The Last Charge of the Plantagenets

Following the King Richard’s defeat at Bosworth Field accounts of the battle spread throughout the land as survivors of the participating armies returned to their homelands. These stories were muddled and naturally enough varied according to individual perspectives of the battle. To avoid any confusion the Lancastrian victor Henry Tudor, now King Henry VII, issued an official communique the day after the battle and kept Richard’s corpse on display at Leicester for several days so that there was no doubt he was dead:

“. . .  that Richard duke of Gloucester, late called King Richard, was slain at a place called Sandeford, within the shire of Leicester, and brought dead off the field unto the town of Leicester, and there was laid openly, that every man might see and look upon him . . .”

An Act of Attainder issued by Henry’s parliament in November 1485 names “Richard, late duke of Gloucester, calling and naming himself, by usurpation, King Richard the Third” and his nobles who assembled a great host “traitorously intending the destruction of the king’s royal person” and refers to a mighty battle fought with guns, bows, arrows, spears, ‘glaives’, and axes, in a field in Leicestershire. Henry claimed his reign commenced the day before the battle, 21 August, therefore anyone rising against him as monarch would be declared an act of treason.

The mayor and aldermen of York issued a memorandum of a council meeting held the day after the battle that stated that King Richard was murdered “through great treason of the duke of Norfolk and many others that turned against him”  at the field of Redemore.

However, considering the significance placed on the battle in English history very little was written in the way of military accounts of the conflict by contemporary authors or during the reign of Henry VII. The accounts of the battle, other than recording the outcome, provide little detail of the tactics used in the field of combat or the location which has made an accurate reconstruction difficult.

The Second Continuation of the Crowland Chronicle, probably the most contemporary source, probably written the year after the event, possibly by John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, who was keeper of the privy seal for Edward IV and chancellor under Richard III. The Second Continuation records events leading up to the battle, if Russell was the author being a member of the King’s Council he would be providing a first hand account, and certainly did not approve of Richard III’s usurpation but praises his courageous fighting at Bosworth. However, he was not an eye-witness to the battle. 

It seems the omens were not good on the day of the battle for the King. The Crowland chronicler states that Richard had a bad night before the battle, experiencing visions of demons. There were no chaplains available at day-break to celebrate mass and no one had prepared breakfast to raise the King’s spirits.

The chronicler says that Richard and his army rode out from Leicester and that Tudor, earl of Richmond, and his forces were encamped by the abbey of Merevale near Atherstone, about eight miles away, without providing detail to where the forces came together:

“A most fierce battle thus began between the two sides. The earl of Richmond with his men proceeded directly against King Richard. For his part, the earl of Oxford, the next in rank in the army and a most valiant soldier, drew up of his forces, consisting of a large body of French and English troops, opposite the wing in which the duke of Norfolk had taken up his position. In the place where the earl of Northumberland was posted, with a large company of reasonably good men, no engagement could be discerned, and no battle blows given or received. In the end a glorious victory was given by heaven to the earl of Richmond, now sole king, along with a most precious crown, which King Richard had previously worn on his head. For in the thick of the fight, and not in the act of flight. King Richard fell in the field, struck by many mortal wounds, as a bold and most valiant prince.”

The Crowland account of the battle fought near Merevale concludes with King Richard’s body being found among the slain. “Many other insults were heaped on it, and, not very humanely, a halter was thrown round the neck, and it was carried to Leicester.”

Another early account of the battle was written as a memorandum on English affairs by Diego de Valera which he prepared for the Spanish monarchs in early in 1486. This included an eye-witness account of the battle taken from Juan de Salazar, a Spanish soldier of fortune who had actually fought on the Royalist side. Historians have generally not placed great importance de Salazar’s recollection of the battle claiming it as rather confused and muddled. Valera tells us that Henry Tudor “crossed as far as a town called Coventry, near which King Richard stood in the field.”

In his ‘Historia Johannis Rossi Warwicensis de Regibus Anglie’ (History of the Kings of England), John Rous gives a brief account of the battle: “Landing at Milford Haven in Wales on the Feast of the transfiguration with a relatively small band, Henry gained many followers on the road. When finally he met King Richard and his great army on the eighth day of the feast of the Assumption A.D. 1485, on the border of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, he slew him in the field of battle.”

Two other early accounts of the battle are by Continental writers which is not surprising since Henry’s invasion was a French backed expedition. The Burgundian historian Jean Molinet wrote his account of the battle of Bosworth around 1490 but was not published until around 1504 when it was included with his ‘Chroniques’. He appears to be well informed and his account of Bosworth thought to be based on the first hand accounts provided of French troops returning home after the battle. He provides an authentic report on the death of King Richard.

Molinet does not give a specific location for the battle, however, he notes that to avoid Richard’s artillery fire the French soldiers in Tudor’s army attacked the flank rather than the front line of the vanguard which contained many archers under command of John Howard, duke of Norfolk with his son Thomas, earl of Surrey. The attack to the flank put the King’s vanguard to flight which according to Molinet was then picked off by Lord Stanley. He continues that Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, commanding Richard’s rearguard should have charged the French, but the earl did nothing except to flee and abandon King Richard, as had many others on the Royalist side. Molinet says that the battle came to an end when the king’s horse became stuck in a marsh then a Welshmen came after him and struck him dead with a halberd. Another took his body and put it on a horse and carried it, hair hanging, as one would bear a sheep.

Serpentine cannon

Phillippe de Commines (or Commynes) wrote his Memoirs during the 1490’s. Commines was based at the French court and one of King Louis XI of France’s most trusted advisors. He had met Henry Tudor, and his account shows bias toward the Lancastrian cause. He places much emphasis on the support of the Stanley brothers but nothing on the actual combat and fails to provide a location for the battle.

Both of these French writers were working on larger chronicles which were not to be completed for another decade or so, however it considered that their accounts of the battle of Bosworth were written before 1490.

Fabian's Chronicle, c.1500-13, only records a few sentences from the landing of Henry Tudor, his growing number of supporters and the rapid mobilisation of the King’s army. Fabian states that the armies meet at ‘a village in Leicestershire named Bosworth’ and implies that Richard’s fate was sealed by the large number of his army that turned against him in the field.

The Great Chronicle of London offers rather more, recording that the battle took place near a village called Bosworth near Leicester, adding that Sir William Stanley had come into possession of King Richard’s helmet with the crown upon it. He then crowned Henry as King of England. The account ends describing the treatment of Richard’s body after the battle, being trussed naked over a horse and taken to Leicester.

The Italian Polydore Vergil, offers the fullest account of the battle, accordingly it is often used by historians for reconstructions of Bosworth. Employed by Cardinal Adriano Castelli, a papal tax collector, he was sent to England in 1502 as sub-collector and wrote his account of the battle of Bosworth in his Historiae Anglicae between 1503 and 1513. 

Vergil claims his account is truthful, and being quite detailed is probably based on eyewitness accounts. Although it is said to have been written at the request of Henry VII, Vergil had no allegiance to either side and he’s account appears unbiased although he does stress Richard’s unpopularity. However, later Tudor chroniclers such as Edward Hall (1548) and Raphael Holinshed (1577-1587) drew heavily from it, frequently paraphrasing Vergil’s account. Shakespeare would later use both Hall’s and Holinshed’s Chronicles to write The Tragedy of Richard the Third.

Vergil recalls Tudor’s journey into Wales after landing at Milford Haven and King Richard’s preparations leading up the battle. He describes a meeting between the Tudor and the Stanley brothers at Atherstone, at which he considers they drew up a common strategy. Meanwhile Richard has moved the royal army out from Leicester and camped near Bosworth. As with the Crowland Chronicle, Vergil records that during the night the king suffered terrible visions, which she considered were due to the king’s guilty conscience. Vergil’s account is the fullest description of the battle, thus it has become the standard narrative of Bosworth for historians and therefore worth repeating. Note the strategic importance of a marsh which seems to have influenced the battle strategy of the earl of Oxford:

'King Richard … arrayed his battle-line, extended at such a wonderful length, and composed of footmen and horsemen packed together in such a way that the mass of armed men struck terror in the hearts of the distant onlookers. In the front he placed the archers, like a most strong bulwark, appointing as their leader John, duke of Norfolk. To the rear of this long battle-line followed the king himself, with a select force of soldiers.

‘Meanwhile . . . early in the morning [Henry Tudor] commanded his soldiery to set to arms, and at the same time sent to Thomas Stanley, who now approached the place of the fight, midway between the two armies, to come in with his forces, so that the men could be put in formation. He answered that Henry should set his own men in line, while he would be at hand with his army in proper array.

'Henry drew up a simple battle-line on account of the fewness of his men. In front of the line he placed archers, putting the earl of Oxford in command; to defend it on the right wing he positioned Gilbert Talbot, and on the left wing in truth he placed John Savage. He himself, relying on the aid of Thomas Stanley, followed with one company of horsemen and a few foot-soldiers. For all in all the number of soldiers was scarcely 5,000, not counting the Stanleyites of whom about 3,000 were in the battle under the leadership of William Stanley. The king’s forces were at least twice as many.

'There was a marsh between them, which Henry deliberately left on his right, to serve his men as a defensive wall. In doing this he simultaneously put the sun behind him. The king, as soon as he saw the enemy advance past the marsh, ordered his men to charge. Suddenly raising a great shout they attacked first with arrows, and their opponents, in no wise holding back from the fight, returned the fire fiercely. When it came to close quarters, however, the dealing was done with swords.

