We’ve been living in the shadow of a seismic royal upheaval for the past few weeks. We tread the same paths and see the same fields that two kings saw, one of whom would never see anything other than these views ever again, over 500 years ago
This area of the country is where the fortunes and throne of England changed forever. Just a stone’s throw from the Ashby Canal (our current home) lies the site where historians claim the Battle of Bosworth Field took place.
In this place, Richard III camped the night before his encounter with the man who had returned from exile in Brittany and was marching up Watling Street heading for London. In the heat of battle the king was said to have drunk from this well we see today.
Richard III and the man who would become his successor (as Henry VII) rode across the very rolling green fields that surround us. For one of those men, this was his site of success and succession; for the other, a scene of betrayal and death.
The Battle of Bosworth Field brought an end to the Plantagenet kings, with the death of 32-year-old Richard. Two of those who had sworn allegiance to him and brought troops to support him brought about his end. One changed sides in the heat of battle, the other remained immobile, failing to act on Richard’s behalf.
Richard’s lifeless body was found without his helmet and with a fatal head wound. His body was thought to have been thrown into the River Soar, another navigable waterway we regularly cruise, but as we now know it was actually transferred to the site of the former Grey Friars Priory in Leicester.
In 2015, his skeleton was found, identified using radio carbon dating, mitochondrial DNA and comparison with contemporary appearance information. His remains were reburied at Leicester Cathedral, a short walk from yet more familiar, navigable moorings in the heart of the city.
The death of Richard on these Leicestershire fields marked not just the end of the Plantagenet kings but the beginning of the Tudor dynasty. This descendent line can be drawn from Henry VI to our current Charles III. That beginning happened just near our recent moorings at Stoke Golding.
This is an area where history envelops us, lessons await us at every turn and all just steps away from the canal, our home.
Pickingupducks 