August 22.

Battle of Bosworth.

This is the anniversary of the memorable conflict wherein Richard III. lost his life and crown.

King Richard’s Well.

King Richard’s Well.

For the Every-Day Book.

The well of which the [above] is a representation, is situate on the spot where the celebrated battle of Bosworth field was fought, by which, the long-existing animosities between the rival houses of York and Lancaster were finally closed. The king is said, during the heat of the engagement, to have refreshed himself with water from this spring. A few years ago a subscription was entered into, for the purpose of erecting some memorial of this circumstance, and the late learned Dr. Parr being applied to, furnished an inscription, of which the following is a copy.

AQVA . EX . HOC . PVTEO . HAVSTA
SITIM . SEDAVIT
RICARDVS . TERTIVS . REX . ANGLIAE
CVM . HENRICO . COMITE . DE . RICHMONDIA
ACERRIME . ATQVE . INFENSISSIME
PRAELIANS
ET . VITA . PARITER . AC . SCEPTRO
AVTE . NOCTEM . CARITVRVS
XI KAL . SEPT . A. D. MCCCCLXXXV.

Translation.

Richard the III. King of England, most eagerly and hotly contending with Henry, Earl of Richmond, and about to lose before night both his sceptre and his life, quenched his thirst with water drawn from this well.—August 22, 1485.

The Roman month was divided into kalends, nones, and ides, all of which were reckoned backwards. The kalends are the first day of the month.—Thus the first of September being the kalends of September, the thirty-first of August would be pridie kalendarum, or the second of the kalends of September; the thirtieth of August would then be the third of the kalends of September. Pursuing this train the twenty-second of August, and the XI of the kalends of September will be found to correspond.

The battle of Bosworth field was fought on the twenty-second of August, 1485, “on a large flat spacious ground,” says Burton, “three miles distant from this town.” Richmond, afterwards Henry VII., landed at Milford-haven on the sixth of August, and arrived at Tamworth on the eighteenth. On the nineteenth he had an interview with his father-in-law, lord Stanley, when measures were converted for their further operations. On the twentieth, he encamped at Atherstone, and on the twenty-first, both armies were in sight of each other the whole day. Richard entered Leicester with his army on the sixteenth, having the royal crown on his head; he slept at Elmesthorpe on the night of the seventeenth. On the eighteenth he arrived at Stapleton, where he continued till Sunday the twenty-first. The number of his forces exceeded sixteen thousand—those of Richmond did not amount to five thousand. On each side the leader addressed his troops with a splendid oration “which was scarcely finished” says an old historian, “but the one army espied the other. Lord! how hastily the soldiers buckled their helms! how quickly the archers bent their bows and brushed their feathers! how readily the billmen shook their bills and proved their staves, ready to approach and join when the terrible trumpet should sound the bloody blast to victory or death!” The first conflict of the archers being over, the armies met fiercely with sword and bills, and at this period Richmond was joined by lord Stanley, which determined the fortune of the day.

In this battle, which lasted little more than two hours, above one thousand persons were slain on the side of Richard. Of Richmond’s army, scarcely one hundred were killed, amongst whom, the principal person was sir William Brandon, his standard bearer. Richard is thought to have despised his enemy too much, and to have been too dilatory in his motions. He is universally allowed to have performed prodigies of valour, and is said to have fallen at last by treachery, in consequence of a blow from one of his followers. His body was thrown across a horse, and carried, for interment, to the Greyfriars at Leicester. He was the only English monarch, since the conquest, that fell in battle, and the second who fought in his crown. Henry V. appeared in his at Agincourt, which was the means of saving his life, (though, probably, it might provoke the attack,) by sustaining a stroke with a battle-axe, which cleft it. Richard’s falling off in the engagement, was taken up and secreted in a bush, where it was discovered by sir Reginald Bray and placed upon Henry’s head. Hence arises the device of a crown in a hawthorn bush, at each end of Henry’s tomb in Westminster-abbey.

In 1644, Bosworth field became again the scene of warfare; an engagement, or rather skirmish, taking place between the parliamentary and royal forces, in which the former were victorious without the loss of a single individual.

G. J.

The late Mr. William Hutton, the historian of Birmingham, wrote an account of “The Battle of Bosworth Field,” which Mr. Nichols published, and subsequently edited with considerable additions. Mr. Hutton apprehended that the famous well where Richard slaked his thirst would sink into oblivion. A letter from Dr. Parr to Mr. Nichols, dated Hatton, September 13, 1813, removes these apprehensions:—

“As to Bosworth Field, six or seven years ago I explored it, and I found Dick’s Well, out of which the tradition is that Richard drank during the battle. It was in dirty, mossy ground, and seemed to me in danger of being destroyed by the cattle. I therefore bestirred myself to have it preserved, and to ascertain the owner. The bishop of Down spoke to the archbishop of Armagh, who said that the ground was not his. I then found it not to be Mrs. Pochin’s. Last year I traced it to a person to whom it had been bequeathed by Dr. Taylor, formerly rector of Bosworth. I went to the spot, accompanied by the rev. Mr. Lynes, of Kirkby-Malory. The grounds had been drained. We dug in two or three places without effect. I then applied to a neighbouring farmer, a good intelligent fellow. He told me his family had drawn water from it for six or seven years, and that he would conduct me to the very place. I desired him to describe the signs. He said there were some large stones, and some square wood, which went round the well at the top. We dug, and found things as he had described them; and, having ascertained the very spot, we rolled in the stones, and covered them with earth. Now lord Wentworth, and some other gentlemen, mean to fence the place with some strong stones, and to put a large stone over it with the following inscription; and you may tell the story if you please.

“Yours, &c.
“S. Parr.”

The [inscription] is given in the preceding notice of the battle of Bosworth by G. J., who likewise obligingly transmitted the [drawing] of the well in its present state.

The editor is highly favoured by the interesting communication from a gentleman profoundly erudite in genealogical lore.

For the Every-Day Book.

The ravages inflicted by the all-subduing hand of time are not more distinctly traceable in the deserted hall of the dismantled castle, and the moulding fane of the dilapidated abbey, than in the downfall or extinction of ancient and distinguished races of nobility, who in ages long past by have shook the senate and field, have scattered plenty o’er a smiling land, or, as alas! is too frequently the melancholy reverse, shut the gates of mercy on mankind.

Considerations of this nature have suggested a review of the few families remaining in our peerage, whose ancestors enjoyed that distinction.

“Ere yet the fell Plantagenets had spent
Their antient rage on Bosworth’s purple field.”

The protracted duration and alternated reverses of the contest between the houses of Lancaster and York, added to the rancorous inveteracy indispensably inherent in a barbarous age, will account for the comparatively rare sprinkling of the immediate descendants of the followers and councillors of the Plantagenets in our present house of peers. In France, on the other hand, the contemporary struggle for the throne laid between an indisputed native prince, Charles VII. and a foreign competitor, our Henry VI. The courtesies of war (imperfect even as they existed in those days) were allowed fairer play, and those who escaped the immediate edge of the foeman’s sword were not handed over to the axe of the executioner.

The awful mortality which befell one eminent branch of our gallant Plantagenets at the period in question, is recorded in emphatic terms by their animated and faithful chronicler, Shakspeare:—

“Two of thy name, both dukes of Somerset,
Have sold their lives unto the house of York,
And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.”

List of English Peerages now existing on the Roll, of which the Date of Creation is prior to the Accession of Henry VII.

List of Families now invested with the Dignity of Peerage, whose Ancestors in the Male Line, enjoyed the Peerage before the Accession of Henry VII.

Where a well-grounded doubt exists, an asterisk is prefixed to the name.