1485541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdrkQmrXBV5
The thundering of horses hooves almost deafened him. He could feel the hammering of the beast's heart in its ribcage between his thighs even through his plate armour. Through the corner of his eye he saw his standard bearer, riding a few paces behind. Looking up he saw his standard, the early morning sun shining through the fabric and illuminating the great white boar from behind. In his heart he knew this was a morning for glory. Watching as his men rode out onto the field and faced the enemy, he knew he would return home victorious.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA2vlMo68DR
His first battle had been when he was eighteen.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwJuS6UGQss
He remembered it so clearly that he could have sworn it was only yesterday. His heart lamented that it wasn't, and that the fourteen years since then had been some of the most tumultuous, heart-rendering, life changing in all his thirty-two years. In that time he had lost two brothers (one executed; the other, who had signed the execution warrant with his own hand, had died in his bed two years previous), he had gained a wife and son only to lose them both to the grave (his beloved Anne had departed only six months ago, though her soul had never returned since the loss of their son last year) and most importantly of all, his brow had become one crown heavier. He was never supposed to inherit the throne; when his father first tried to take the throne, there was four people between the crown and Richard's head. One by one Death had taken them, and as Richard stared down at the battle field below, he wished that he hadn't.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR3mgc2AbwZ
But that first battle... He couldn't shake it from his mind. His brother had placed him in charge of the vanguard - his first battle! And such a vital position! He remembered swelling with pride that the enormous, valiant king Edward had chosen him to lead the vanguard, and it wasn't just because he was his brother. Edward had never trusted anything to George, Richard had thought smugly at the time. Now he missed George, no matter how much they used to bitterly bicker, and he missed Edward. Lord only knew Edward had had no idea how much of a mess he'd leave things in when he took his last breath.
Now his throne was under threat from a meagre upstart who had spent his life in France, a man who had no more experience than a child in the field of battle. His entire army was made up of disunited soldiers from wherever he could get them; mostly Welshmen, but some Scots and French, too. Richard smiled wanly; the lad didn't stand a chance. His army was half the size of Richard's, who commanded all the forces the king of England could muster. As the passed the reign of his horse through his gauntleted fingers, Richard looked down at the army waiting below. He had a keen eye for strategy; Tudor was a boy that didn't know his arse from his elbow and probably wouldn't know which way to jam a sword into an enemy's chest, he scoffed.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡohvkXWCSe2
He watched the battle unfurling beneath him from his standpoint on the hill. It was going to be a close call, but he was confident of victory. All he wanted was for it to be over with quickly. He had a list of things he wanted to do before dinner, and he knew that after his victory the city of Leicester would have put on a grand banquet with celebrations and parades. He wanted to cut straight to the fun part.
And then he saw it. The blissful, perfect opportunity. Tudor, the young man that had the nerve to sail from France and try and take the crown Richard's brother had fought tooth and nail for, was separated from his army. He was, like Richard, watching events unfold a little away from the fray of the action. But his bodyguard was not many in number. Richard silently thanked God for the chance to cut the head of the snake and have the whole battle over with within a matter of minutes. Without thinking twice, he clicked his heels on his horse's side, sending it down the hill.
The clanging of clashing metal and the anguished screams of the fallen who had swords buried up to the hilt in their chests echoed in his ears as his horse cut through the outskirts of the fighting like a hot knife through butter. In a rainstorm of arrows, one narrowly missed Richard's ear, landing on the saddle in front of him. He tossed it to one side, pulling out his dagger and slashing enemy men at the neck as he rode swiftly by them.
He raced past the scenes of death and devastation, refusing to linger on the man who lay face down with a dagger protruding from the back of his skull, or the man that was cut down at the knees in front of Richard's horse, who had asked for help as the blood gurgled in his throat and spilled over his lips. He refused to think of the wives and children they had left behind. Fortunately he had no such woman to mourn his loss. Expect perhaps his sister. Or maybe his mother, but she never had cared too much for him since George had been her favourite, and he was long gone. Richard no longer had anyone left to return home to, but he'd be damned if that meant he was going to let some upstart take his throne without a decent fight.
It was going well. His forces were winning, and with each breath he was closing the distance between himself and Tudor. He was going to win, and though his sword was coated thickly with the blood of countrymen and subjects that had turned against him, he didn't feel disheartened.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRdcKgXkiho
But at some point it all went decidedly wrong. Richard didn't know if the turning point was the moment the arrow hit him square in the back, piercing through his plate armour, or when his horse was cut down from beneath him and the pair of them tumbled to the ground. Whichever it was was neither here nor there; he was dismounted and surrounded. It all went south from there.
He had managed to sink blows into a fair few of the men now crowding around him. He had forced a dagger upwards into the ribs of one, and a sword thrust to navel sent another crashing to the ground. One had managed to slice Richard across the cheek, another to the jaw. And then he felt a blossoming of pain at the back of his skull and a coldness as blood spilled down the back of his visor. Another blow came to his head. The helmet was of no match to the weapon that delivered the blow slicing clean off a section of skull at the top of his head.
He fell to his knees, and not being able to support his own weight for much longer, collapsed backward and stared at the sky with glassy eyes.
As he lay dying, he thought bitterly how everyone had always said he was like his father. Of similar height, build and colouring, once he had reached seventeen the only thing people remarked on was his striking resemblance to the man that had died when Richard was a child of eight years old. The irony, thought Richard, that his father had died charging recklessly at the army trying to kill him. How stupid, he had thought, that his father hadn't thought far enough ahead to go out without a large enough retinue of body guards. Had he the energy he would have scoffed.
As the Welshman nearest to him started up the cries of "The king is dead! Long live King Henry!" Richard cursed himself for being too much like his father, and wondered vainly whether it wasn't dark hair and shortness that was a family trait. Maybe it was brash, stupid decisions, too.
A/N: Now for the fact-y bit. If you weren't aware this was a real battle that took place on 22nd August 1485, one of many battles in the series of civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses that consumed England for most of the 15th century. Richard himself was discovered in a car park in 2012 and you can find a full inventory of his horrendous wounds here: http://www.livescience.com/47869-richard-iii-final-moments-postmortem.html 541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6fT9uqGDPX
Henry Tudor is, of course, the founder of the infamous Tudor dynasty and the father of Henry VIII. He would reign from 1485 to 1509, dying in the end, it is said, from a broken heart.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWCKzBDXspj
All in all this is a very interesting decisive battle that we actually don't know all that much about - the hard facts are often incorrect or confused and we don't even know for sure where the actual battlefield even is. This makes it difficult to be certain about any of the events and so fiction, imagination and interpretation is really all we've got.541Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlYHwxWu29m