'the earl of Oxford, afraid that in the fighting his men would be surrounded by the multitude, gave out the order through the ranks that no soldier should go more than ten feet from the standards. When in response to the command all the men massed together and drew back a little from the fray, their opponents, suspecting a trick, took fright and broke off from fighting for a while. In truth many, who wished the king damned rather than saved, were not reluctant to do so, and for that reason fought less stoutly. Then the earl of Oxford in the one part, with tightly grouped units, attacked the enemy afresh, and the others in the other part pressing together in wedge formation renewed the battle.

'When Richard learnt, first from spies, that Henry was some way off with a few armed men. . . and then, as the latter drew nearer, recognised him more certainly from his standards. Inflamed with anger, he spurred his horse, and rode against him from the other side, beyond the battle-line. Henry saw Richard come upon him, and since all hope of safety lay in arms, he eagerly offered himself for the contest. In the first charge Richard killed several men; toppled Henry’s standard, along with the standard-bearer William Brandon; contended with John Cheney, a man of surpassing bravery, who stood in his way, and thrust him to the ground with great force; and made a path for himself through the press of steel.

'Then, William Stanley came in support with 3,000 men.. Indeed it was at this point that, with the rest of his men taking to their heels, Richard was slain fighting in the thickest of the press.

'Meanwhile the earl of Oxford, after a brief struggle, likewise quickly put to flight the remainder of the troops who fought in the front line, a great number of whom were killed in the rout. Yet many more, who supported Richard out of fear and not of their own will, purposely held off from the battle, and departed unharmed, as men who desired not the safety but the destruction of the prince whom they detested.

'About 1,000 men were slain, including from the nobility John duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers, Robert Brackenbury, Richard Radcliffe and several others. Two days after at Leicester, William Catesby, lawyer, with a few associates, was executed. Among those that took to their heels, Francis Lord Lovell, Humphrey Stafford, with Thomas his brother, and many companions, fled into the sanctuary of St. John, near Colchester.’

Vergil notes King Richard’s troops were fighting feebly, sluggishly, some secretly deserting him, he was not unaware that the people hated him. Richard went into the battle wearing the royal crown over his helmet which made him an obvious target when he made his last desperate charge directly toward Henry. He also states that Richard could have saved himself if he had fled the battlefield but he seemed determine to either defeat Henry or die as king. Vergil concludes his account of the battle with Thomas Stanley crowning Henry.

Michael Bennett considers Polydore Vergil the last historian who can be regarded as a primary source for the events of 1485, a genuine attempt by the Italian to provide a historical account of the battle rather than a Chronicle entry. 

The Stanley Ballads
Poetic accounts of the battle of Bosworth are viewed with suspicion by historians and even considered fictitious by some. A collection of three poems known as ‘The Stanley Ballads’ are thought to have been composed shortly after the battle although they are not found in manuscripts until much later. It is fair to say that these ballads contain details not found elsewhere but also information collaborated by other sources suggesting they were taken from an oral tradition of the battle. The ballads are considered likely to have been composed by someone, possibly an eyewitness to the battle, with close connections to the Stanley family such as Humphrey Brereton, as the brothers Thomas, Lord Stanley, and Sir William Stanley feature as the central characters.

The earliest of these ballads is 'The Rose of England'  which is thought to have been composed shortly after the battle in the late 15th century, although it is only found in a mid- 17th century manuscript. In this account Henry Tudor is described as ‘The Rose’ who wins the crown of England from the ‘white boar’ Richard III, with the support of the Stanley brothers and Sir Rhys ap Thomas among others.

Elizabeth of York

‘The Song of Lady Bessy’ is said to have been written during the reign of Henry VII (1485–1509) with his wife Elizabeth of York the lady of the title. Elizabeth appeals to Lord Stanley to help her avoid marriage to her uncle Richard III. She claims she would rather kill herself than marry the murderer of her brothers (Edward and Richard, The Princes in the Tower). The Stanley brothers agree to support Henry Tudor, the earl of Richmond, on his return to England. Henry makes an oath to marry Elizabeth when he takes the throne. The ballad describes the plotting against Richard in the months leading up to the battle. 

The ballad provides a gory description of the death of Richard III stating his attackers beat his brains out and never left him until he was dead. His battered body was carried to Leicester, where Elizabeth chastises it for the murder of her brothers; “How like you the killing of my brethren dear? Welcome, gentle uncle, home”.

‘The Ballad of Bosworth Field’ provides the fullest poetic recollections of the battle, much of the detail is considered to be authentic. Said to have been written within living memory of the battle yet the earliest surviving copy is found in a mid-17th century manuscript. 

The ballad recalls how Lord Stanley provides the services of four of his best knights, Sir Robert Tunstall, Sir John Savage, Sir Hugh Persall and Sir Humphrey Stanley, to supplement Henry’s forces. The Stanleys withdrew to a mountain where they looked over the plain where the battle took place. On seeing the Stanley banner King Richard orders the execution of Lord Strange, the son of Lord Stanley who he held as hostage. However, the execution is delayed when the fighting commences. The ballad records Richard’s refusal to flee when the battle is lost and ends with the crowning of Henry on a hill. They then ride to Leicester and display the late King’s naked body for all to see.

The Location of the Battle
In his ‘Life of Henry VII’ (Vita Henrici Septimi), the French Augustinian friar, Bernard André, also known as Andreas, left a large blank in place of where his description of the battle of Bosworth should have been.

André followed Henry to England and would later tutor the king’s eldest son and heir Prince Arthur for five years. André wrote that he had heard accounts of the battle but as he had not witnessed the battle himself, presumably due to his blindness, he would not provide the date, the location or the order of battle and left the page blank at that point.

On reading the accounts above of contemporary and near contemporary source it can feel as though we still draw a blank on much of the battle, not least the location, just like André. As we have seen above in his proclamation, Henry VII said the battle was fought at Sandeford, the council of York referred to the field of Redemore, the Crowland account says the battle was fought near Merevale, John Rous tells us it was on the border of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, Valera tells us that it was somewhere near Coventry.

A generation after the event the village of Bosworth was the accepted location. The manuscript edition of Vergil’s Anglia Historia states the battle was fought at a place near Leicester ‘Bosworth’. The manuscript of the Great Chronicle of London claimed the battle happened in the fields at a village called Bosworth. The name Bosworth first occurred in print in Fabian’s Chronicles. Fabian, thought to also be the author of the Great Chronicle, recorded the battle taking place near a village in Leicestershire named Bosworth.

Later sources following the 16th century chroniclers Hollinshed and Hall, who had largely borrowed from Vergil yet corrupted the Italian’s account, established the site of the battle on Ambion Hill, close to the village of Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire. Indeed, the first mention of Ambion does not appear until Hollinshed’s Chronicle of 1577, in which he claimed King Richard pitched his army on a hill called ‘Anne Beame’. Antiquarians went on to identify ‘Richard’s Welll’ nearby and early Chroniclers such as Saxton identified ‘Richard’s Filed’ on maps. Leicestershire County Council established a visitor centre and battle trail that grew up around the hill and this has been the accepted location of the battle until relatively recently.

On examining a massive archive on material relating to the battle of Bosworth Peter Foss determined that Ambion Hill had been the site of Richard’s camp and not the battle site. Foss discovered an edition of Fabian’s Chronicle in the National Library of Scotland where a 16th century hand has added a note in the margin correcting the name of the battle to ‘Redesmore heath’ as recorded by the council of York the very day after the battle. Evidently, Redemore was the name that contemporaries recognised as the battle site. But where was Redemore? 

On reassessing the documentation Foss argued that the battle site was a flat, formerly marshy area over a mile to the south-west, around Dadlington. However, the County Council insisted their visitor centre was in the correct location.

To resolve the situation the Battlefields Trust carried out a major archaeological project surveying the site over a four year period using field-walking, metal detecting and soil-sampling. The team leader Glenn Foard announced in 2010 that the actual site of the battle was nearly 2 miles from Ambion Hill, at a point close to the line of the old Roman road known as Fenn Lanes where the four parishes of Dadlington, Stoke Golding, Shenton and Upton come together, slightly further west than Foss had argued. 

The area of marsh, found in contemporary accounts as indicated by the name ‘Redemore’, identified by Foss as the location of the battle had dried up centuries before the battle. Using pollen analysis of the peat and Carbon-14 dating Foard identified another area of marsh that was extant in the medieval period on the next stream along Fenn Lanes, where the bulk of the archaeology was found. Was this Henry’s ‘Sandeford’?

The Bosworth Collection

The most significant finds were of cannonballs and lead shot, plus a silver boar emblem, that convinced Foard that he had identified the site of the battle. The 33 (possibly 34) projectiles ranging from 20mm to 97mm diameter unearthed across Fenn Lanes is the largest number ever found on a medieval battlefield.

Apart from The Act of Attainder issued by Henry’s parliament in November 1485 which states Richard’s army used guns among their weaponry, the only other authority on the battle that mentions artillery is Molinet who notes that to avoid Richard’s artillery fire Tudor’s army attacked the flank of Richard’s vanguard.

The apparently unreliable Stanley ballads also mention the artillery used at Bosworth; ‘The Song of Lady Bessy’ references the fierce guns and ‘The Ballad of Bosworth Field’ claims that Richard had 7 score Serpentines chained together with a similar number of Bombards and harquebusiers, soldiers equipped with a portable type of long gun.

