The Battle Of Bosworth: The Bloody End To The War of the Roses | Battlefields Of History

[Applause] by May 1471 the wars of the Roses had blighted the country for 16 years but now the lancastrian Cs lay in tatters on the bloody field of duesbury the lancastrian nobility had been butchered during the battle or executed in its aftermath Edward Prince of Wales was among the Dead Queen Margaret of onu was a prisoner of king Edward IV the convenient death of the Old King Henry V 6 in the Tower of London Less Than 3 weeks later at last secured the crown for Edward and a yorkist golden age was about to be ushered in lurking in the wings however was the king's youngest brother Richard Duke of Gloucester a man whose Hardness of Heart was remarkable even by the standards of this ruthless age he was not only to emerge as one of English history's most controversial characters he was also to take Center Stage for the bloody climax to the wars of the [Music] Roses [Music] [Music] after the redeption Edward IV and the orchest can really breathe a sigh of relief and Edward is now free to show himself the effective political leader that we've all along suggested that he was Edward's policies in the second Reign were in fact almost exactly the same as in his first Reign but the absence of lancastrian opposition meant that he was simply more secure and to put it crudely could perhaps get away with more so now Edward could look forward to a long and challenged Reign and after all he was still not quite 30 and also he now had a male Heir born while he was in exile for the White Rose the future looked very Rosy indeed a smooth succession to the throne therefore appeared to have been secured the only small Cloud on the horizon for Edward came in the shape of Henry Tudor the Earl of Richmond who had escaped to Britany in September 1471 Henry Tuda fled to Britany with his uncle Jasper Tuda as a result of their participation in the fighting in Wales that followed on from Edward's victory at tuxbury in other words they were Renegade lancastrian magnates fleeing the collapse of the lancastrian redeption of Henry V 6 Henry tudas claimed the throne came through his mother Margaret bfort through her he inherited the bofit claim that is to say the claim of the illegitimate children of John of gour father of Henry IV and therefore the source of the lancastrian claimed the throne so it's a sort of subclaim attached to the lancastrian claim Edward ruled England autocratically but in this unusual and welcome period of Peace the country and the crown [Music] prospered there was something of a commercial boom a significant increase in imports and exports and mutually profitable business relationships with Bankers in London Edward proved himself to be a generous and cultivated King although he was by all accounts a notorious Glutton and womanizer one Anonymous contemporary chronicler was obviously less than impressed in food and drink he was immoderate he sometimes took an emetic to Gorge his stomach he was lenti in the extreme insolent to numerous women after he had seduced them and pursued with no discrimination the married and the unmarried the noble and the lowly however he took none by force Edward took many Mistresses the best known of whom was Elizabeth Shaw sometimes called Jane Shaw the wife of a London Goldsmith in all Edward fathered at least 10 known illegitimate children [Music] the King was quick to reward loyal supporters such as William Hastings who was made a gter knight and appointed Master of the mint showing a remarkable capacity for forgiveness Edward even forgave his Wayward brother the Duke of Clarence bestowing upon him the earldoms of wari and Salsbury and the post of great Chamberlain Edward may have tried to restore family Harmony but the Duke of Clarence and Duke of Gloucester were in no mood to follow suit they had their own personal quarrel now ostensibly this quarrel was about the division of the Earl of War's inheritance Clarence was married to the elder daughter of the Earl of wari and Gloucester in 1472 married the younger daughter and this meant that Clarence would have to share the enormous War stroke sord wbury inheritance the Neville inheritance however I think there's actually a deeper cause to this quarrel which arises from clarence's own questionable behavior in causing the redeption in the first place and the resulting insecurity that he felt when Edward was brought back to Power in the 1470s I think this made him rather jealous of Gloucester and rather nervous about gloucester's influence because Gloucester of course had supported his brother during the redeption was now warded with lands in the north and had a very secure place in Edward's regime Clarence was that little bit less secure however friendly the King was to him on the surface there were enough reminders of past troubles to ensure that Edward did not drop his guard and in 1472 came proof positive that the country's military troubles were not over this time it was Lord Oxford who with the help of Louis the 11th of France harried Edward and forced him to act what Edward really had to do to deal with threats like that posed by the ear of oxwood was to convince everybody that there was