VII.—The Battle of Bosworth

Abstract

To make a satisfactory study of the story of a battle it is no doubt desirable to visit the field of action and examine it carefully with one's own eyes. Where much time has elapsed and many changes have taken place in the aspect of the country the written records are not always easy to interpret; and where even these are scanty and obscure a large number of open questions will naturally be the result. Such has been the case with the famous battle of Bosworth Field, of which we possess virtually only one narrative, and that not written by an eye-witness or even by an Englishman, but by an intelligent foreigner who settled in England some years after. Polydore Vergil, the first writer of a connected history of England, arrived in this country about eighteen years after the battle, and doubtless gained his information about it from those who had seen and taken part in it. The accounts given by the subsequent English chroniclers, Hall, Grafton, and Holinshed, are little more than translations, a little amplified, of the description given by Polydore. Nevertheless, their additions to the narrative, as we shall see, are not without significance.