The Bosworth Boar

The silver boar emblem, barely an inch across, was likely worn by a member of Richard’s close retinue, perhaps a trusted knight, and has been associated with the King’s last charge and reported as indicating ‘the exact spot where Richard died’. 

Works Consulted:
Michael Bennett, The Battle of Bosworth, Sutton, 1993.
David Cohen, Battles of the Wars of the Roses, Pen & Sword, 2022.
Glenn Foard and Anne Curry Bosworth 1485: A Battlefield Rediscovered, Oxbow, 2022
Peter Foss, The Field of Redemore: Battle of Bosworth, 1485, Kairos Press, 1998.
Peter Hammond, Richard II and the Bosworth Campaign, Pen & Sword, 2013.
Mike Ingram, Bosworth 1485: A Battle of Steel, The History Press, 2022.
Michael Jones, Bosworth: Psychology of a Battle, John Murray publishers, 2014.
A L Rowse, Bosworth Field and the Wars of The Roses, Wordsworth, 1998.
Chris Skidmore, Bosworth: The Birth of the Tudors, Phoenix, 2014.

* * *

BOSWORTH: ‘A MOST SAVAGE BATTLE’

The battle lasted around two hours, it was all over before noon. So ferocious was the fighting that in that short time around a thousand men had died. One man of note lay lifeless on the bloodied ground, he had been dismounted, his helmet removed then hacked about around the back of the head: the King was dead. 

The Fate of the King
The body of King Richard was found in the “thick of the fight, and not in the act of flight. King Richard fell in the field, struck by many mortal wounds, as a bold and most valiant prince.” [The Continuation of the Crowland Chronicle]

At least eleven injuries have been identified on the body of Richard III. The king suffered multiple blows to the head from a number of different bladed weapons which inflicted wounds to his skull, right cheek, lower jaw, with further injuries to his pelvis and rib. The order in which the injuries were inflicted has not been determined yet there is no indication of healing on any of these wounds, it is therefore certain that they happened at the time of death. It is also likely that the King suffered additional injuries such as flesh wounds, that have left no trace. 

The interpretation of the wounds has been determined by experts with knowledge of medieval weapons and armour. The trauma suggests he was attacked from all sides, the injuries inflicted certainly by more than one person, with two fatal wounds to the back of the skull being the cause of death. Contemporary sources credit the men who dealt the fatal blows as a group of Welsh foot soldiers armed with halberds. A halberd is a two-handed polearm, essentially an axe blade topped with a spike with a hook on the back mounted on a 6ft long shaft, typically used by foot soldiers against mounted warriors.

The dagger wound to the cheek was delivered from above suggesting the King was kneeling, perhaps inflicted in a rushed effort to cut the chinstrap of his helmet. It seems likely Richard was kneeling down with his head bent forward as the time he was struck with the halberd, a single massive blow to the base of the skull. He would not have survived this strike. The man said to have dealt the death blow was Rhys ap Thomas, a Welsh lord, master of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire, later knighted on the battlefield that day by Henry Tudor as a reward.

It has been determined that none of the skull injuries could have been inflicted if Richard had been wearing a helmet, he either lost it, or as seems more likely it was forcibly removed during the battle. The head injuries are consistent with near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which suggest that Richard abandoned his horse when it became stuck in the marsh.1

Prelude to Disaster
On 22nd August 1485 the armies of Henry Tudor and King Richard III met between Atherstone and Leicester in the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses, a series of engagements that had witnessed a dynastic conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York for thirty years. The Battle of Bosworth was the last time an English King was killed on the battlefield, ended three hundred years of Plantagenet rule and heralded the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.

Alongside the battles of Hastings and Naseby, Bosworth had a decisive outcome that resulted in a turning point in the history of England. The death of Richard III was a significant event; it is considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages and saw the beginning of the Tudor period and the expansion of British territories culminating in colonies in the New World.

From the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton in March 1461, said to have been the bloodiest battle on English soil, Edward IV reigned until 1483, but for a six month spell from October 1470 to March 1471. Following his unexpected death in April 1483 his young son Edward V was due to inherit the throne. He was escorted to London and held in the Tower by his uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester in preparation for his coronation but disappeared along with his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, and Gloucester was crowned Richard III on 6th July. The disappearance of the so-called Princes in the Tower led to widespread suspicion that Richard had been complicit in their murder. He never denied this or produced the Two Princes to prove they were still alive.

Henry, the Second Duke of Buckingham had been a close ally of Richard and instrumental in putting him on the throne but something made him turn against the king. Buckingham led a rebellion against Richard in October 1483 but the rebellion collapsed and he was captured and executed. This rebellion started as an attempt to restore Edward V to the throne but it seemed to be accepted that the Two Princes were dead and it soon turned into a rebellion to oust Richard with the intention to install Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond on the throne.

Halberd

Following the apparent death of the Two Princes, Henry Tudor’s mother Margaret Beaufort was promoting her son as an alternative to Richard III, despite her being married to the Yorkist Lord Stanley. Henry Tudor was born in Pembroke Castle in 1457. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, and founder of the House of Lancaster. Henry had been living in Brittany since 1471 when Edward IV regained the throne.

By now Elizabeth Woodville must have accepted that her two sons, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, the so-called Princes in the Tower, were now dead which made her daughter Elizabeth of York the heir to Edward IV. Beaufort and Woodville were in agreement that Henry Tudor should marry Elizabeth of York when he became king and unite the houses of York and Lancaster which would of course also validate Henry’s tenuous claim to the throne. Indeed, in September 1483 the Duke of Buckingham, on behalf of both Yorkist and Lancastrian supporters of the rebellion, wrote to Henry Tudor inviting him to invade England and deliver the realm from tyranny, on condition that he married Elizabeth of York and together take possession of the throne. 

In October 1483, Henry set sail for south England to link up with the Duke of Buckingham’s rebellion. He had taken out a loan from the Duke of Brittany sufficient to fund 5,000 mercenaries and fit out ships for an invasion force. However the weather was particularly bad in the south-west of England and the Channel. The River Severn was high and burst its banks, destroying buildings and bridges preventing Buckingham, who was based at his castle at Brecknock (Brecon), from crossing into England with his army and joining the rebels in the south. Henry Tudor was delayed owing to the storms in the Channel, and finally sailed on 18th October but by time he arrived in England the rebellion had collapsed.

Even though the rebellion had crumbled by this time, Henry kept his word and swore an oath on Christmas Day 1483 at Rennes Cathedral to marry Elizabeth of York when he became King of England, he clearly had plans to return and oust Richard III.

The following January, Richard’s parliament named over a hundred rebel nobles in Acts of Attainder but only the ringleaders of Buckingham’s rebellion were executed. Margaret Beaufort had lands and property confiscated and placed under house arrest with her husband Thomas, Lord Stanley.

Many of the survivors of the Buckingham rebellion made their way to join Henry Tudor across the Channel. Two years later Henry Tudor had regrouped and assembled another invasion force and set sail for Wales. On 1st August 1485, Henry, accompanied by 2,000 French mercenaries, landed in Milford Haven in south Wales, where his family held influence and he hoped to raise support. The rebel army rapidly advanced through Wales picking up further support on the way. 

Henry was anxious to meet with his stepfather, Thomas, Lord Stanley, whose support was not guaranteed but would be critical to the rebellion’s success. However, King Richard had taken Lord Stanley’s son Lord Strange, hostage and demanded Stanley’s support for his son’s life.

Lord Stanley’s brother William had fought on the Yorkist side in many battles during he Wars of the Roses. However, Lord Stanley had swapped sides on several occasions; he raised troops for the Lancastrians at the battle of Blore Heath in 1459 then failed to commit his troops to battle, then he fought for the Yorkists in 1461 at Towton. Ten years later after the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, he captured Margaret of Anjou, the Lancastrian Queen and wife of Henry VI. Tudor desperately needed the support of the Stanley’s as he was severely outnumbered without them.

After marching through Wales Henry’s rebel army arrived at Shrewsbury on 15th August. He then met with William Stanley at Stafford. By 19th August he had reached Lichfield marching south-easterly along Watling Street. King Richard’s scouts had been tracking Tudor’s progress. Richard and the Royalist army left his base at Nottingham and marched toward Leicester to intercept the rebels.

The Battle
On 21st August the opposing armies advanced towards each other and camped that night only a few miles apart.  Henry had 5,000 men with him, Richard between 10,000 and 15,000.  The Stanley’s were also in the vicinity with around 6,000 men from Lancashire and Cheshire but they were uncommitted and neither side could be certain of their support. 

Richard’s army divided into three groups (or "battles" from Old French “bataille”). The van guard commanded by the Duke of Norfolk, Richard held the main group, while the Earl of Northumberland commanded the rear guard. Henry placed his army under the command of the experienced Earl of Oxford who kept most of his force together.

Norfolk’s van guard was no match for Oxford, seeing the fight going against them some of Royalist troops fled the field. According to Polydore Vergil the Royalist van was composed of a large number of archers. Oxford was also facing an artillery barrage.The Ballad of Bosworth Field claims Richard had 140 cannon, this may have forced Oxford to attack Norfolk’s flank which appears to have been the decisive manoeuvre in the outcome of the battle.

