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The Battle of Bosworth or Bosworth Field was the last significant battle of the Wars of the Roses, the civil war between the houses of Lancaster and York that extended across England in the latter half of the 15th century. Fought on 22 August 1485, the battle was won by an alliance of Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists. Their leader Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, became the first English monarch of the Tudor dynasty by his victory and subsequent marriage to a Yorkist princess. His opponent Richard III, the last king of the House of York, was killed during the battle, the last English monarch to die in combat. Historians consider Bosworth Field to mark the end of the Plantagenet dynasty, making it one of the defining moments of English history.
Richard III was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.
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Sir James Harrington of Hornby was an English politician and soldier who was a prominent Yorkist supporter in Northern England during the Wars of the Roses, having been retained by Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, who was brother-in-law to the head of the House of York, Richard of York. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Harrington, who had died with the king's father at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. James himself had fought with Salisbury at the Battle of Blore Heath in 1459, where he had been captured and imprisoned by the Lancastrians until the next year. He was a significant regional figure during the reign of King Edward IV, although the early years of the new king's reign were marred by a bitter feud between him and the Stanley family over a castle in Lancashire. On the accession of King Richard III in 1483, he was appointed to the new king's Household, and as such was almost certainly with him at the Battle of Bosworth Field two years later. It is likely that he fell in battle there, although precise details of his death are now unknown.
Sir Percival Thirlwall was the standard-bearer of Richard III during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the penultimate battle in the Wars of the Roses which ultimately brought an end to the reign of the Plantagenets and inaugurated the Tudor dynasty.
Sir John Savage, KG, KB, PC (1444–1492), was an English knight of the Savage family, who was a noted military commander of the late 15th-century. Savage most notably fought at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where he commanded the left flank of the Tudor (Lancastrian) army to victory and is said to have personally slain the Duke of Norfolk in single combat. Earlier in the Wars of the Roses, Savage had been a supporter and friend of the Yorkist King Edward IV, fighting alongside him and helping him to victories at the Battle of Barnet in 1471 and the Battle of Tewkesbury later that same year, as well as joining the Duke of Gloucester's invasion of Scotland in 1482, where the Duke made him a Knight banneret. However, following the death of Edward and the Duke of Gloucester's ascension to the throne as Richard III the Savage family was viewed with suspicion due to their familial connection to the Stanleys, who were in turn connected to the Tudors. Consequently Savage was one of the prominent figures who invited Henry Tudor to invade England in 1485, a struggle which culminated in the Battle of Bosworth Field. After his victory Henry Tudor received the circlet of Richard from Savage's uncle Lord Stanley and was crowned King of England on the field of battle, taking the throne as Henry VII of England.
Sir John Babington of Dethick Manor was High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and the Royal Forests from 1479-1480.
The Savage family is an English noble family founded by Thomas Le Sauvage (Savage), who came to England as part of William the Conqueror's Norman army in 1066 and settled in Derbyshire after the conquest, taking residence in Scarcliffe. Thomas Le Sauvage's name appears in a list of Normans who survived the Battle of Hastings. In the 14th century a branch of the family was established in Cheshire, and this was the place where they became most prominent, with several members ascending to the peerage and positions of power such as Archbishop of York. The Cheshire branch of the family built the primary family seat Rocksavage, the house was one of the great Elizabethan houses of the county and a leading example of the Elizabethan prodigy house. There were further branches of the family in Dorset, Gloucestershire and Kent, as well as one in Ireland, which was created following the arrival of Sir William Savage, Baron Savage in Ulster as a companion of Sir John de Courcy. Many of the family are buried in tombs in the family chapel at St Michael's Church, Macclesfield.
References
- ↑ The Ballad Index Copyright 2015 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle. Accessed March 2015
- ↑ Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses by John A. Wagner (ABC-Clio Inc, 2001).
- ↑ "A Nation in Conflict: the Battle of Bosworth Field", Warfare, 22 August 2013. Accessed March 2015
- ↑ The Ballad of Bosworth Fielde, Text from Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript. Ballads and Romances, ed. J.W. Hales and F.J. Furnivall, 3 vols. (London, 1868), III, pp. 233-59. Reproduced by kind permission of Department of Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania Library