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A map of the battlefield looking southwest...



Henry Tudor's 5,000 man army arrived at the top of this map, Richard's 10,000 man force deployed on high ground to the right of and below the map. The 6,000 men under the Stanleys were deployed on high ground around Stoke Golding and Dadlington. The canal that crosses the battlefield wasn't there in 1485.

The field is not complicated to understand, IIRC most Medieval battlefields are that way. Feudal levies were not trained in cohesive maneuvers, for the most part they were formed up in some sort of logical arrangement at the start and then attacked, or stood to receive an attack. There weren't much material there for a Stonewall Jackson or Bobby Lee to work with.

Henry's force maneuvered around the wetland marked as Richard's death site towards the right hand side of the top of the map. Norfolk moved forward from the right to engage but was routed and scattered. Perhaps the feudal levies were no match for the hardened Norman mercenaries.

Nowadays, due to tree cover, its hard to make out much. This is the view taken looking across the battlefield from the "You Are Here" marker.



But back then that same spot looked more like this; intensively cultivated.



At that point, looking across that open battlefield from his higher vantage point, Richard saw Henry Tudor and his entourage from more than a mile away move from behind his army towards the Stanley forces amassed around Stoke Golding. Plainly the fix was in, and when Stanley threw his 6,000 men into the mix on Henry's side it would be all over.

That's when Richard launched his charge of mounted knights, the last such charge in English history, down the slope and through the battle. Richard's entourage collided with that of Henry on the slopes below Stoke Golding, Richard in the lead.

Homing right in on his target, Richard broke his lance killing Sir William Brandon who was holding Henry's standard. Richard himself slight of build, then collided with the burly 6 foot 8 inch jousting champion Sir John Cheyne, striking the man on the helmet with the broken lance and knocking him from his horse. Meanwhile Henry was running, fleeing back to the cover of his own infantry. It had been a close thing, accounts suggest Richard came "within a sword's length" of taking out Henry.

Stanley launched his forces into the melee, the press of fighting men being driven west towards the low ground where Richard's horse became mired in the marsh. That is the area where he went down fighting.

Here it is on the ground, dry land now but a bog back then, looking southwest from the intersection of Fenn and Mill Lanes.



...and from that same spot looking back northeast towards the high ground from where Richard launched his charge....



After the battle, legend has it that Richard's crown was found hanging from a hawthorn bush on the battlefield. Wherever the crown was found, an impromptu coronation celebration by the elated victors was held up on the hill at Stoke Golding under an oak tree.

Two pictures I missed. I seen the high ground where Richard was close by when I was over at that end of the field, but at the time it was raining and I was pushing the bike, I knew I really should go up there to take a look but didn't, not appreciating the significance of it at that moment in time.

The other photo I missed was in Stoke Golding. Apparently the oak tree where legend has it Henry received his crown is still standing.

And durn it, had I actually stopped in Salisbury Cathedral earlier in the trip and seen the Magna Carta, turns out Sir John Cheyne, the huge knight unhorsed by Richard, is buried there too.

Birdwatcher