For reasons unknown Northumberland failed to engage the rear guard when commanded to do so. Richard, seeing the battle was going against him, then decided to mount a charge with his knights across the battlefield directly at Henry; if he could kill the rebel leader he could bring the battle to a rapid conclusion. At some point Richard became dismounted, his horse possibly stuck in the marsh. He was offered another horse and advised to flee this battle and live to fight another day. But he refused and continued fighting on foot. Richard’s charge toward Henry’s position stirred the Stanley’s into action, Sir William brought his men to Henry’s aid cutting down Richard and his knights. After the battle, Henry was crowned King by one of the Stanley brothers on a spot today called ‘Crown Hill’.

It was a battle that the Yorkist army of Richard III should have won comfortably; the king’s forces outnumbered Henry’s rebel army by at least 2-1 (sources vary on the exact numbers); he had firepower of over a hundred canon; he had selected the site of the battle and surveyed the terrain the day before. Yet, the king was dead within a few short hours of the battle starting, with key commanders and troops deserting him at his greatest moment of need.

As noted above, examination of Richard’s skeleton revealed 11 perimortem injuries, consistent with the types of weapons from the late medieval period that would have been used in the battle, likely representing an attack by several assailants. At least three of the injuries could have killed Richard  quickly, the most likely fatal injuries are the two to the base of the skull. One post-mortem injury was noted to the pelvis, caused by a fine-bladed weapon that penetrated the right buttock and traversed the right side of the pelvic cavity. The angle of the injury to the pelvis is highly consistent with contemporary accounts which describe Richard's body as being stripped and slung over the back of a horse and suffering insults after the battle.2

“And thus by great fortune and grace upon the 22 August won this noble prince [Henry VII] possession of this land, and then was he conveyed to Leicester the same night, and there received with all honour and gladness. And Richard late King as gloriously as he by the morning departed from that town, so as irreverently was he that afternoon brought into that town, for his body despoiled to the skin, and nought being left about him, so much as would cover his privy member, he was trussed behind a pursuivant called Norroy as an hog or another vile beast, and so all besprung with mire and filth was brought to a church in Leicester for all men to wonder upon, and there lastly irreverently buried.” [The Great Chronicle of London]3

Notes & References:
1. Perimortem trauma in King Richard III: A Skeletal Analysis – The Lancet, Volume 385, Issue 9964, pp.253-259, January, 2015.
2. Ibid.
3. The earliest accounts of the Battle Bosworth can be found in Michael Bennett, The Battle of Bosworth, Sutton paperback edition 1993, pp.155-175.

Works Consulted:
David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower, The History Press, Reprint edition 2017.
Michael Bennett, The Battle of Bosworth, Sutton paperback edition 1993.
David Cohen, Battles of the Wars of the Roses, Pen & Sword, 2022.
Peter Hammond, Richard II and the Bosworth Campaign, Pen & Sword, 2013.
Michael Jones, Bosworth: Psychology of a Battle, John Murray publishers, 2014.
Alison Weir, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, Vintage, 2014.

* * *

Two Princes, Two Programs, Two Perspectives

Recently two television documentaries have been screened on National television in the UK, both claiming to reveal new evidence in the fate of the “Princes in the Tower” Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, the young sons and heirs of King Edward IV. 

The Tower of London

The young princes disappeared without trace while aged 12 and 9 after their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed Lord Protector and took the boys into his care and confined them in the Tower of London in 1483. Within three months of the death of Edward IV in April, his brother the Duke of Gloucester claimed the throne and was crowned Richard III the following July and the young princes were never seen again.

The popular perception of Richard III is that he was responsible for the death of the two young princes, after all, as Lord Protector he alone was accountable for their well-being. They were under his care when they disappeared, and he surely had the most to gain by eliminating them from the line of succession. 

The fate of the two young princes is one of the greatest mysteries of British history. Today, over 540 years later, argument continues as to whether their uncle King Richard III was responsible for the boys’ murders or if they escaped the tower and lived on. Does the received wisdom portray a faithful record of events or is Richard III an innocent victim of malicious ‘Tudor propaganda’?

The UK Channel 5 documentary Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery, (first screened 3rd December 2024) and The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence (UK Channel 4, first screened 18th November, 2023) both claimed to present new evidence]for either side of the argument.

The newspapers reported the documentary as uncovering evidence that may finally solve the mystery of the Princes in the Tower after 500 years.1

The Damning Discovery: The Chain
The ‘bombshell’ evidence of the C5 documentary Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery presented jointly by Tracy Borman, Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces and Jason Watkins, actor and narrator of the television series Inside The Tower of London, was the discovery of a reference to an item belonging to one of the Princes. The disappearance of the two Princes was so complete and clean that not a trace of their existence since their confinement in the Tower in the summer of 1483 has been found. Until now. 

Tim Thornton, Jason Watkins and Tracy Borman

Tim Thornton, Professor of History and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Huddersfield, has found reference to a chain belonging to Edward V bequeathed in the Will of Margaret, Lady Capell. This is a significant find because it is the first reference in 500 years to the discovery of any physical item belonging to one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’. However, the documentary lost some credibility when this chain was suddenly elevated to Edward V’s ‘chain of office’. Now that would be quite damning but in Lady Capell’s Will it was described as simply a chain. 

The Will, found in the Register of Wills held at the National Archives entry of 1516, detailed a chain that belonged to Edward V that Lady Capell bequeathed to her son Giles. It is unclear how Edward’s chain came into the possession of Lady Capell. Yet the Will of her late husband Sir William Capell, the two-time lord mayor of London, refers to business dealings with the Tyrell family. Indeed  Sir William is known to have exchanged jewelry with Sir James Tyrell, his brother-in-law, and trusted servant of Richard III.2

Professor Thornton said, “'…… while there is a clear possibility that the chain came to the Capell family in some neutral way, as the king’s property was distributed in the aftermath of Edward’s disappearance, there is also the possibility that it came as a result of his murder– and through the Capells’ connection with the alleged murderer, Sir James Tyrell.”

The discovery of the reference to a chain of Edward V suggests that Sir Thomas More's account of the murder of the Princes in the Tower contained within his History of King Richard III, much discredited by Ricardians, may not simply be Tudor propaganda.

Thomas More and James Tyrell
Tyrell was named by by Sir Thomas More as the man who hired two men to carry out the killing of the young Princes Edward and Richard. More appears to have had contact with the son of one of those men claimed to have been responsible for the death of the Princes, which Thornton claims is a possible source from where he heard the murder story.3

More used a courier to transport his letters to the English court, one is named as 'M Forest', the son of one of the men he named as the murderer of the Princes. Did More get his account of the Princes's killers direct from this M Forest?

However, sympathisers of Richard III accuse More of bias as he was educated in the house of the Tudor loyalist Cardinal Morton, a staunch enemy of Richard III, and fabricated his accounts to favour the Tudors. More was much closer to these events than modern historians and perhaps his account should not be dismissed so lightly. More was a man who went to his death for his beliefs; he refused to acknowledge the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and refused to sign the 1534 Oath of Succession making Henry supreme head of the Church of England. More was charged with treason and executed on 6 July 1535 at Tower Hill. Ironically, 50 years to the day when Richard III was crowned.

Richard III

Even if we accept More’s account that Tyrell was involved with the disappearance of the Princes this chain doesn't help us determine if they died in the Tower or escaped and survived. Tyrell’s henchmen may have taken the chain from the dead body of Edward V, or he may have been given the chain by Edward for helping him escape the Tower or other services unknown; we really have no idea how the family of James Tyrell came by this chain, or its whereabouts today.

After Richard III died at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, Tyrell started working for the first Tudor king Henry VII, but their relationship turned sour and he was imprisoned. More claims that when at the Tower, Tyrell confessed to the murder of the Princes.

The C5 documentary examined the ‘King’s Itinerary’ and found that from 27 April - 2 May 1502  Henry VII was at the Tower, the only time that year, the same time as Tyrell is said to have confessed. Henry VII is known to have personally attended several confessions of his enemies. A record of the confession has not survived, but according to More, Tyrell claimed that two men named Dighton and Forest killed the boys. The same time that Tyrell was there in the Tower. Elizabeth of York, Henry VII's wife and sister to the two princes, visited the Tower. Immediately after visiting the tower Elizabeth went to visit her aunt, Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk and sister to Edward IV and Richard III, as if bearing some important news; the documentary speculates that it may have been Tyrell’s confession that revealed the fate of the two young princes. 

On the Otherside
The day after its first screening (03/12/24) The Daily Mail reported, "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower murder evidence as Richard III's defenders pour cold water on new 'smoking gun' document.”4

The newspaper states “Philippa Langley, the amateur-turned-professional historian who played a key role in the discovery of Richard III's remains beneath a Leicester car park in 2012 claimed the evidence is 'conjecture at best'.”

The Richard III Society, which says it works to 'secure a more balanced assessment of the king', issued a five-point rebuttal of the findings. Richard III Society 'Statement On The Chain' arguing that the discovery of a reference to Edward V’s chain that Thornton claims supports the theory that the Princes in the Tower were murdered 'cannot be deemed as evidence but conjecture'.5 

Ms Langley, a staunch defender of the maligned king Richard III, said, “When Sir William Stanley was executed in 1495 a gold chain was found amongst his belongings. This is said to have been his chain as Steward of Edward V (when Prince of Wales). No one has ever suggested that Sir William Stanley murdered Edward V because he kept his gold chain.”