nothing to be gained from returning to uncertainty and division what he does on this occasion is round up those people he thinks may be involved in plotting and strut about the place making himself powerful and strong as it were specifically in the in the west country he offers pardons to all of those who are with Oxford if they return to Allegiance and Oxford's small anyway Army disintegrates pretty quickly the fact that the West country doesn't rise means that he has no hope really of continuing with this exploit and so he himself is forced to surrender fairly quickly Lord Oxford's Estates were confiscated and passed on to Richard Duke of Gloucester the enthusiastic Tudor propagandist William Shakespeare significantly shaped the popular modern image of rich Richard as a deformed despot although there is little contemporary evidence to back him up Richard May perhaps have been born with one shoulder slightly higher than the other but he was certainly not the crookback so gleefully depicted in The Bard's play I am that ciled of this Fair proportion cheated a feature by dissembling nature deformed unfinished sent before my time into this breathing World scarce half made up and that so lamely and un fashionable the dogs bark at me as I halt them he was however utterly ruthless and consumed by greed character trays that were clearly illustrated by the shameful way in which Lord Oxford's frail aging mother was physically bullied into signing her Estates over to Richard such calculating Behavior was remarkable for a man who had barely turned 20 although there was domestic stability during Edward's Reign the complex wranglings of Continental politics continued in 1477 Duke Charles of bergundy was killed in battle leaving as his only Heir Mary of burgundy His Daughter by a previous marriage the Duke's death signified the collapse of one of Europe's Most fashionable and Powerful cours and it also left England's stronghold of Cal open to attack marriage plans have been proposed between Mary of burgundy and the recently widowed Duke of Clarence but with the delicate political position very much in mind King Edward advised against it once again the aspirations of the bitter and unstable Clarence were thwarted and he soon once more became an irksome and irritating problem for Edward when Edward refuses to marry Clarence to Mary of burgundy in 1477 following Charles the bold's death I think this sets the seal on clarence's sense of exclusion really from the opportunities of the regime and Clarence either participates in a series of rather extravagant misbehaviors at this time there are allegations of uh plots involving sorcery emanating from one of his Esquires there's an incredible case of judicial murder uh which Clarence is very clearly implicated in in warshire or if he's not actually doing these rather Wayward and Wild Things um it is easy enough for the king to pin this kind of behavior on him discover the past with exclusive medieval documentaries and adree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from history hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to explore everything from our series on medieval pleasures to the notorious Knight Templar the princes in the tower and the Battle of Hastings immerse yourself in the captivating stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description in July 1477 Edward finally lost patience with his quarrelsome brother and Clarence was arrested and sent to the tower in January of the following year a bill of attainer was issued against the Duke accusing him of treason and plotting to usurp the throne Clarence was sentenced to death Edward IV was held bent on destroying his brother this was a personal Vendetta and the croland chronicler records that in the trial that nobody spoke against the Duke except the king and nobody answered the king except the Duke the arrest the arraignment the trial and the execution of of the Duke of Clarence was a responsibility of one man and one man only Edward IV there's no evidence at all that gler was directly implicated in the sense of pulling strings to bring about clarence's condemnation he hardly needed to but I think it is true to say that Edward could not have proceeded to the death of one brother without at least tacit approval of the other with Clarence out of the way and with two legitimate Sons amongst his heirs Edward's position was settled at last there were the usual feuds within the court not least of which was the Hostile relationship between Edward's favorite Minister William Hastings and the Queen's brother Anthony Woodville the second Earl Rivers Hastings found his position increasingly threatened as he became more and more at odds with the notorious Woodville as for the king he was now very different to the athletic and vigorous man who had fought so hard to gain the throne advancing towards middle age Edward's well-known gluttony had caught up with him he had grown very corpulent indeed and he was no longer able to exercise however his voracious sexual appetite was by all accounts [Music] unaffected in March 1483 everything suddenly changed when King Edward was taken Gravely ill after a fishing trip certain that he was on his deathbed