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Battle of Bosworth
Battle of Bosworth
22nd August 1485
Name: Battle of Bosworth Field (Redemore Field; Dadlington Field)
Date: 22 August 1485
War period: Wars of the Roses
Start time and duration: morning, lasting circa two hours
Armies and losses: Royal army commanded by King Richard III numbering 10-15,000 men; Rebel army under Henry Tudor but effectively commanded by Earl of Oxford with 5,000 men and 5,000-8,000 initially uncommitted. Losses: Possibly 1,000 royal & 100 rebel
Location: securely located with fighting over open field, meadow and lowland moor/marsh in the area of Fenn Lanes to the north of Dadlington and Stoke Golding
Map detail: Grid Reference: SP394986 (439487,298621); OS Landranger map: 140; OS Explorer map: 232
Two kings in one day as Richard III is killed and the Tudor era begins. Did treachery help Henry secure the crown?
The battle of Bosworth, fought on the 22nd August 1485, is one of the best known and was one of the most influential of English battles. It saw perhaps the most dramatic of military reversals in English history.
A rebel force defeated a royal army more than twice its size leaving Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, dead on the field and placing Henry VII on the throne as the first of a new, Tudor dynasty.
Until 2009 Bosworth was the most contentious of English battles, because at least three alternative sites had been proposed for the battlefield. We now know that the battle was fought not far from Stoke Golding, some two miles or so south-west of Ambion Hill, the ‘traditional’ location of the action. In addition to locating the battlefield, the archaeological survey has unearthed the largest group of cannonballs ever found on a medieval battlefield – no less than 34 lead shot of a variety of calibres – ranging from bullets fired from handguns to roundshot from substantial artillery pieces.
- The Battlefields Trust has now completed a major study of Bosworth battlefield - Click here to find out more
- Historic England Battlefields Register - CLICK HERE
- Historic England battlefield report for Battle of Bosworth (Field) 1485
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