She added, “Historians have to be very careful about what they present as ‘evidence’”.6

In 2023 Ms Langley revealed the discovery of documents that she claims proved both of the Princes, Edward and Richard, the sons of Edward IV, survived their imprisonment in the Tower of London and went on to assume the identities of two usurpers who challenged Henry VII for the crown. It follows that if the Princes survived the Tower then Richard III is therefore exonerated of their deaths.
Case solved: Quod Erat Demonstrandum. 

Ms Langley assembled a team of researchers, The Missing Princes Project in 2016, which last year uncovered documents that she claims proves that both Edward V and his younger brother Richard, the Duke of York, fled to Europe and assumed the identities of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, who are long known to have launched failed attempts to depose Henry VII in the late 15th century. However, the documents were dismissed as unverified evidence at the time by some academic historians.

The New Evidence: Proofs Of Life
Whereas the Channel 5 television documentary presented the record of a ‘chain’ that belonged to Edward V that somehow came into the possession of the family of James Tyrell, the man named by Thomas More7 as being responsible for the murder of the Princes at the instructions of Richard III, a year earlier Channel 4 screened a documentary presenting ‘New Evidence’ claiming that the two sons of Edward IV, ‘the alleged victims of an alleged murder’, actually survived and did not die in the Tower. The well known TV barrister Rob Rinder was provided to sift through the evidence to deliver his expert verdict as if to add some legal weight to these claims.

NO, Richard III did not order the killing of the two princes. Ricardians dismiss that as just Tudor propaganda. It was disappointing to see the respected historian Janina Ramirez just brush off anti-Richard literature as such. True, some later accounts such as Polydore Vergil certainly were produced to bolster the claims of Henry VII to the throne and in doing so malign the Plantagenets. But not all documents from the late-15th century can be considered as such.

Since finding the remains of Richard III under a car park in Leicester in 2012, supporters of the last Plantagenet king have switched their attention to the alternative theory that claims both Princes, the young sons of Edward IV, survived the Tower, and escaped to Europe. They returned to Britain to fight against the first Tudor king Henry VII to, unsuccessfully, restore the Yorkist claim to the throne. If the Princes escaped the Tower and lived on to fight another day then Richard III must be totally exonerated of the 500 year accusation that he had them killed. And that, we may suspect, is the real purpose of the Missing Princes Project led by Philippa Langley who is emotionally attached to Richard III.

The 2024 Channel 4 documentary was based on Langley’s book, ‘The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case’ (The History Press, November 2023) which claimed the Princes survived the tower. Case solved?

Langley is well known for the discovery of the remains of Richard III under a car park in Leicester in 2012. She was as the public face of the ‘Looking for Richard’ project which, following seven years of investigation, culminated in the discovery, exhumation, positive identification and re-interment of King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral. 

Langley is an avid Ricardian and believes the bad reputation of Richard III as portrayed by Shakespeare’s play based on Sir Thomas More’s account which has endured for the last five hundred years as totally undeserved and largely due to Tudor propaganda. She is adamant that Richard was not the evil uncle that the sources depicted.

Accordingly, Langley and fellow Ricardians see no supporting evidence for the Princes’ death at the hands of Richard III. Richard was absent from London when rumours started circulating about the disappearance of the Princes and he was in York in early September 1483 when the Prices were seen at the Tower. 

But where did the Princes go; they are not seen after Richard placed them in the Tower. To solve this perennial mystery Langley was instrumental in launching the ‘Missing Princes Project’ in 2016 as a follow up to ‘Looking for Richard’, with the objective of establishing the facts of what happened to the two Princes following their disappearance in 1483. 

Using the same methodology as a modern police investigation, ‘Accept nothing – Believe nobody – Challenge everything’ Langley admits The Missing Princes Project is not an academic study but an intelligence gathering exercise requiring the examination of all contemporary and near contemporary source material. After a seven year search concluding the first phase of the Project, Langley believes she has solved the 540 year old mystery of the missing princes. 

Langley argues that all records dating to the reign of Richard III revealed no evidence of the death of the two Princes. Both Edward V and Richard, Duke of York are referenced as alive in all existing day-to-day accounting and legal records during the reign of Richard III. Stories of the murder of the two Princes, she claims, originated in England with the arrival of Henry Tudor and his French invasion force on 14 August 1485.

Langley cites four ‘Proofs’ that show the two young Princes survived the Tower:

• Edward V: Proof of Life: The Lille receipt, dated 16 December 1487, discovered by the Dutch Research Group in May 2020, records payment by King Maximilian I for 400 long pikes. The receipt is signed by three leading members of Maximilian’s court and references Edward’s aunt Margaret of York in Burgundy. Langley argues that the Lille receipt suggests that Edward V was alive, or thought to be alive, in December 1487, then 17 years of age.
  
  
• Richard, Duke of York: Proof of Life: The Gelderland document, rediscovered by the Dutch Research Group in November 2020, in the Gelderland archive, in Arnhem, Netherlands. The Gelderland document is a record of what happened to Richard, Duke of York over the ten years from when he left sanctuary at Westminster in 1483, age 9, up to his arrival at the court of his aunt, Margaret of York, in Burgundy in 1493. It is a witness statement, Richard’s biography, written in the first person, undated and unsigned.

• A document in the Dresden archive in Germany recorded a receipt and pledge of payment of 30,000 florins by ‘Richard of England’ to Duke Albert of Saxony dated 4 October 1493. The document is signed by ‘Richard of England’ with his royal monogram and seal. 
  
  
• From the Austrian archives is a letter from King Maximilian to Henry VII of England, dated 1493, in which Maximilian declares that Henry will know that this Richard, Duke of York, is the true son of King Edward (IV) because he can be recognised by three marks on his body

These documents appear to be genuine documents of the time, indeed the Gelderland document has been dated by Andrew Dunning at Oxford and authenticated as late 15th century. However, Langley’s conclusions, and particularly her scrutiny of the sources, has not been without criticism.8  She accepts these as genuine proofs that Edward and Richard escaped the Tower without scrutiny of their origin or verification by external sources.

The Dresden document promising payment of 30K florins, dated 1493, displays the signature of ‘Richard of England’ and the associated seal has the appearance of being authentic. However, they do not provide proof of Richard’s survival: how do we know it is Richard’s signature, what are we comparing it to, is there a genuine signature from Richard on record? Similarly, what are we comparing the seal to? And the claimed ‘marks’ on Richard’s body, where are the original accounts of these marks on Prince Richard’s body, prior to his disappearance? And how would Henry VII know these marks?

Surely, to maximise support for a Yorkist rebellion against Henry VII the conspirators would want to convince people that the figurehead was Edward V or his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, the rightful heirs to the throne who survived the tower. 

From these unverified sources Langley has accepted that the Two Princes escaped the Tower and reappeared under the names Lambert Simnel, and later as Perkin Warbeck: Edward and Richard respectively. Supported by their aunt Margaret of Burgundy, ‘the diabolical duchess’, they made separate, unsuccessful Yorkist attempts to retake the throne. Edward was said to be Simnel, who was the central figure in the 1487 Yorkist invasion of England ending in the Battle of Stoke Field. Warbeck, who had initially claimed to be Richard, failed in a 1497 bid to claim the throne and then before his execution signed a confession admitting he was a boatman's son. 

Indeed these are exactly the type of documents you expect to be produced by Yorkist challengers to Henry VII claiming to be legitimate heirs to the Yorkist line. If one were pretending to be Edward V to raise an army and challenge the king you would not be using your real name. 

Simnel and Warbeck would hardly sign documents in their real names but we could expect them to use a pseudonym such as Edward V or Richard of England. The Gelderland document would have also been constructed for the purpose of showing Richard as the ‘genuine article’ and maximising support. Forgeries of this kind were not uncommon in the Medieval period when documents were altered to support the claims of Kings.9

Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, is associated with many of these so-called ‘Proofs’. Margaret was only too willing to support anyone prepared to challenge Henry VII and restore the Yorkist line. She provided financial backing for weapons and mercenaries to both the Yorkist pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. She even claimed Warbeck was her nephew Richard, the youngest son of Edward IV.

With regard to Philippa Langley’s four proofs historian Michael Hicks specialising in the Wars of the Roses writes:

“. . .  for the survival of the two Princes in the Tower after 1485. Neither the Lille document nor supporting evidences prove that Lambert Simnel was really Edward V rather than Edward, earl of Warwick. The Gelderland manifesto recounting the escape of Richard, duke of York and the pretender’s pledge to Duke Albert of Saxony were propaganda as necessary for the imposter Perkin Warbeck as for the real prince. The blemishes of Warbeck’s body cannot be shown to identify him as the younger prince. While useful additions to the continental plots against Henry VII, these new evidences do not prove that either prince lived beyond the reign of Richard III.”10

Langley set out her investigation to “accept nothing, believe nobody and challenge everything” but she fails to adhere to her own criteria and accepts the “proofs” without further scrutiny or verification by other external sources. In comparison, Thomas More is virtually demonised as a blatant liar by Ricardians but Langley all too readily accepts these ‘Proofs’ as the genuine article without challenge, a methodology which has raised concerns among her own researchers.

The use of the findings of the Dutch Research Group (DRG), who are part of the Missing Princes research team, has been termed ‘premature and counter productive’. This statement comes from members of the DRG, not from any anti-Ricardian critic. In a letter to the Ricardian Bulletin Zoe Maula, Jean Roefstra and William Wiss, former members of the research group, note that their concerns about using the finds in the publication of the book, and documentary.