Edward laid careful plans for the kingdom he named his eldest son Edward the Prince of Wales only 12 years old as the heir to the throne nominating his brother Richard of Gloucester as Lord protector during the minority on the 9th of April 1483 Edward IV died aged 41 and an unknown chronicler recorded the king's dying words wherefore in these last words that I ever speak to you I exalt you and require you all for the love that you have ever borne me for the love that I have ever borne you for the love that our Lord beareth to us all from this time forward all griefs forgotten each of you love each other the chances of the king's Last Wishes ever coming true were of course Very remote indeed Edward's Death must have led to extreme anxiety amongst courtiers and counselors and there was so much bad blood existing between the people at the heart of government between the members of the Woodville family and men like Hastings who was the head of Edward's household and there were other figures too Richard of loster who was based in the north his role had still to be decided despite his brother Edward declaring him protector on his death bed the Woodville and in particular Earl Rivers the uncle to whom Edward was devoted were far from happy with the idea of the Duke of glester as sole protector and so they ignored the king's Last Wishes establishing instead a council of Regency of which the Duke was merely a figurehead Richard was in the north when Edward died but he rapidly headed south presumably intent upon ensuring that he did play a central role in the government of the young king Richard was undoubtedly horrified by the actions of the Woodville family following his brother's death the queen failed to her praise her brother-in-law of what had happened and she sought to sideline him by having her son crowned as quickly as possible once crowned the state of a protector will be very reduced because of his hatred of the woodfill and through a continued loyalty to the dead King William Hastings became a close supporter of the Duke of Gloucester meanwhile the Woodville found themselves in a position of unrivaled power and Earl Rivers his younger brother Edward and his nephew The Marquis of Dorset a son of the widowed Queen through a previous marriage became the dominant political characters at court all the powerful figures in England depend more closely than they have before on the king for the preservation of their power the wood vills are a holy kingmade family but so also of course is Richard of Gloucester he has some of his own Estates and some in right of his wife but a lot of his power in the north depend on continued backing from the center so Gloucester needs control of the prince but the prince is in the hands of the Woodville and the Woodville need control of the prince uh possibly to protect them against Gloucester as the jostling for position gathered Pace support for Richard centered upon the Duke of Buckingham who had also developed a powerful dislike of rivers and his unpopular cek Buckingham took troops to rendevu with the Duke of Gloucester at Northampton where in April 148 3 the Armed Force intercepted and seized the Young Prince of Wales on route to London for his coronation as Edward the fth El Rivers dorset's younger brother Richard Gray and the King's Chamberlain Sir Thomas FN were all arrested and sent under guard to pontif where on gloster's orders they would later be beheaded without even with the T of [Music] Tri Edward IV's Widow Queen Elizabeth received the news of her son's abduction with horror and fled with the 10-year-old Duke of York taking sanctu at Westminster Richard of Gloucester arrived in London with the young king on the 4th of May 1483 and somehow managed to convince Parliament to confirm him as Lord protector it suited Gloucester to argue to be protector was his right and that was what was appropriate and that was what would be good for the prince and with the prince in his possession I don't think anyone could really gainsay him he moved quickly to identify the Woodville as a problem group and to remove them from power and also to remove key allies of theirs and he also moved quickly to build up the Duke of Buckingham in strength so all those figures from the Edwardian establishment in London must have been thinking this is the new dispensation Gloucester wants to be protector we have to go with that and I think that really explains why they were willing to accept him in that role there is little doubt that by now gler had fully formulated his plan to seize the throne for himself a major problem had already identified itself there were several members of the Regency Council who simply would not countenance a plan to remove the king Chief among these was Lord Hastings the faithful friend and supporter of the late Edward IV on the 12th of June 1483 Lord Stanley another member of the Regency council is supposed to have had an ominous dream that was so disturbing that in the middle of the night he sent word to Hastings urging him to escape to safety if this story is true Hastings should have heeded the advice the very next morning Hastings Stanley Sir Thomas Howard the Duke of Buckingham Archbishop RAM and Bishop Morton