|
|
Legends
about the Battle of Bosworth
"Legend":
Definition: [Old French; Middle Latin.] Commonly, a nonverifiable
story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly
accepted as having in fact occurred.
Those who loom
large in their own time engender legends -- stories or tales reported
as having happened but about which there is no historical proof.
Begun as tales told to others, legends endure by finding their way
into songs, children's stories, plays, books and film or television.
Certainly this is true for legends about King Richard III. These
days, visitors to Bosworth Field may have the good fortune to be
escorted around the battlefield by a guide who, discussing the various
versions of what happened, often uses these words:
"Some
folk say that..."
- The
King's Bed. Some folk say that Richard III took with
him on his travels throughout the realm a portable bed, light
but well-designed and appropriately regal, which he used on
all such travels. Legend has it that King Richard slept poorly,
and because even more so in strange beds, gave instructions
that this portable bed accompany him on his journeys for use
in all overnight stays except when in preparation for or engaged
in actual battles. The bed, allegedly last used for his stay
at the Blue Boar in Leicester, is said to have passed through
a succession of owners until it was permanently disassembled
and most of it lost. However, there exists today in a manor
house in Donnington-le-Health a large chair, the cross supports
of which are said to be made of wood from Richard's bed.
- The
Witch on the Bridge: Some folk say that when Richard
III rode out from the City of Leicester to meet Henry Tudor's
forces at Ambion Hill, he crossed the River Soar on one of the
bridges that spans that broad stream. On it, he is supposed
to have encountered a witch -- or possibly an old crone with
the gift of precognition -- who is alleged to have said to him
words of this effect: "Richard Plantagenet, on your return
to Leicester, your head will strike where your spur strikes
now." She alluded to the side-wall of the bridge. After
the battle, when the slain king was returned to Leicester slung
across a horse, his head may well have struck the bridge, just
as his spur may have struck it on the way to Bosworth Field.
- The
Fields Spared and the Fields Laid Waste: Some folk
say that Richard III's concern for the common people in his
kingdom -- and his kind, gentle ways -- are attested to by stories
that Richard III on his way to do battle with Henry Tudor at
Bosworth went out of his way to march his armies and equipment
on roads so as to spare local farmers' fields. In contrast,
Henry Tudor is alleged to have taken his troops and supplies
directly over farmland, in the process ruining a large portion
of standing crops in the countryside. By such small actions,
people say yet today, is true character revealed. [more]
- The
Message on Norfolk's Tent: Some folk say King Richard
became strengthened in his belief that Lord Stanley, supposedly
his ally, was on the point of betraying Richard when the following
note was found on the Duke of Norfolk's tent: "Jockey of
Norfolk; be not too bold, for Dickon thy master is bought and
sold." The "master" in the note of course would
have been Richard III having been sold by Stanley and bought
by Henry Tudor.[more]
- John
of Gloucester Returned to Safety: Some folk say that
the young nobleman John of Gloucester, who wanted to fight with
his father, pled his case before Richard. Richard, however,
would have none of it and remained adamant, and had the young
man escorted back to safety in a northern castle where other
royal children, including Edward IV's daughters, had been sent
for safety.
- The
Crown Under the Hawthorne Bush: Some folk say that
after Richard III was "most piteously slain" and the
Battle of Bosworth Field thus concluded, that Richard's crown
was found where it had fallen -- beneath a hawthorne bush near
the small well-spring known as King Richard's Well, marked by
a shoulder-high piece of stonework that partially shields the
well. The crown allegedly found there was presented to Henry
Tudor, on whose head it was placed.
[Ed. Note:
See also excerpts from William Hutton, The
Battle of Bosworth Field, for legends concerning the disposition
of Richard III's bones; and the account of the Portuguese
Princess's Dream for more Bosworth lore.]
|
|
Send us feedback!