“Although we agree that the contemporary documents are genuine and valid, the finds made by the DRG are in our own opinion open to various interpretations and do not constitute irrefutable proof without other genuine and undoubted sources to back up what these documents are telling us – or what we (wish to) believe they are telling us.” 11

As Ms Langley told the Daily Mail, “Historians have to be very careful about what they present as ‘evidence’”.12

In conclusion, two television programs both claiming new evidence to solve the mystery of the Princes in the Tower but neither completely convincing, both relying on conjecture - we are left thinking, perhaps, maybe. The TV programs, and Langley's book, represent the two sides of the argument; was Richard III responsible for the disappearance of the two Princes, or not, and display bias accordingly. Any new evidence is welcome but we need something more positive before we can claim to have solved the 500 year mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

Notes & References
1. What The Papers said:
a. The Telegraph (02/12/24) reported "The ‘smoking gun’ evidence that could finally prove Princes in the Tower were murdered. Discovery of a will shines new light on the centuries-old unsolved case."
b. The Mirror (02/12/24) was much the same: "Princes in the Tower mystery could finally be solved after 500 years in new documentary."
c. The Daily Mail (02/12/24) heralded the program as "The 'murder' of the Princes in the Tower 'solved at last': New evidence links their 'killer to gold chain of 12-year old Edward V".
2. Tim Thornton, Sir William Capell and A Royal Chain: The Afterlives (and Death) of King Edward V,, Volume 109, Issue 388, December 2024, pp.445-460. Open Access. 
3. Tim Thornton, More on a Murder: The Deaths of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, and Historiographical Implications for the Regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII,  History: The Journal of the Historical Association, Volume106, Issue369, January 2021, pp.4-25. Open Access.
4. The Daily Mail (03/12/24) : "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower murder evidence as Richard III's defenders pour cold water on new 'smoking gun' document.”
5. Richard III Society Statement On The Chain 
6. The Daily Mail (03/12/24) : "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower....”
7. Thomas More, The History of King Richard the Third, 1513, pp.85-86. [PDF}
8. What the historians say:
a. Conflicting ‘Proof’ and the Princes in the Tower – Dan Moorhouse, (Wars of The Roses)
b. Sourcing the truth: the fatal flaws of Langley’s quest - Gareth Streeter (Royal History Geeks)

9. The Princes in the Tower: David Pilling on ‘The New Evidence’ (Aspects of History)

10. Michael Hicks, Historic doubts about the survival of the Princes in the Tower after 1485, Historical Research, Volume 97, Issue 277, August 2024, Pages 437–442.
11. The Ricardian Bulletin, page 4. June 2024.
12. The Daily Mail (03/12/24) : "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower......”

* * *

The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence

 The Princes in the Tower, Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, were the young sons and heirs of King Edward IV.  At the time of the King’s death in April 1483, his sons were aged 12 and 9. Their uncle Richard of Gloucester was appointed Lord Protector and was to prepare the young Edward for his coronation as king. However, Richard took the throne for himself and the boys disappeared without trace.

In 1483 Richard placed the boys in the Tower of London. During the summer they were seen less frequently until by the end of that summer they were never seen again. 

The Princes’ fate is one of the greatest of all historical mysteries with their uncle Richard III implicated in their disappearance ever since. Were they murdered in the Tower? Did they escape? 

Now Tim Thornton, Professor of History at the University of Huddersfield, has uncovered mention of a chain belonging to Edward V in the will of the sister-in-law of one of Richard III's trusted servants.

Professor Thornton said while there remained "good arguments" to exonerate Richard, the discovery meant the "balance is shifting towards his guilt".

The findings feature in the UK Channel 5 documentary Princes in the Tower: A damning discovery, first screened 3rd December 2024.

Did The Princes Survive?
Of course not everyone agrees that Richard had the boys murdered. An alternative theory claims the princes escaped to the Continent to later return to England to fight for the Crown.

The Missing Princes Project

Following seven years of extensive research and investigation Philippa Langley reached a stunning conclusion in her latest book The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case (The History Press, 2023).

Langley, discoverer of Richard III's body under a Leicester car park, argues that there is no evidence that Richard III ordered the killing of the two princes.

In a television documentary Langley together with barrister Rob Rinder follow the story of how the two sons of Edward IV disappeared in the summer of 1483 and became the ‘alleged victims of an alleged murder’. 

The feature length documentary (UK Channel 4,  first screened 18th November, 2023) focuses on the evidence published in Philippa Langley’s book.

It seems the mystery of the Princes in the Tower is set to run for some time yet.

* * * 

The Gallic Saxon Shore

Across the Channel, opposite the British Shore Forts, on the coast of northern Gaul there is a coastal defence system that the Notitia Dignitatum also terms the ‘Saxon Shore’. This has led to the assumption that the defences on both sides of the Channel were all under one command, the ‘comes littoris Saxonici’, and constructed in a similar style around the same time, to face the same enemy.

The Notitia Dignitatum
The Notitia Dignitatum (List of Offices) provides the only reference to the 'Saxon Shore'. The documents as a whole comprises a list of military and civilian commands in both eastern and western parts of the Roman empire. Thought to have been compiled from earlier documents around AD 395, having been corrected and updated for the next 25-30 years, the copy that has come down to us is dated to around AD 425. 

The Notitia Dignitatum associates the ‘Saxon Shore’ with two lines of defence, located along the south-eastern and southern coasts of Britain and the Channel and Atlantic coasts of Gaul respectively.1

The 28th Chapter of the western section (Occidentis) lists nine forts in south-east Britain under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore (comes littoris Saxonici per Britanniam):

• Othona (Bradwell?)
• Dubrae (Dover)
• Lemanis (Lympne)
• Branodunum (Brancaster)
• Garriannonum (Burgh Castle or Caister-on-Sea?)
• Regulbium (Reculver)
• Rutupiae (Richborough)
• Anderida (Pevensey)
• Portus Adurni (Walton Castle or Portchester?)

There are several coastal forts in Britain that could, or should, be added to this list: Claustenum (Bitterne), Burgh Castle or Caister-on-Sea (only one of the forts on the Great Estuary is listed as Garriannonum), Old Skegness (on the opposite side if the Wash to Brancaster), and then possibly Brough-on-Humber which was rebuilt in the style of the Saxon Shore forts. Accepting Portchester as Portus Adurni, then Walton would make a total of fourteen Shore forts. The argument that only the nine listed in the Notitia Dignatum were occupied at the time the document was compiled does not stand up to scrutiny as the fort at Lemanis (Lympne) had been abandoned for several decades by the time the Notitia Dignitatum was compiled. 

There are some significant omissions in the document for Britain, for example the Yorkshire signal stations, Scarborough, Filey, Goldsborough, Huntcliffe and Ravenscar have been omitted completely and do not appear listed under the command of the dux Britanniarum. The signal stations on the Yorkshire coast were constructed during the Theodosian reorganisations following the ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’ of AD 367.  Although they had a relatively short occupancy, probably 20-30 years, they would have still been active in the late 4th century when the Notitia Dignitatum was complied.2

Naval forces are completely absent from any of the chapters referring to Britain; the Roman fleet operating in British waters, the Classis Britannica, is not recorded after the mid-3rd century. The former Pevensey fleet, the Classis Anderetianorum, is recorded but by the time of the compilation of the Notitia Dignitatum it had been transferred to Paris. The Welsh sections of the list are missing, or perhaps never compiled.

As we can see the Notitia Dignitatum is an unreliable document of limited accuracy; its value is, at best, debatable. We must therefore use the document with caution, however it does provide a useful snapshot of the unknown author’s knowledge of the Roman forces around the end of the 4th century. 

Around this time Magnus Maximus had depleted the British garrison in AD 383 to pursue his imperial ambitions, then Stilicho the supreme commander of the western Empire and caretaker of the boy Emperor Honorius pulled troops from Britain and the Rhine to counter the threat to Rome from Alaric in AD 401. When Constantine III was declared Emperor in AD 407 and established himself in Gaul he took what remained of the British garrison with him. Britain would not return to the Empire. Thus, by the time of the compilation of the Notitia Dignitatum many of the commands listed had ceased to exist well before AD 395. The view that it is a single, coherent document is not tenable.

However, the document provides the only reference to the command of the ‘Saxon Shore’, a listing which has puzzled historians for many years who have looked to the coastal defences in Gaul to enlighten their research into the British system.

The Coastal Defences of Northern Gaul
In addition to the chapter on the British forts under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore the Notitia Dignitatum includes two further chapters that refer to the coastal defences of northern Gaul. These two chapters include ‘castra’ which are described as being on the 'Saxon Shore' (in litore saxonico). Here, on the opposite side of the Channel we find a comparable defensive system, said to be contemporaneous with the Shore forts in Britain, the late 3rd century.3

The Duke of the Armorican region and the Nervian Frontier is listed in Chapter 37 and covers the coastal forts and towns in five provinces equating to the modern regions of Normandy and Brittany, while Chapter 38 lists three sites under the command of the Duke of Belgica Secunda, the modern area of north eastern France and Belgium almost to the mouth of the Rhine.

It is often assumed that the Gallic coastal defences were under the command of the Count of the Saxon Shore as we would expect a Duke to report to a Count and that the Saxon Shore was one unified command on both sides of the Channel. However, the Notitia Dignitatum provides no evidence of such a hierarchy and lists the ‘comes littoris Saxonici per Britanniam’ (Latin), translated as ‘The Count of the Saxon Shore for Britain’. The document does not list a ‘comes’ specifically for the Saxon Shore of Gaul.4

in Litore Saxonico
In Gaul, the Notitia Dignitatum allots thirteen forts to two duces. 