of elely all met at the tower to discuss the final details of Edward V's coronation gler joined them at about 9:00 and seemed in good enough humor however he soon left the meeting and when he returned an hour later the Duke's demeanor was very different indeed Hastings was then suddenly accused of treason a group of armed Men who' been waiting in the adjoining room rushed in dragged him out off to the Tower of London where he was sarily executed it's one of the most shocking murders really of the entire Wars of the Roses period the news of the brutal and Swift execution of Lord Hastings soon leaked out the general public who heard the news with amazement nothing could have surely merited such treatment of a respected and Senior figure nothing that is except a plot against the Lord protector for which the architect had been punished and this was the version of events that gluster put around no evidence to support cluster's explanation for Hastings death has ever been uncovered Richard during the six or seven weeks before he seized the crown realized that he'd already gone too far that by putting rivers and the other wood vills into captivity he was storing up trouble for himself in the future because what would happen in a few years time when young Edward V became king in his own right how would he then react to his uncle Richard who had captured his relatives forced his mother to run into Sanctuary it's possible that during those weeks Richard realized that actually he'd already dug himself a hole and he had to get out of this and the only way he could get out was by taking the crown itself on the 16th of June just 3 days after Hasting death the Duke of Buckingham and a party of nobles arrived at Westminster to remove Edward's younger brother the Duke of York from the sanctuary of West Mr Abby the two young princes were installed in apartments in the tower and their fate was [Music] sealed on the 22nd of June 1483 a propaganda sermon by Dr Ralph Shaw at St Paul's cross preached that owing to a broken betral to Ellena Butler Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth with Woodville had been invalid and therefore his heirs including the current boy King were illegitimate it was of course an outrageous suggestion following the sermon the Duke of Buckingham mounted his own carefully calculated smear campaign condemning the dead King's sexual infidelities 3 Days Later a delegation headed by Buckingham formerly petitioned the Duke of bler to take the throne and Rule as Richard III gluster played the game to Perfection and at first modestly refused to accept the crown but of course he soon allowed the facade to crumble cluster finally agreed to take the crown and he was proclaimed King only a day later he was crowned King Richard III on the 6th of July 1483 the two child princes in the town power would never be seen again there is no positive evidence for the murder of Ed the fourth's two sons the princes in the tower but they disappear from view very thoroughly in the late summer of 1483 and by far the most likely scenario is that rich should has had them murdered there's no written evidence no single document that allows us to pin the responsibility for the murders of the princes in the tower upon Richard and those that defend him will point that out but there's other kinds of historical evidence besides documents and I think the clinching argument for Richard's responsibility are the actions of those who were at the court in 1483 these were the members of Edward the for's household the men who'd been loyal yorkists for years they now turned against Richard now why should they do that after all some of them had fought alongside him at Barnett andsbury this was a man they had trusted and they turn against him and they support Henry chuda somebody they didn't know at all now the actions of those men seems to be the best evidence that at the time people believed Richard was responsible for his nephew's murders his four main supporters the Duke of Buckingham Henry Percy the fourth Earl of North umberland Lord Howard now created Duke of Norfolk and Lord Stanley now surrounded Richard Stanley's decision to make peace with Richard was influenced by his marriage to Margaret bort the mother of of Henry Tudor to defend himself from accusations of treason and protect the lives of his wife and lancastrian stepson Stanley agreed to back Richard's coronation as king despite events in London Richard was still popular particularly in the north clearly he was greeted with delight in York in the summer of 1483 when he visited the city on progress and there's other evidence from that summer of of him being welcomed in other cities but overall we're really trying to build a big picture on small Snippets of evidence the really big important picture is that Richard had already failed in the prime requirement of a medieval King what a king was expected to do was to give peace and stability to his people but by usurping the throne in June 1483 all Richard had done was condemn England to another 2 years of rebellion and uncertainty it was impossible for King Richard to shake off the rumors that not only were the two young princes no longer alive but that he had been