, ironically, on English soil fighting against Henry V's son. His own son, Richard III, was now king of England and was well aware how much his house owed to Henry V. As Richard faced Henry Tudor's forces at Bosworth Field he, like Henry V before him, wore a crown of gold around his helmet.
There were other echoes of Agincourt at Bosworth. In his final hours, as he readied himself for battle, Richard was surrounded by a close-knit band of men whose ancestors had won renown at Agincourt. These men had been his indentured retainers when he had been duke of Gloucester and had found him to be a good lord. Thomas Dacre was ready to fight for the king in the same way that his grandfather had rendered service to Henry V at Agincourt. His cousins, the Harrington brothers, owed much to Richard and were with him as he charged to his death. Their grandfather had borne Henry V's banner at Agincourt. Thomas Pilkington, related by marriage to the Harringtons, survived the battle of Bosworth but died fighting Tudor nonetheless, at the battle of Stoke. His uncle and great-uncle were at Agincourt. Another cousin of the Harringtons, John Huddleston, was also with them. Incredibly enough, his father had fought at Agincourt. Seventy years might not seem so far distant to these men, about to risk everything for their anointed sovereign.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Richard III and the Death of Chivalry by David Hipshon. Copyright © 2011 David Hipshon. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,One The Shadow of Agincourt,
Two Childhood Dangers,
Three The Cloak of Royalty,
Four Adolescence and Uncertainty,
Five Shoulder to Shoulder,
Six Feud,
Seven In Memoriam,
Eight The Hope of Glory,
Nine The Death of Chivalry,
Notes,
Select Bibliography,