We’ve added a new article about The Battle of ‘Bosworth’, the historic battle which saw Richard III lose the throne to Henry Tudor. The battle has many important links with Atherstone which the new article aims to cover, as well as the new theory that the battle in fact took place in Merevale near Atherstone, and not Bosworth at all.
Copyright © 2001-2008. Sitemap. Version 0.2 "Heritiage Moon"
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:48 am
New reconstruction of ‘Bosworth Field’, alias the Battle of
Atterton, Upton and Shenton
Last amended 2008-03-03
©J. Christopher Rigg, Bennekom, NL-6721 SL-57
In the summer of 2005, I examined the huge range of almost contemporary accounts of the Battle of Bosworth and (bike and old maps) the Mediaeval pattern of roads and river crossings in the area. I suggested various options for the routes taken by the armies of Richard III and Henry Richmond, later Henry VII. Besides the sources used in most accounts of the battle, the reconstruction depends on three items of recently published evidence and one remarkable blank in the Tudor accounts.
§ the strong traditions that Richard “passed through Sheepy” and the clues that he spent the night at the Mythe.
§ the group of villages that received compensation from Henry VII stretched as far east as Atterton and Fenny Drayton and did not include Shenton, Sibson or Ratcliffe Culey.
§ Henry is said to have approached the battle along the Redway or Radway, which I equate with ‘Redgate’, which ‘gate’ once had in the sense of road, namely the former road northwards from the Watling Street through the centre of Fenny Drayton to Sibson, which was part of an ancient route from Coventry to Burton and Derby. ‘Radgate’ or ‘radway’ is an old term for a road or track used by long-distance wheeled traffic. This old route lay several hundred metres west of the A444, which was constructed in the late 19th Century.
§ Official Tudor accounts lack details of troop movements. I suggest that it was because Henry Richmond’s army was routed.
Richard’s journey on Sunday 21 August 1485
Richard travelled from Leicester along Fenn Lane and turned off at Upton Park along a road that then ran from Hinckley to the Mythe. The first part of this road as far as the A444 is still hard-surfaced. The section from there is a green lane as far as Ratcliffe House, whence the continuation is a short section of hardened road, which now turns northwards onto Sibson Road, Ratcliffe. The old road continued in a straight line along the south side of Ratcliffe Castle and All Saints Church, across Atherstone Road, Ratcliffe, to a stony ford over the Sence about 150 metres upstream of the confluence with the Anker. Some of Richard’s troops would have spent the night in the ‘Haugh’ or ‘Hollow’, which became known as King Dick’s Hole, though that name was by the 19th Century attached to the dark pool in the Anker just downstream of the confluence. The rest of King Richard’s troops were quartered in Ratcliffe and, judging by local tradition, Sheepy Magna.
Henry’s advance in the following evening or night
There is some tradition that Henry encamped the night on Whitemoor, though, if he did, the name must have also included the area of the Radway north of Fenny Drayton, since neither Upton nor Shenton later received compensation from King Henry.
Battle engaged at dawn on Monday the 22nd of August
In the morning, Richard found he no longer faced Henry’s army across the River Anker and had to turn his forces and line of attack eastwards (into the morning sun). Henry was facing him on the Upton–Ratcliffe Ridge south of Sibson. However henry was outnumbered by Richard’s huge army and was forced into retreat, even routed, with Richard’s cavalry giving chase. This is the only possible explanation that most of Henry’s casualties were seemingly buried at Dadlington, where that Henry established a chantry to pray for the souls of those who had fallen.
Lord Stanley joins the battle near Sandeford
The Stanleys had taken a vantage point overlooking the two armies. The sources mention no local place-name. I suggests Wellesborough Hill. None of the hills east of Shenton or near Dadlington offers much outlook into the plain around Fenny Drayton and Sheepy.
From his vantage point on Wellesborough Hill, Lord Stanley and his troops moved down southwards into the valley of the River Saint only after King Richard’s cavalry had broken formation in their chase after the routed army of Henry. Stanley’s troops encountered King Richard near Mile’s Ford, about 2 km upstream of Sibson. This must be the ‘Sandeford’ mentioned in the proclamation of Henry as King of England.
‘Sandeford’ cannot be the old ford on the Redway at Sibson, where the river is very muddy and slow-running. Neither can one accept Michael Jones’ suggestion that Sandeford was at Derby Spinney, the area about 300 m north of the crossroads of the A444 with Fenn Lane and George Fox Road. Though his suggestion is favoured by an association of the name ‘Derby’ with the Stanleys, this area is part of the boggy fen that gave Fenny Drayton its name, ‘Boggy Drag-Tun’, as a notoriously difficult part of the old route from Coventry northwards. The old Redway north of Fenny Drayton towards Atterton would hardly be described as a ‘sandy ford’.
The story of Stanley placing the crown on Henry’s head must also be set on Wellesborough Hill.