Ludford Bridge (© Mr M Evison and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)
Battle of Ludford Bridge/Ludlow, Shropshire, won by the Lancastrians.
Warwick’s re-inforcements from the garrison of Calais under Andrew Trollope defected to the Lancastrians. The Yorkist leaders fled, York and Rutland to Ireland, and Edward, Earl of March (York’s eldest son), Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and his son Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, to Calais. After the battle Cecily, Duchess of York, and her three youngest children George, Margaret and Richard, were taken prisoner by the Lancastrians and placed into the care of Cecily’s older sister Anne, Duchess of Buckingham.
A short description of the various battles of the Wars of the Roses can be found on the website of the Richard III Society.
Tags: Battles, Edward IV, Family, Henry VI, Richard III
Battle of Blore Heath, Staffordshire, first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, won by the Yorkist forces under Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, against the Lancastrians under James Touchet, 5th Baron Audley, who fell in the battle.
A short description of the various battles of the Wars of the Roses can be found on the website of the Richard III Society.
Tags: Battles
Execution of William Catesby by Henry Tudor. Catesby was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Richard III and Speaker of the House of Commons of the Parliament of 1484. He fought for Richard at the Battle of Bosworth and was one of very few men of note who were executed afterwards. It has been suggested that he expected a different treatment from the Stanleys because in his will he asks them “to pray for my soul as ye have not for my body, as I trusted in you.”
Tags: Battles, Contemporaries
Remember before God 
(Text: Richard III memorial plaque in the Church of St James, Sutton Cheney
Illustration on the left: King Richard III, © Andrew Jamieson, http://www.jamiesongallery.com/ (used with permission)
On the right: The Church of St James, Sutton Cheney, where the Richard III Society commemorates King Richard III in its annual memorial service in August. It is said that Richard III heard his last Mass at this church.)
Tags: Battles, Bosworth, Henry Tudor, Richard III
Battle of Edgecote Moor (actually Danes Moor in Northamptonshire), a battle of the Warwick Rebellion.
In the North, one of the captains of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (“The Kingmaker”), calling himself Robin of Redesdale (actually a trusted Neville captain, Sir William Conyers) started a rebellion against Edward IV, which was supported by Warwick and George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV and Richard III. Edward IV was at Nottingham, where he hoped to meet up with Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon, and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
Apparently Devon and Pembroke quarreled on the way, with Pembroke continuing on his own, encountering the rebels near Banbury. Pembroke, his brother Sir Richard Herbert as well as Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers (Elizabeth Woodville’s father), and his son John were taken prisoner and executed on Warwick’s orders without trial.
Battle of Castillon, Aquitaine, the last battle of the 100 Years’ War between the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet for the French throne. John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, and father of Eleanor Talbot (Butler), is killed.
Bibliography: John Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor – The Secret Queen. The History Press, 2009 ISBN 978-0752448664 (hardback)
Illustration: The Death of John Talbot at the Battle of Castillon, by Charles-Philippe Larivière (1798-1876)
Tags: Battles
Battle of Northampton, where John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, and half-brother of Eleanor Talbot (Butler), met his death on the Lancastrian side. Yorkist victory.
A short description of the various battles of the Wars of the Roses can be found on the website of the Richard III Society.
Tags: Battles
Santa comes a few days late to Ricardians in Australia, but next Sunday, 28 December 2015, SBS 1 will broadcast the program Richard III: The New Evidence, first broadcast in the UK on 17 August 2014, at the end of the Bosworth weekend. The program features Dominic Smee, who has the same degree of scoliosis as Richard did and can be regarded as his body double. Definitely a program not to be missed, even if you have already watched it on YouTube.
Tags: Battles, Bosworth, Leicester Greyfriars Dig, Medical Knowledge, Richard III
A new research paper has been published in The Lancet on ‘“Perimortem trauma in King Richard III: a skeletal analysis’ by Jo Appleby and others, describing the wounds Richard received which led to his death.
You can find the original paper here, but Mike Pitts has helped us with a “handy summary”. The links to the article in The Lancet in his blog unfortunately did not work for me that’s why a different link is included here. Mike Pitts’ summary is highly recommended.
A short visual summary has also been posted by The Lancet on YouTube: ‘Richard III: how was the king killed?‘.
The following review is by Rob Smith of the New Zealand Branch and was first published in the August 2014 Ricardian Recorder. We thank Rob for his permission to post it here.
Nigel Green, The King’s Dogge: The Story of Francis Lovell, Troubador Publishing Ltd (2014) ISBN 9781783068425
This novel, written in the first person, portrays the life of the King’s Dogge, Francis Lovell up to Bosworth. A sequel is promised. A mixture of known historical facts and events coupled with the author’s vivid imagination results in, to my mind, a rather laborious narrative.
Lovell’s progression from his early days, to his service with Montague and Warwick and thence to their demise at Barnet is informative enough as is his consequent meeting with the Yorkist hierarchy and his entry into Richard’s service. Lovell’s service to Richard in Carlisle and the Border encounters with outlaws and the Scots are laid out but possibly over-emphasised. What I was to find throughout is the author’s tendency to concentrate on the minutia of lesser happenings while allowing other more significant events to be passed over lightly or ignored completely, perhaps relying on the reader’s knowledge to fill in the gaps. However, to be fair, this is a story about Lovell and if he was not involved in these events the author may consider it inappropriate to dwell on them.
What is interesting is Green’s portrayal of the various characters, not least Richard. The author’s Richard is a loyal brother but a vacillating, indecisive king and a pawn in the hands of a scheming Anne Neville who is determined to bring down the Woodville faction for what they did to her father, Warwick. She is shown as the power behind the throne. As Lovell rises to the top in Richard’s service he starts to question and has doubts about his King but remains steadfastly loyal to the end.
Buckingham, Hastings, the Stanleys, etc. are as we know them; Ratcliffe comes out OK but Catesby is shown as a fat, scheming, lawyer, self- serving from the outset as he climbs the ladder of influence, culminating in his engineering of the murder of the Princes (with Richard’s acceptance ), and his ultimate betrayal at Bosworth, being in league with the Stanleys and Northumberland conspiring beforehand in their treachery.
Incidentally, Tudor takes no part in the battle having been hidden away for his safety with decoys taking his place. Did Shakespeare get it right? …. “ I think there must be six Richmonds in the field/Five have I slain today instead of him” (Richard III Act V, Scene iv).
The King’s Dogge is an interesting portrayal of an important figure in Richard’s life but it lacks bite and requires patience and determination to reach the conclusion.
Tags: Anne Neville, Battles, Books, Francis Lovell, Nevilles, Richard III