responsible for their deaths there were several opportunities for him to parade them in public in order to put an end to the speculation but of course he did not do so there was no es escaping the fact that Richard had usurped the throne in brutal bloody circumstances now old lancastrian sympathies among the English nobility were rekindled the Red Rose had one surviving Champion a man whose own claim to the throne was tenuous but strong enough to challenge Richard he was Henry Tudor the choice of Henry chuda and as the rebels alternative claimant to the throne is inconceivable if it weren't believed that the princes were dead Henry chuda became the leader of the the yorkist Lancaster Alliance simply because there was nobody else the members of Edward IV's yorkist household would much preferred to have rebelled in the cause of Edward V but they must have known that he was dead and so desperately they gave their loyalty H to Henry chuda this was a case of better the devil that you don't know than the devil Richard that you do support for the reborn lancastrian cause came from the unlikeliest of quarters the Duke of Buckingham Dy supporter and one-time henchman of Richard added his name to the long list of English Nobles who had swapped sides during the time of the wars of the Roses why he did so remains unclear to this very day but there is some evidence that he was influenced by the lancastrian supporter Bishop Morton Bishop Morton had been intriguing for some time with Margaret bord the mother of Henry Tudor and almost incredibly it was not too long before Buckingham had switched his Allegiance and was backing Tudor's planned uprising Elizabeth Woodville the former queen of Edward IV secured more support by offering her daughter Elizabeth of York as a potential Bride for Henry Tudor strengthening not only the unlikely yorkist lancastrian Alliance but also Henry's claim to the crown the great Uprising against King Richard was planned to begin on the 18th of October 1483 there were to be a wave of small scale rebellions in the southeast of England which included an army from Kent making a feigned attack on London that was intended to distract King Richard meanwhile Buckingham's troops would join with Welsh forces in the west country it was planned that Henry Tuda himself would then land in Dorset with an army of Breton troops the 1483 Rebellion against Richard III never in fact came to battle it dissolved and one consequence of that is that many of the rebels survived to fight another day the 1483 rebellion was was such a disaster it's hard to say that it ever really had much chance of success it was blighted by poor Communications right across the south then Buckingham who was a late entrant into the rebellion was caught the wrong side of the seven by appalling weather conditions and had no chance to take part and Richard's reaction was Swift and effective so the rebels scattered before any effective opposition had developed to Richard the whole process was over before Henry chudder appeared off the South Coast the Duke of bim's treachery took him to the Block in the city of Salsbury while Bishop Morton the man who reputedly had done more than anyone to convince Buckingham to switch sides managed to escape abroad the kland chronicle recorded the Duke's end the Duke was seized and taken to the city of Salsbury where the king had arrived with a great Army he suffered capital punishment in the public Marketplace of that City on All Souls day not withstanding the fact that it fell on a Sunday that year despite the failure of the Rebellion pruda feeling in the country continued to grow all although Richard proved to be a fine administrator he was simply an unpopular Monarch Richard apparently had won but even his success then led to real problems the Gentry who'd rebelled fled to join Henry chudder in Britany leaving great gaps in the local government of the south of England and Richard had a problem how did he fill these gaps his solution in many cases was to transplant his Northern supporters to the South men like Edward Redmond whose Effigy can still be seen in Harwood house in Yorkshire Redmond whose lands were in the Lake District in West Yorkshire finds himself in government deep down in the southwest what was it like for that man to undertake such a role we know what the southerners felt they were extremely hostile to these Northern Intruders and all that did was just add to the hostility to Richard in April 1484 personal tragedy came to blight Richard's life when Edward his only legitimate son died suddenly at middleham Castle he was just 10 years old and the king and queen were overcome with grief at the boy's death the kland chronicle noted that the king learned how vain are the attempts to regulate his Affairs without God in April his only son on whom all hope of a royal succession rested died after a short illness you might have seen his mother and father after hearing the news at Nottingham almost out of their minds when faced with the sudden [Music] grief within months the queen too had succumbed to illness although there is little evidence that this time Richard was bereft in fact rum rumors circulated that he had poisoned the queen in