Having refreshed his forces, Henry marched on through Haverfordwest and Pembroke to Cardigan. Everywhere he was received with manifest delight; but his forces did not increase till he reached Cardigan, where Richard Griffith and Richard Thomas, two Welsh gentlemen, joined his standard with their friends. His old friend Sir Walter Herbert, who had been expressly sent by Richard into that quarter with Rice ap Thomas to raise the country in his behalf, though he did not join him, suffered him to pass unmolested. Rice ap Thomas, on receiving a promise of the Government of Wales, went over at once to Henry. When the army reached Newport Sir Gilbert Talbot, with a decision of character in keeping with the account of him by Brereton, came at the head of the tenantry of his nephew, the Earl of Shrewsbury, 2,000 in number, and there, too, he was followed by Sir John Savage. The invading force now amounted to more than 6,000 men.
Henry crossed the Severn at Shrewsbury. Richard now advanced to Leicester, whence he issued despatches to all his subjects to join him on the instant, accompanied by the most deadly menaces against all defaulters. The Duke of Norfolk was there with the levies of the eastern counties; the Earl of Northumberland with those from the north; Lord Lovel commanded those from London; and Brackenbury those from Hampshire. Stanley alone held aloof, and sent word, in reply to Richard's summons, that he was ill in bed with the sweating sickness. Richard received this ominous message with the utmost rage; and, as he had vowed that, on the first symptom of disaffection on his part, he would cut off the head of Lord Strange, his son, Strange made an instant attempt at flight. He was brought back, and frankly confessed that he and his uncle, Sir William Stanley, chamberlain of North Wales, had agreed to join the invaders; but protested that his father knew nothing of their intention, but was loyal, and his forces were already on the way to the royal camp. Richard compelled him to write to his father, bidding him come up at once, or that his son was a dead man.
On the 21st of August Richard rode forward from Leicester, and encamped about two miles from Bosworth. He was mounted in the march on a magnificent white courser, and clad in the same rich suit of burnished steel which he wore at his victorious field of Tewkesbury. On his helmet blazed a regal crown, which he had displayed there since he took up his headquarters at Nottingham. His countenance is represented as stern and frowning; his manner haughty, and as if putting on an air of bravado, rather than of calm confidence; for, though his troops amounted to 30,000, and his cavalry was the finest in Europe, he well knew that there was secret and wide-spread disaffection under all that martial show. Were his followers true to him, the little army of Richmond would be shivered in the first shock, and trodden under foot. But, perhaps, not a man except the Duke of Norfolk was really stanch in his devotion; and that night Norfolk's followers found pinned upon his tent this ominous couplet:—
"Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold,
For Dickon thy master is bought and sold."
That night Henry, who had reached Tamworth, marched to Atherstone. His army did not amount to half that of Richard: yet all were earnest in the cause, and the number of men of rank and character in it gave it a very imposing air in the eyes of the soldiers. On the contrary, Richard's soldiers, if we are to believe "Twelve Strange Prophecies"—still in the British Museum—had been discouraged, not only by the warning to John, or—as he was familiarly called—Jocky of Norfolk, but by the following singular incident. As the king rode out of Leicester by the south gate, at the head of his cavalry, a blind old man, well known as a superannuated wheelwright, sat begging at the foot of the bridge. In reply to the remarks of the soldiers as to the weather, the old man cried out just as the king was at hand—"If the moon change again to-day, which has changed once in the course of nature, King Richard will lose life and crown." This was supposed to allude to Lord Percy, whose crest was a crescent, and of whose faith Richard was sorely in doubt. When Richard passed, his foot struck against a low post placed to defend the corner of the bridge, and the beggar said, "His head will strike there as he returns at night."
The night before the battle, Henry of Richmond had a secret meeting near Atherstone with Lord Stanley, who assured him of his adherence, but showed him how impossible it was that he could join him till Richard was engaged in arraying the battle, or his son's life would immediately be sacrificed. Stanley had 5,000 men, and engaged to appear for Richard till the moment for battle, when his defection would do Henry the most signal service.
On the evening of the 21st of August, the two armies lay encamped near the little town of Bosworth, opposite to each other. Richard is represented by the chroniclers as passing that night in the most agonising state of restlessness and uncertainty. The deeply-rooted disaffection of his troops destroyed his confidence, though his 30,000 were only opposed by Richmond's 6,000. He went through the camp examining secretly the state of his outposts, and finding at one of them a sentinel asleep, he stabbed him to the heart, saying, "I find him asleep, and I leave him so." His own slumbers are said to have been broken, and the chroniclers express his state by saying he "was most terribly pulled and haled by devils."
But other agents than those thus troubling the tyrant's mind were active throughout the camp. Many of his soldiers stole away to Richmond, and probably some of these left the warning to Jocky of Norfolk. These desertions produced dismay in Richard's ranks, and confidence in those of his rival.
When morning broke, Richmond's little army was discovered already drawn up. The van, consisting of archers, was led by the Earl of Oxford; the right wing by Sir Gilbert Talbot; the left by Sir John Savage. In the main body Henry posted himself, accompanied by the Earl of Pembroke. Richard confronted the foe with his numerous lines, taking his place also in the main body, opposite to Richmond, but giving the command of the van to the Duke of Norfolk. Lord Stanley took his station on one wing, and Sir William on the other, so that, thus disposed, they could flank either their own side or the opposed one. The battle was begun by the archers of both armies, and soon became furious. No sooner was this the case, than the Stanleys, seizing the critical moment, wheeling round, joined the enemy, and fell on Richard's flanks. This masterly manœuvre struck dismay through the lines of Richard; the men who stood their ground appeared to fight without heart, and to be ready to fly. Richard, who saw this, and beheld the Duke of Northumberland, sitting at the head of his division, and never striking a single stroke, became transported with fury. His only hope appeared to be to make a desperate assault on Henry's van, and, if possible, to reach and kill him on the spot. With this object he made three furious charges of cavalry; and, at the third, but not before he had seen his chief companion, the Duke of Norfolk, slain, he broke into the midst of Henry's main body, and, catching sight of him, dashed forward, crying frantically, "Treason! treason! treason!" He killed Sir William Brandon, Henry's standard-bearer, with his own hand; struck Sir John Cheyney from his horse; and, springing forward on Henry, aimed a desperate blow at him; but Sir William Stanley, breaking in at that moment, surrounded Richard with his brave followers, who bore him to the ground by their numbers, and slew him, as he continued to fight with a bravery as heroic as his political career had been—in the words of Hume—"dishonourable for his multiplied and detestable enormities." The blood of Richard tinged a small brook which ran where he fell, and the people are said to this day never to drink of its water.