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The Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Center, excellent, as you'd expect a British Museum to be.



The two principals; Henry Tudor, soon to become Henry VII, and Richard III, who would be dead that same morning. Richard wore a crown into battle....







Richard was 32, Henry was 27, Richard was of the House of York, Henry was of part-Welsh ancestry and somewhat distantly related to the House of Lancaster. Both had been sent into exile in Europe as children for their own safety. Henry would spend most of his life in France, subject to periodic extradition attempts by the Yorkists.

Richard had been recalled from Holland at age nine when his Yorkist older brother Edward became king. His combat career began at age seventeen and for the next eleven years until his brother's death he was constantly engaged in both punitive expeditions against and negotiations with both nobles and commoners in England, Wales and Scotland. Even his enemies agreed that Richard was a brawler, a true warrior king. It was no accident that he attempted to take matters literally into his own hands at Bosworth.

OTOH some historians have described Henry Tudor as "bookish" rather than a warrior, he WAS undoubtedly an uncommonly bright guy who would subsequently hold on to power for the next twenty-four years, beginning with the adroit move of making Richard's own niece his queen, thereby allying the warring Houses. Upon his death the crown would pass on to his son Henry VIII, and ultimately to his granddaughter Elizabeth I.

Armor had been steadily improving over the Centuries,and by the 15th accomplished much at a penalty of surprisingly little weight. IIRC the best armor of the period came from Germany and Italy.



Good armor was very expensive, and a status symbol, only a small minority were armored this well at Bosworth. Still, looking at them one does wonder why they were packing swords rather than the various war picks and hammers of that era specifically designed for use against armor.

Birdwatcher