[1] An ancient stained-glass window in the east end of Henry VII's Chapel (Westminster Abbey) commemorates this incident. [2] "Te Deum laudamus" (We praise thee, O God): a Roman Catholic hymn of thanksgiving, now sung in English in the Episcopal and other churches. [3] W. Stubb's "Constitutional History of England."
316. End of the Wars of the Roses (1485); their Effects.
With Bosworth Field the Wars of the Roses ceased (SS299, 300). During the thirty years they had continued, fourteen pitched battles had been fought, in a single one of which (Towton) (S303) more Englishmen lost their lives than in the whole course of the wars with France during the preceding forty years. In all, eighty princes of the blood royal and more than half of the nobility of the realm perished.
Of those who escaped death by the sword, many died on the scaffold. The remnant who were saved had hardly a better fate. They left their homes only to suffer in foreign lands. A writer of the day[4] says, "I, myself, saw the Duke of Exeter, the King of England's brother-in-law, walking barefoot in the Duke of Burgundy's train, and begging his bread from door to door."
[4] See the "Paston Letters."
Every individual of two families of the great houses of Somerset and Warwick (SS296, 300) fell either on the field or under the executioner's ax. In tracing family pedigrees it is startling to see how often the record reads, "killed at St. Albans," "slain at Towton," "beheaded after the battle of Wakefield," and the like.[5]
[5] Guest's "Lectures on English History."
When the contest closed, the feudal baronage was broken up (SS113, 114, 150). In a majority of cases the estates of the nobles either fell to the Crown for lack of heirs, or they were fraudulently seized by the King's officers. Thus the greater part of the wealthiest and most powerful aristocracy in the world disappeared so completely that they ceased to have either a local habitation or a name.
But the elements of civil discord at last exhausted themselves. Bosworth Field was a turning point in English history. When the sun went down, it saw the termination of the desperate struggle between the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster; when it ushed in a new day, it shone also on a new King, Henry VII, who introduced a new social and political period.
317. Summary.