Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/52

38 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 manoeuvre 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.

The body of the fallen tyrant was speedily stripped of his valuable armour and ornaments, and the soldier who laid hands upon the crown hid it in a hawthorn bush. But strict quest being made after it, it was soon discovered and carried to Lord Stanley, who placed it upon the head of Henry, and the victor was immediately saluted by the general acclamations of the army with "Long live King Henry!" and they sung Te Deum, in grand chorus, on the bloody heath of Redmore. From the poetical circumstance of the hawthorn bush, the Tudors assumed as their device a crown in a bush of fruited hawthorn. Lord Strange, the son of Lore Stanley, being deserted by his guards, as soon as the defeat was known, made his way to the field, and joined his father and the king at the close of the battle.

King Henry VII. advanced from the decisive field of Bosworth, at the head of his victorious troops, to Leicester, which he entered with the same royal state that Richard had quitted it. The statements of the numbers who fell on this field vary from 1,000 to 4,000 but of the leaders, the Duke of Norfolk, and Lore Ferrars of Chartley, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, Sir Robert Percy, and Sir Robert Brackenbury, fell with the king On the side of Henry fell no leaders of note.

Henry used his victory mildly; he shed no blood of the vanquished, except that of the notorious Catesby, and two persons of the name of Brecher, who were probably men of like character and crimes. Thus, in one day, the world was relieved of the presence of Richard, and of his two base commissioners of murder, Catesby and Ratcliffe

Richard's naked body, covered with mud and gore was, according to the local traditions of Leicester, flung carelessly across a horse, and thus carried into the town; his head, say these historic memories, striking against the very post which the blind beggar had said it would, and the rude populace following it with shouts of mockery. The corpse was begged by the nuns of the Grey Friars, to whom Richard had been a benefactor, and was decently interred in their church. His camp bedstead, on which he had slept the night before leaving the town, and which contained his military best, remained at the "Blue Boar," his lodging, and, a hundred years afterwards, being discovered to contain considerable treasure, led to a fearful murder. This bedstead was entirely of wood, much carved and gilded. The woman to whom it belonged, a century after the Battle of Bosworth-field, one day perceived a piece of coin drop out of a chink. This led her to make a close inspection, and she discovered that the bottom of the bedstead was hollow, and contained old coins to the amount of about £300. But the discovery excited the cupidity of her servant, who murdered her mistress to obtain it, and was hanged for the deed, so that the gold of Richard seemed to carry a curse with it. The coffin of Richard was torn from its resting-place in the Grey friars Church, at the Reformation, his bones were scattered, and the coffin long after served for a horse-trough.

The reign of Richard III. was only two years and two months, but perhaps in no such space of time has any one man contrived to perpetrate such an amount of crime. As his reign was a most violent and startling one, the execrations which the writers of the succeeding age poured upon Richard have been attributed by writers of our day to motives of party spite, and there has been a great attempt to correct the verdict of Richard's own times by the eulogia of this. But, as we have shown, they have not succeeded in clearing Richard of the awful deeds attributed to him, and if those early writers have somewhat exaggerated the personal deformities of the man, it does not appear possible, with historic impartiality, to render his portraiture attractive.

But however repulsive might be Richard's person, his soul was certainly far more hideous. He was, however, full of talent, eloquent and persuasive in his Language; but these qualities were accompanied by an ambition and a murderous temper, which defeated his otherwise fair chance of becoming a great man, and converted him into one of the most odious characters in history. 



T might be very reasonably supposed that during a century spent almost entirely in war, and during the second half of it in the most rancorous intestine wars, there could not be really much national progress. There is no doubt but that the population was greatly decreased. It was calculated that at the beginning of the century the population of England and Wales amounted to about 2,700,000. At the end of it, it is supposed that there were not 2,500,000.

In these depopulating wars, there can be no doubt that, besides the actual destruction of so many men, there must have been great sufferings inflicted, and an immense interruption of all those peaceful transactions by which nations become wealthy and powerful. 