Chapter 37 of the Notitia Dignitatum lists ten forts under the command of the Dux Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani:

• Grannona, ‘in Litore Saxonico’ [on the Saxon Shore] (Guernsey?)
• Rotomago (Rouen)
• Constantia (Constances?)
• Abrincatis (Avranches)
• Aleto (Aleth)
• Osismis (Brest)
• Benetis (Vannes)
• Mannatias (Nantes)
• Blabia (Blaye)
• Grannono (Le Havre?)

It is uncertain if Grannono, the last fort in the list, is a duplictae of the first, Gannona, however it is usually treated as an individual site. The location of either has remained a puzzle for may years, notably of the ten forts listed under the Dux Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani only the first, Grannona, is specifically listed as ‘in Litore Saxonico’ (on the Saxon Shore). Suggested locations for the forts are alongside in brackets.5

The Notitia Dignitatum tells us that the command of the Duke spreads over five provinces of Gallia, which have been identified as the following:

• Aquitanica prima - centred on Bourges
• Aquitanica Secunda - the coastal area from Bordeaux tot he south bank of the Loire
• Lugdunensis Tertia - the area in Brittany from the Loire northwards and from Le Mans westward
• Lugdunensis Secunda - the whole coastal area of Normandy, from the Bay of St Michel eastwards to at least the mouth of the Seine and Rouen.
• Lugdunensis Senonia - an inland area like Aquitanica Prima, comprising the regions of Paris and Sens.6

The Dux Tractus Belgicae Secundae has three forts under his command; 

• Marcis, ‘in Litore Saxonico’ (on the Saxon Shore) (Marck, near Calais?)
• Portu Epatiaci (Boekhoute?)
• Classis Sambrica, in loco Quartensi sive Hornensi (Étaples?)

Although the locations of all of  these three commands are uncertain, suggestions are listed in brackets alongside7, it is claimed that they are on the coastline between the mouth of the Scheldt (modern Netherlands) and Dieppe in the Seine-Maritime region of Normandy, northern France.8

As with  the command of the Dux Tractus Armoricani et Nervicani, of the three forts listed under the Dux Tractus Belgicae Secundae only one, Marcis, is specifically listed as being on the Saxon Shore. It has been suggested that both the forts listed ‘in Litore Saxonico’, Grannona/Grannono and Marcis, should be found in one of the two places where there is some evidence for a Saxon presence.9 This requires acceptance that the term 'Saxon Shore' means the coastline occupied by Saxons, which is far from certain.

It is noted above the Notitia Dignitatum lists nine forts on the British Saxon Shore when there could have been possibly at least fourteen fortifications that at one time made up the complete coastal defence system. There are also clear omissions from the Gallic commands, major sites such as Boulogne and Oudenberg are not listed. Far from providing answers to the meaning of the ‘Saxon Shore’ it appears at first glance that the Gallic coastal defences raise even more questions.

Notes & References
1. John F. Drinkwater, The ‘Saxon Shore’ Reconsidered, Britannia 54 (2023), pp.275–303.
2. Andrew Pearson,The Roman Shore Forts, The History Press 2002 (Reprint edition 2010).
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Drinkwater, op.cit.
6. Stephen Johnson, The Roman Forts of the Saxon Shore, BCA, 1979, p.77.
7. Drinkwater, op.cit.
8.  S Johnson: Late Roman defenses and the Limes, p. 65, CBA Research Report No 18, The Saxon Shore, ed. D E Johnston, 1977.
9. Ibid.

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The Saxon Shore: Evolution of a Coastal Defence System

 In AD 43 the Roman Emperor Claudius’s invasion force of 40,000 men landed in Southern Britain. A century before, in 55 and 54 BC, Julius Caesar had invaded Britain with the aim of conquest but on the first occasion suffered losses to his fleet due to the unpredictable Channel weather. He returned a year later with a much larger invasion force of some 800 ships but was drawn away to troubles in Gaul. Hence, Claudius’s arrival is often termed the third invasion of Britain.

Debate continues as to where Claudius’s invasion force landed, some argue for the south coast, perhaps Chichester in Sussex, yet archaeological evidence points to Richborough in Kent. After landing, the army established a fortified bridgehead defended by a single gateway within a double ditch and rampart, running almost parallel to the shoreline for 600 metres, sections of these can still be seen today. The Claudian ditches were crossed by a causeway which would adjoin the main Roman road, the later Watling Street.

Wantsum Channel (English Heritage)

In those days, nearly two thousand years ago, Richborough stood on a small island just offshore, separated from the mainland by a narrow tidal channel named by the Romans as Portus Rutupis. The Wantsum Channel, as the Saxons called it, was up to 2 miles wide, 10 miles long and separated the Isle of Thanet from mainland Britain. 

Richborough island was situated at the southern end of this natural waterway, close to the confluence of the Wantsum and the open sea. At this point extensive shingle banks sheltered the Wantsum from the sea effectively forming a breakwater enclosing a sheltered anchorage beside Richborough island, making it an ideal harbour where the Roman port would develop. The Romans constructed a causeway to the island which would lead onto the Watling Street, through the Midlands to Chester.1

Richborough (Rutupiae) was therefore the site of the earliest Roman settlement in Britain, however a series of archaeological investigations by Bushe-Fox (1922-38) has revealed that the initial military earthworks were not extensive with no evidence of a heavy military presence, more a temporary defence for the disembarkation of troops during the initial phase of the invasion. No doubt the large invasion force quickly spread out to secure the Wantsum Channel controlling the northern end where it met the Thames estuary and the Isle of Thanet. 

Archaeological research at Regulbium (Reculver) at the northern mouth of the Wantsum has revealed pottery and pairs of ditches similar to those at Richborough, suggesting a small garrison relating to the invasion period.

This coastline has changed considerably since Roman times, the Wantsum Channel has silted up over the years and now reduced to a small stream with Thanet now joined to the mainland. Consequentially the two Roman sites associated with this waterway guarding both ends of the Wantsum, Reculver and Richborough, have changed over the centuries. Richborough is no longer an island and now lies 2 miles (3.2km) from the sea with the River Stour, all that remains of the Channel, having devoured the sandy cliff which forms the eastern edge of the monument and destroying the south western and north eastern ends of the defences.

At the time of the Roman invasion Reculver occupied the southern tip of a promontory at the north-western end of the Wantsum Channel with the sea almost a mile (1.4km) to the north. Coastal erosion has severely damaged the west and north east of the site so that only the southern half of the later stone fort survives as ruined walls, earthworks and below ground features, the rest now lost to the sea.

The Gateway to Roman Britain
Less than ten years after the invasion of AD 43 the site at Richborough was levelled to make way for the construction of a military and naval supply base.

Around AD 90 the Romans built a huge monumental arch at the centre of this base overlooking the shore at Richborough, one of the largest such monuments in the Roman empire. This monumental arch would have been seen by ships from miles away, a navigational aid to ships, and on landing the travellers crossed through the Richborough arch as the official gateway to Britannia.

The major Roman road, Watling Street, now started at the foot of the arch and proceeded through the West Gate across the causeway and continued for about 250 miles through the Province. 

This huge monumental arch at Richborough was of a particularly rare and elaborate type with four faces and four openings, an architectural style known as a ‘quadrifons’. Beneath the archways was a raised cross-shaped pavement accessed by steps on each side.  The arch was underpinned by stone foundations around 10 metres deep, estimated as necessary to support a structure some 25 metres high consisting of around 20,000 tonnes of material. The Richborough quadrifons was clad in Carrara marble, an exotic bright white stone quarried in Italy which could only be used by authority of the emperor. 

Yet the decision to build a quadrifons arch at Richborough is somewhat mysterious. Because of their four openings, quadrifonic arches typically had a crossroads at their centre, and were often positioned at important intersections. No doubt the east-west line which joined Watling Street was the road that linked the Empire to Britannia via the sea, yet the north-south archways had no apparent alignment, it may have symbolised the division between land and sea.

The Arch of Janus

The only quadrifrons or four-faced, triumphal arch surviving in Rome is The Arch of Janus. This unique piece of architecture,16 metres (52ft) high and 12 metres (40ft) wide, marked a crucial crossroads in the ancient city. Estimated to have been constructed in the early 4th century AD, using  material from redundant earlier structures that were comprehensively demolished so that the materials could be re-used in the construction of new buildings. The ancient and widespread practice of ‘Spoliation’ (from the Latin for 'spoils') was common in Roman architecture.

The town at Richborough developed around this massive arch, with new roads laid out and stone buildings constructed including shops and metal workshops around the monument. As the Roman army spread out into the Province the town and port boomed with trade from Gaul. A mansio complex and an amphitheatre had been erected before the town reached its peak around AD 125. However, by the early 3rd century the town was in decline, probably due to the growth of the cross-channel port at Dover (Dubris).

Classis Britannica
Being an island the Roman navy played a significant part in the invasion of Britain in AD 43. In 55 BC Julius Caesar’s invasion plans suffered owing to losses to the fleet caused by bad weather in the Channel. The next year he was back with a huge fleet that would not only transport the invasion force but also provide logistics support. Claudius had no doubt learnt from Caesar’s accounts of his trips to Britain a century earlier and came well prepared with the navy providing not only a means of transport but also essential support to the shore defences.

