Where is Bosworth?

The BBC news on the morning of Wednesday 28 October started off with a bit of tease. There was news about exciting finds at Bosworth. The eight o’clock news showed the battlefield and talked of finds. This seemed to be only a little more exciting than the press releases that had appeared at the end of September. The item ended by saying a full announcement would be made at ten o’clock.

However it was the News at One which carried the full story, an interview with Glenn Foard, archaeologist and Project officer of the Battlefields Trust, and pictures of some of the finds made whilst searching the area around Bosworth. We still don’t have quite the full picture yet, this is to prevent ‘night-hawks’ from knowing the exact location of the finds and therefore the exact location of ‘Bosworth’. This will, hopefully, remain a secret until the archaeologists complete their task.

The most thrilling item was seeing the important finds themselves. Pictures of some of them can be viewed on the Bosworth Battlefield site www.bosworthbattlefield.com

The announcement is the result of four years’ work partly funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund grant.

The press conference showed Glenn Foard talking about the project and then in a dramatic gesture he swept the cover off a display cabinet to show the conclusive proof of where the battle took place, lead gun shot.

Picture of lead shot displayed with replica sword and jack

The battlefield was located through a ‘systematic archaeological survey with metal detectors. The combined evidence proves that the battle was fought in the area between the villages of Dadlington, Shenton, Upton and Stoke Golding – in a location not previously suggested’. This is perhaps the most intriguing part of the announcement. We have some tantalising hints but must await a final announcement, the timing of which is not yet known, so as they say watch this space!

As Glenn Foard reminded everyone, ‘Bosworth was one of England’s four great decisive battles of the last 1,000 years, alongside Hastings, Naseby and the Battle of Britain.’ He began working on a reassessment of the evidence for site of Bosworth in 2004 which led to the Battlefields Trust being commissioned by Leicestershire County Council in 2005 to undertake a major investigation. The Heritage Lottery Fund provided £154,000 towards the costs.

A group of specialists worked together, covering a variety of approaches to try to establish where the battle actually took place. Documentary evidence, a reconstruction of the historic landscape, analysis of early field and place names, soil analysis and an archaeological survey were all combined to identify the site.

A key phrase in Polydore Vergil’s [The Anglica historia of Polydore Vergil, A.D. 1485-1537; edited and translated by Denys Hay (Camden, 3rd ser., 74). London: Royal Historical Society, 1950.], gave topographical clues:

‘Between the armies was a marsh which Henry purposely kept on his
right, so it would serve as a fortress to protect his men. At the same time,
also by doing this he left the sun behind’.

 By reconstructing the medieval landscape, through mapping the fen, moor and heath names, the team was led to the general area, where Peter Foss had suggested the battle had taken place. [Peter Foss, The Field of Redemore, Rosalba Press 1990]  However pollen analysis and Carbon 14 dating of peat deposits showed that this area had ceased to be a marsh centuries earlier than Bosworth. Now similar tests on another area proved that it had been marsh at the right time.

Stoke Golding’s claim was also found to have some validity. Crown Hill was ‘almost certainly the location where Henry Tudor became Henry VII.’ A document from just before 1485 found that Crown Hill was then called Garbodys. The name change on a map of 1605 to Crown Hill is the first record of its new name

While all these types of evidence gave the general area it was the archaeological survey with metal detectors that finally located the battlefield. After painstaking work, reducing the potential area down from 7 sq km to 1.1 sq km the metal detectorists struck gold, or more accurately lead gunshot. The 22 pieces of lead shot which have been found were fired from artillery and early hand guns. This is ‘more than all the lead roundshot from all the other battlefields of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe put together’.

The French Chronicler, Jean Molinet writing in 1490 said that,

‘The king had the artillery of his army fire on the earl of Richmond,
and so the French, knowing by the king’s shot the lie of the land and the
order of his battle, resolved, in order to avoid the fire, to mass their troops
against the flank rather than the front of the king’s battle.'

The scatter of shot from artillery and hand guns covers an area of more than a kilometre. Glenn Foard emphasised ‘These finds require a major rethink of the way in which battles have been interpreted, … no comparable evidence has been seen before from a medieval battlefield, the interpretation of the pattern we have recovered demands various new research. This will involve the application of modern ballistics and other methods of scientific analysis. … Bosworth has shown the potential of archaeology to contribute to our understanding of the origins of firepower – a story of international significance which must now be explored on battlefields across Europe’.

Display of lead shot with sizes

Professor Richard Holmes summed it up perfectly. ‘We can now see where those round-shot thudded into the Leicestershire soil when Richard Plantagenet was still King of England and Henry Tudor was a mere pretender. We are given to using expressions like “exciting” and “ground-breaking” too easily, but no historical discovery has elated me more than this one, and I have seldom felt more conscious of being able to touch the past’.

Two of the more personal finds, which reminds us that living people were at the receiving end of the lead shot, are coins, as illustrated below.

Leicestershire County Council, The Battlefields Trust, The Heritage Lottery and English Heritage will be working together to protect the battlefield area for future generations. The finds from the site will be put on display in a new gallery at the Heritage Centre from Easter 2010. The Heritage Centre will be ‘a perfect interpretation hub for the battlefield’ according to Richard Knox, curator of the Battlefield heritage centre. Meanwhile talks are taking place with landowners to negotiate access for visitors using rights way to view the battlefield.

The remarkable finds at Bosworth are hopefully just the beginning. To quote Frank Baldwin, chairman of the Battlefields Trust; ‘Now that we can find the battles of the wars of the fifteenth century, it should be possible to find sites of other battlefields where firearms were used, including for example, Northampton and Barnet. It also means that we need to preserve these undiscovered battlefields from threats from development, treasure hunting and intensive farming’.

For more information on the Trust and the work they are doing to protect our battlefield see www.battlefieldstrust.com

I am grateful to Lydia Wilson of the Bosworth Battlefield Centre for providing me with a copy of the press release, Glenn Foard’s statement and for giving permission to use it along with the pictures above.

Lynda Pidgeon

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