Site of the Battle of Bosworth Field found

Archaeologists have found the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field where King Richard III died, having been defeated by Henry Tudor (later King Henry VII):

www.dailymail.co.uk...





Here are a silver coin and a cannon ball found at the site:



And here is a map:



All the above information and pictures are from the Daily Mail's article. For further reading on King Richard, here is a link to the Richard III Society's website:

www.richardiii.net...

And here's King Richard:





[edit on 28-10-2009 by berenike]

Oh no King Richard looks just like me and they killed him?

Ah, ah, ah, who do I sue?

On a more pleasant note battles especially ones where armies actually faced each other could cover a pretty wide swath of terrain as lines break and reform, individual units and entire groups fall back or surge forward to reform, dress their lines and go at it again.

Not to mention mounted cavalry units working around main bodies to try to flank enemy positions, salients, bulges and other things that happen when those no good murdering Tudors killed me...

sniff, sniif,

Who do I sue? England is rightfully mine, mine I say!

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

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I've always had a soft spot for King Richard - he's been treated very badly. Good luck with the suing

A few years ago they traced some of his (or his family's) descendants who are now living in Australia. You can actually see the resemblance.

You'll note I didn't post a picture of Henry Tudor

[edit on 28-10-2009 by berenike]

reply to post by berenike

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Actually he is my spitting image friend. Remarkable, it looks like a portrait of me!

My ancestory is English, I won't mention the names but George Harrison of the Beatles bought the Castle and they still have a famous regatta every year.

They have been finding a lot of things recently with those metal detectors over there in London, did you read or hear about the man who found the largest cache of midevil gold and silver ever found recently?



[edit on 28/10/09 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

reply to post by berenike

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Poor Richard.
A beer, a beer, my kingdom for a beer.

The true king of England......
King Mike the First.
www.theage.com.au...

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

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The Medieval gold & silver hoard did ring a bell, so I did a quick Google search. There are some nice pictures here:

www.guardian.co.uk...

reply to post by zazzafrazz

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Thanks, Zazz.

I had no idea of the man's name, so I'd never have found that. A pity really that he doesn't press his claim to the throne. What larks

Clearly this portrait establishes my ligitimate claim to the throne. England is mine I say. I must raise an army at once! Dasher, Blitzen, Donner, Rudoplh come hither we ride for England! Knights, Squires, Pages, men at arms prepare for battle.

Oh shoot, Monk is on, never mind.

Well! That attitude won't win you the throne.

If you're not careful we'll have King Mike instead of King Proto I.

Come Donner, come Blitzen - a reindeer! Our kingdom for a reindeer!

Umm... this thread isn't quite working out the way I thought it would. I never thought I'd be revolting by the end of the evening

Here is another article on the find:

news.bbc.co.uk...




I'm really showing up my ignorance here, but it was a surprise to me that they had handguns at the battle.



[edit on 28-10-2009 by berenike]

reply to post by berenike

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Sorry it's not a sexy provocative doom and gloom thread that has ATS abuzz my friend. It's pretty sad great threads like this where people could actually learn something from History don't always get much attention.

I appreciate you posting it, and flagged it and starred all your posts to be supportive.

Try not to let the lax turnout dissapoint you friend.

Henry actually was a very serious gunsmith himself by the way. He had his engineers work long and hard on pistols, cannons and other implements of war that used the recently discovered gunpowder. Once they learned to make salt peter the sulfur was easy enough to come by as was flint in England.

England had been hotly contested since the time of Caesar and Henry aimed to keep it and was very serious about developing the new technology. He did a lot to advance the craft.



[edit on 28/10/09 by ProtoplasmicTraveler]

Brilliant work. This would be my dream job being a huge fan of history of wars. I'm actually thinking about studying archeology enough to get into this kind of work. Great article.

This site lists the combatants and gives a brief history of events and the 'major players' in the Wars of the Roses. There is a great description of the battle:


www.tudorplace.com.ar...


Small quote from the article:



This is an article from the Richard III Society refuting the myths that made Richard out to be a villain:

home.cogeco.ca...

It's occurred to me that as much as Richard being villainised to make Henry VII more palatable, possibly it was in the interests of Henry's wife, Elizabeth of York, to have her uncle remembered in such a way.

Reading the article above it appears that her father, Edward IV, was behind a lot of the acts that Richard gets the blame for. Plus, Elizabeth's legitimacy had been questioned.

Proto I'm really happy with the way this thread is going, it's been much more fun than I could have expected. It's been good to have a discussion with people who are interested in the subject and bring more knowledge and enthusiasm to it.

You, Zazz and PsykoOps have encouraged me to go digging around for more info to flesh it out a bit more.

And how could I have guessed when I started this thread that I'd end up supporting a pretender to the throne with the help of Santa's reindeer

(You're in luck, apparently since the Duke of Clarence was executed for treason he gave up all the rights of his descendants to claim the throne. So the way is clear for you).

It's probably obvious that I am not any sort of historian, but I've had an interest in 'history' since my first lessons at school. Occasionally I find an article in the newspapers that I think might be of interest here, so I post it and hope for the best.


I found this site with info and pictures of medieval cannons and hand guns:

www.themcs.org...

Here is a German hand gun from 1400. I'm guessing that the guns used at the Battle of Bosworth Fields wouldn't have been too dissimilar:



[edit on 29-10-2009 by berenike]

Here is Edward IV, the brother of Richard III. Although doubts were raised about Edward's paternity. His own mother said he was illegitimate when he married Elizabeth Woodville, of whom she did not approve.



Here is Michael Hastings, the Australian descendant of George, the Duke of Clarence, a full brother of Richard III:



And here is Richard III



As I understand it, this portrait of Richard was painted sometime after his death and was based on older portraits. I believe the portrait of Richard that I posted earlier is older than this one. I have chosen this picture because Richard is facing the right way to make a comparison with Michael Hastings.

I think the resemblance I mentioned earlier is quite marked, especially around the nose and eyes. And allowing for the fact that Michael Hastings is older and weightier.

Here is Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. The mother of Edward, George and Richard:



[edit on 29-10-2009 by berenike]