order to marry his niece Elizabeth of York Edward IV's eldest daughter an Neville dies of course Very Suddenly at a young age and that inspires rumors that she may have been done away with but it's hard to see how it could possibly have been in Richard's interest to remove this young wife of his who is still very much of childbearing age when it would have mattered to him so much to try and obtain an heir and he can solve the problem that Elizabeth of York uh is being betrothed to Henry Tudor in Henry Tudor's own mind at least by marrying her after to almost anybody else um he also would have been unlikely I think to want to marry somebody he had declared as illegitimate as part of his own claim to the throne so it's a story that doesn't really add up it's a slur against Richard I [Music] think if Richard had planned to make the throne more secure by marrying he was to be sorely disappointed there was outrage among the nobility and common people alike when the marriage was suggested forcing Richard into the humiliating position of not only having to deny that he intended to take his niece for a wife but also that he had poison the queen it seemed that Henry Tudor's challenge for the crown could not be ended by politic iCal Intrigue it would have to be ended on the battlefield Richard did not have long to wait by 1485 Henry tuder had re-equipped himself for another invasion of England when Henry chuda returns to England in August 1485 he is clearly claiming to be king and he returns with a small army from the continent of mercenaries that he's been able to pick up uh in Normandy plus those refugees from the yorkist regime who fled Richard uh and who may when they return to England be able to activate connections of theirs from the regions of their Estates he's also hoping to get the aid of the Stanley's when he reaches the Welsh borders his mother has of course married into that family and they're the major magnate family of the northwest of England Henry's small army first marched into Shropshire where they began to gather more supporters Henry had expected the help of his stepfather Thomas Stanley who was also King Richard's advisor but he pointedly refused to join the rebels however Stanley also made an excuse when Richard summoned him to a council of War at Nottingham claiming that he had a stomach complaint by now the King was highly suspicious of Stanley and his dubious loyalty and so he decided to arrest his son Lord strange and to hold him hostage perhaps it was no surprise that strange cracked Under The Strain and he soon confessed to being a Tuda supporter what was more he also confirmed that his uncle William Stanley was involved in the Rebellion Thomas Stanley though could not be implicated and so the king had no choice but to march to face Henry Tudor's Rebel Army without him the positioning of the armies at Bosworth and indeed the positioning of the whole battle is a matter continually in dispute among historians and there's been some very recent changes of of view but I think the basic picture of Richard at the top of a hill and Henry down below but somewhat protected by an area of mar land is nonetheless um accepted we also have to recognize that there are a whole series of magnates stationed quite nearby the action but hedging their bets about whether or not they'll participate and of course the key group of magnates here are the Stanley who are just to one side with really quite a large army Richard's Army is about twice the size of Henry's but if the Stanley's choose to commit to Henry's then the balance between the two forces is much more equal also of course of course the Stanley's forces big enough to intervene decisively for one side or the other in the middle of the battle once the melee has started on August 22nd 1485 King Richard positioned his army on the ridge of ambian Hill near Bosworth in leerer they were at top a steep incline with Marshland at the [Music] foot and to Henry's troops the Royal Army must have looked very formidable indeed there was a body of archers commanded by the Duke of Norfolk with heavy artillery behind them Beyond these were King Richard and his men at- arms backed by the Earl of Northumberland and his 3,000 northern troops surely Henry's men with no real artillery and few archers stood very little chance of Victory but the presence of 4,000 men at arms under the command of the Stanley Brothers Thomas and William threw a rather different aspect on the coming battle to which side would they offer their support Richard was concerned enough to threaten the immediate execution of Lord strange unless Thomas Stanley joined his ranks but but Stanley is reputed to have replied that as he had two other sons that would not be joining the king should do his worst strange escaped the wroth of the king one of the most crucial battles in English History was now just a few short minutes away it was to be a day when the turncoat and the traitor played a role every bit as vital as the common soldier with Bill and blade [Music] soon the ranks of the men under Richard's Ally Duke of norford and the lancastrian Earl of Oxford were joined in a desperate life or death [Music] struggle it was to be the battle Harden morford's