A massive fleet, the classis Britannica, was built for the Claudian invasion and was operating in British waters since at least AD 43, if not before. Initially the fleet’s headquarters was most likely at Boulogne on the north coast of Gaul.2

Accordingly, the fleet’s earliest British base was at Richborough, the beachhead of the Claudian invasion. Around AD 130-140 a new fortified port was built at Dover which became the main base for the fleet in Britain. This was thought to be the Novus Portus (New Port) as recorded in Ptolemy's 2nd century ‘Geography’. The presence of the fleet at Dover is attested by a large number of tiles stamped ‘CL BR’, found at the site and also across the Channel at Boulogne which continued as the main operating base of the classis Britannica. Tiles found at other sites indicates their association with the fleet but none have been found, to date, north of London.

The Hadrianic Period (c.122-136 AD)
The 1st and 2nd centuries witnessed the wider development of coastal installations around Britain.

Legionary fortresses were constructed at Caerleon and Chester, with smaller forts at Cardiff and Lancaster, all with access to the sea on the west of the country. Also on the western shore a series of forts, supply bases and signal stations were constructed on the Cumbrian coast guarding the Solway Firth, effectively forming a southern extension to Hadrian's Wall.

On the otherside of the country at the eastern terminus of the Wall a fort was constructed at South Shields on the River Tyne. This would have certainly operated as a supply base for the classis Britannica during northern campaigns of the Roman army in the 1st and 2nd centuries, yet no CL BR tiles have been found at the site.

Further south down the eastern coast it has been argued that a military supply base was established at Brough-on-Humber during the Hadrianic period. This base was on the northern shore of the Humber, the terminal of the ferry from Lincoln in the south and serving the legionary fort at York. Around AD 200 a new earth and timber rampart was constructed when the earlier defensive circuit was extended. But again, although the classis Britannica certainly sailed into the Humber no fleet tiles have been found at the site.

At Lympne in southern Kent over 30 ‘CL BR’ tiles have been found suggesting the existence of a port or supply depot during the 2nd century. Although evidence for this early port has not been found, the amount of re-used building materials in the 3rd-century Roman Shore Fort at Lympne (Portus Lemanis) suggest previous activity at the site or nearby.

At Reculver on the north Kent coast tiles have been found made from the same clay as that used by the classis Britannica re-used in the masonry of the later St Mary's church. Other tiles were also used in the construction of the east gate of the later Shore fort but it is not possible to determine if these had been stamped 'CL BR' as only the sides of the tiles remain exposed, the top and bottom surfaces mortared into masonry layers and cannot be examined.

Classis Britannica tile

CL BR tiles have been found at Richborough and Pevensey where there is little evidence for 2nd century military installations. Fleet tiles found at Folkstone villa suggest it may have been the residence of the prefect commanding the classis Britannica.

From the initial invasion in AD 43 we see evidence of the spread of Roman military operations by land across the Province, from the mouth of the Tyne on the north-east coast to the south-east coast in Kent and the north-west coast in Cumbria to south Wales. These coastal defences must have been served by the British fleet of the classis Britannica, providing essential logistics support, the bases the fleet operated from seemingly identified by the presence of tiles stamped ‘CL BR’.3

The Severan Period (193-235 AD)
Significant reorganisation of the south and east coast military forts was carried out towards the end of the 2nd century and the early 3rd century.

The Caledonian campaign of Septimius Severus ended in 211 when the emperor died at York with the Roman forces pulling back the northern frontier to Hadrian's Wall. Following the death of Severus his son Caracalla seems to have concentrated on reorganising defences along the east coast. The fort at South Shields was substantially rebuilt with the base continuing to function as the northern limit of maritime operations along the east coast until the 4th century. 

Further south along the east coast military installations were remodelled and new forts built during this period. This includes three forts south of the Wash at Brancaster and Caister in Norfolk and Reculver on the north coast of Kent which would all later become part of the Saxon Shore.

Brancaster has been dated to the early 3rd century based purely on the early architecture of the site but coin finds indicate activity in the late 3rd century. The installations at Brancaster, Caister and Reculver were no doubt part of the defence system established on the east coast, such as Brough-on-Humber and the site at Skegness, now lost to coastal erosion, intended to operate with Brancaster on the opposite side of the Wash.

The South Coast
Whereas the east coast of Britain witnessed renewed military activity during the Severan period there is a distinct lack of evidence for new installations on the south coast, which appears to be in decline rather than renewed growth.4

The Severan campaigns in northern Britain relied heavily on logistical support from the classis Britannica. The concentration of naval operations in the north seems to be associated with the abandonment of the fort at Dover which was demolished between 200-210.5 

15 miles further along the south coast occupation at the port at Lympne continued during the early 3rd century; however, it is uncertain whether this installation was civilian or military. 'Lemanis' is included in the Antonine Itineray, a register of the stations and distances between them on the Roman road network. The Itinerary is usually ascribed to the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (reigned AD 138 – 161), however it seems unlikely that the British section was compiled at this time. It has been suggested that the Itinerary was compiled over two centuries with the British section titled “Iter Britanniarum” being plural, indicating that the British section was assembled after Britain was divided into two provinces in AD 211 AD, either by Septimius Severus or his son Caracalla.6 But as with Dover, the port as Lympne seems to have fallen out of use in the first half of the 3rd century.

The Later 3rd Century
When Alexander Severus, the last emperor from the Severan dynasty, was assassinated by his own troops in AD 235 it marked the beginning of the Crisis of the Third Century.

The next 50 years (AD 235–284) would see over 20 emperors rise compared with the 26 emperors who reigned from the first Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Alexander Severus in AD 235, a period of over 250 years. During this period of social turmoil and chaos the empire experienced economic disintegration, repeated foreign invasions, and civil wars. Roman commanders in the field became increasingly independent of Rome's central authority resulting in the Roman Empire splintering into three political entities: the Gallic Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Palmyrene Empire.7

The Roman Shore Forts in the late 3rd Century AD

Following the anarchy of the 3rd century a new emperor was declared by his troops in AD 284 while on campaign in Persia who finally bring order back to the Empire. Diocletian's reign stabilized the empire and ended the Imperial Crisis. Around this time a series of substantial fortifications appeared on the coast of Britain from Brancaster on the Wash to Portchester on the Solent.

During the later 3rd century activity in Britain focused on the South and East Anglian coasts with relatively little new military building beyond the geographical area between the Wash and the Solent. Existing fortifications elsewhere must have been considered adequate or irrelevant to the current threat.

Brough-on-Humber was one of exceptions; bastions were added to the perimeter wall, a characteristic in Britain unique to the Shore Forts and the refortified London Wall. A large fort was constructed at Cardiff in South Wales, all but square in plan with projecting bastions on the perimeter walls, being very similar in design to Portchester.

The construction of the new fort at Cardiff has been dated to after 260, however it is suggested that the similarities with Lympne and Portchester tend to indicate a later 3rd century origin. It is reasonable to see Cardiff as contemporary with, rather than earlier than, the development of defences on the south coast of England.8

At Brancaster a coin of Tetricus, emperor of the Gallic Empire from AD 271 to 274, found in the rampart indicates this was not built before c.270. Yet, coins from the Carausian period, usurper AD 286-293 self-proclaimed “Emperor of the North”, make up the bulk of the finds at Brancaster,  indicating activity at the site was greatest during the late 3rd century.

These new coastal forts in Britain indicate a continued naval presence in British waters, although the classis Britannica had disappeared from the archaeological record by the mid-2nd century.9

We have seen how new military installations were built and the defences of existing fortifications augmented during the Severan period. During the 3rd century defensive emphasis moved away from the south coast, with defences reorganised along the eastern coast. Events at Richborough provide a snapshot of developments.

Return to Richborough
The huge monumental four-fronted arch constructed around AD 90 stood at the heart of the town of Richorough for almost 200 years. At 25m high and clad in white marble the arch was visible for miles. For whatever reason the Roman army moved back to Richborough in the middle of the 3rd century. Around AD 250 part of the town around the arch was demolished and replaced with a small fortlet. The arch appears to have been repurposed as a watchtower or signal station, protected by three ditches and a rampart complete with palisade.

Richborough Roman fort

During the last decades of the 3rd century the fortlet was levelled and a large stone fort was built at Richborough. Further parts of the town were demolished to provide material for the new fort. Even the arch, a ceremonial and symbolic gateway to the province of Britannia awarded the rare privilege of being faced with Carrara marble from the Imperial quarries was torn down and the triple ditches filled in, all to provide building material for the new fort. Much of the marble facing stones were burned to make lime to be reused in the mortar of the fort’s walls. Other marble slabs from the arch were used as packing in the walls. The substantial new stone fort at Richborough seems to have been built very quickly, by a man in a hurry. 

Notes & References
1. John Peddie, Conquest: The Roman Invasion of Britain, Sutton, 1997.
2. Andrew Pearson, The Roman Shore Forts, History Press, 2010, p.49. Chp 3, The Development of a Coastal System, pp.47-66.
3. Pearson, p.49
4. Pearson, p.55
5. Pearson, p.55
6. Rivet & Smith, Place Names of Roman Britain, Batsford, 1979, p. 154
7. Pearson, p.56
8. Pearson, p.63
9. Andrew Pearson, The Roman Shore Forts, History Press, 2010, Chp 3, The Development of a Coastal System, pp.47-66.

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