The
Legends of Bosworth
The
Portuguese Princess's Dream
One
of the most haunting tales about Bosworth Field is a little-known
story about the Portuguese princess Richard sought to marry after
the death of his queen, Anne Neville.
Writing
in the March 1983 Ricardian, Barrie Williams explains
that within a week of Anne's death, negotiators were dispatched
to Portugal with the offer of a double marriage: Richard would
marry Princess Joanna of Portugal, fairly senior among the lineal
(and legitimate) descendants of John of Gaunt; and Elizabeth
of York would marry Manuel, Duke of Beja. The double marriage
would offer a "Union of the Roses" between Richard
and the Lancastrian-descended Joanna, and would at the same
time offer an honorable alliance for Elizabeth of York (and
would in fact have made her Queen of Portugal, as Manuel succeeded
King John as King of Portugal).
Joanna's
preference for the religious life, however, had earned her the
title "The Holly Princess" in her own country, and she
had already turned down offers of marriage with Maximillian, heir
to the Holy Roman Empire (1472) and the young king of France,
Charles VII (1485), for whom she was rather too old in any case,
being one year older than Richard himself.
In August
of 1485, the Ricardian negotiations came to a climax, according
to Williams. The Portuguese Council of State urged Joanna's
brother, King John, to accept Richard's offer. King John tried
bullying; his aunt, Philippa, tried persuasion. The response,
as Williams explains, was dramatic:
"Joanna
retired for a night of prayer and meditation. She had either a
vision or a dream of a 'beautiful young man' who told her that
Richard had gone from among the living." The next morning
she gave her brother a firm answer. If Richard were still alive,
she would go to England to marry him. If he were indeed dead,
[John] was not to press her again to marry. It is not necessary
to believe in the supernatural to accept that Joanna may have
had a premonitory dream of Richard's death. Within days of her
decision, news of Bosworth reached Portugal."
Barrie Williams'
source for this tale is Domingos Mauricio Gomes dos Santos, O
Mosteiro de Jesus de Aviero (Lisbon, 1962). Additional discussion
of this account appears in the June 1983 and September 1983 issues
of The Ricardian.
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