last fight as a stray Arrow struck him down this was a grave loss to Richard's cause with the Stanley Brothers still an ominous presence on the sidelines the outcome of the battle remained in the balance after an hour of bloody fighting TI turned against Richard when he charged thunderously down ambian hill which has been called the swansong of English medieval shiv he'd seen Judah and was determined to eliminate him until that point it looked as if Richard might well be successful even though Northumberland had not committed his men to the conflict Richard's last cavalry charge had taken him right into the heart of Henry judah's household he'd bowled over Henry's supporters and briefly Richard and Henry came face to face and sword to sword it looked as if Richard was going to win and even poor Virgil Henry chuda's own historian was forced to admit that Henry lasted longer than his own men expected but he didn't have to last too long at The crucial moment Stanley's men tore into the side of Richard's Force Richard was bowled over and soon he was dead the story has it that that when Richard died the crown rolled from his head into the base of a thorn bush and from there it was picked up and used to Crown Henry chuda King Henry iith well if you go to Westminster ABY you can see the crowd in the thorn bush amongst the many chea badges on display so there does seem to be a good chance that that this Legend at any rate is based on truth there is no contemporary or later Tuda story that confirms that the crown was plucked from a thorn bush in fact it was found on the field of battle if it had have been plucked from the thorn bush I'm sure William Shakespeare would have made much of it and created some lovely lines around it however the Hawthorne was a a heraldic device of Henry iith and it was carved on his tomb so this was perhaps the inspiration for a later perhaps a 17th or 18th century writer Henry Tudor was acclaimed King of England on Bosworth field the mutilated body of the Dead King Richard was ripped naked and unceremoniously carried on Horseback through the cheering crowds of the nearby city of leester not everyone was pleased to hear of the king's demise however at York where Richard had enjoyed so much support during his life the city council recorded that King Richard who reigned until recently Upon Us was through the treason of others mercilessly slain and murdered to this City's great sadness Henry Judah would have been unknown to most of the population of England so far from being a popular hero it would have been a case of Henry who and many people found it difficult to accept this Welsh Adventure in the early years as their King people felt that once he had won at Bosworth he had to be in a sense allowed to be successful because to oppose Henry would bring another generation of Civil War which nobody apart perhaps from a few diard ardians really wanted so Henry's position at the outset was possibly stronger than has often been [Music] assumed Henry Tudor was crowned Henry iith at Westminster on the 30th of October 1485 the following year in fulfillment of his promise to his yorkist allies he married Elizabeth of York the daughter of the yorkist king Edward IV Henry chud is married to Elizabeth of York daughter of Edward IV and sister of the princes in the tower seems to have been extremely popular essentially because it promised peace it promised a bringing together of the families who had been in Conflict for the last Decades of course it didn't ensure security that would only come once a family had been born once Henry had survived long enough to pass on the throne to an adult Heir and that obviously would take 20 years and those 20 years took a long time in passing the marriage was probably viewed as being extremely overdue and that Henry was was very slow to make good his promise it took place almost 5 months after Bosworth and consternation grew when the queen was not crowned until November 1487 evidently Henry wanted to be known as a king in his own right by conquest and by hereditary claim and not merely as the husband of a predecessor's [Music] daughter and so after almost 30 years of sporadic but bloody Civil Wars of treachery and Intrigue and of weak and transient government the houses of York and Lancaster were finally United in a new and vigorous Dynasty a final Rebellion contrived by diard yorkists was successfully put down by the new Tuda regime at the Battle of stoke in 1487 the wars of the Roses were finally [Music] over although no one could have known it at the time England had seen the first faltering steps of what would eventually become one of its greatest dynasties the long Century of Tudor rule would see the authority of the English crown restored a religious Reformation and an era of bold adventurism that would be the stepping stone to Empire the Newfound domestic stability had been one with the blood of thousands of common men who had done battle at places such as sorbin Barnet ton and Bosworth battles and executions had decimated the old nobility of England and it had taken the death of a king the second and last English king to die on the battlefield to bring the wars of the Roses to an [Music] end [Music]