The Battle of Bosworth Field
In Our Time
BBC
4.6 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 April 2012
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Bosworth Field, the celebrated encounter between Lancastrian and Yorkist forces in August 1485. The battle, the penultimate of the Wars of the Roses, resulted in the death of Richard III. The victory of Henry Tudor enabled him to succeed Richard as monarch and establish the Tudor dynasty which was to rule for over a century. These events were immortalised by Shakespeare in Richard III, and today the battle is regarded as one of the most important to have taken place on English soil. But little is known about what happened on the battlefield, and the very location of the encounter remains the subject of much debate.With:Anne CurryProfessor of Medieval History and Dean of Humanities at the University of SouthamptonSteven GunnTutor and Fellow in Modern History at Merton College, OxfordDavid GrummittLecturer in British History at the University of Kent.Producer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:46.5 | the program. Hello a hundred and eighteen years of Tudor rule began in a field in |
| 0:52.2 | Leicestershire on the 22nd of August 1485. |
| 0:55.6 | That morning an invading force led by Henry Tudor defeated the army of King Richard |
| 1:00.9 | the 3rd in a battle which has become as much part of English folklore as its history. |
| 1:06.0 | Henney was the nobleman who'd returned from France after 14 years of exile to claim the throne on rather spurious grounds. |
| 1:12.0 | Richard was a usurper, widely suspected |
| 1:14.8 | of having murdered his own nephews in the Tower of London in order to cease power. |
| 1:19.4 | The Battle of Bosworth Field proved the decisive confrontation in the bitter and prolonged wars of the roses. |
| 1:25.1 | Shakespeare famously dramatised it in his portrayal of Richard |
| 1:28.5 | giving the villainous king equine immortality with the cry, |
| 1:32.0 | A horse, a horse, My Kingdom for a Horse. |
| 1:35.1 | With me to discuss the Battle of Bosworth Field are Anne Curry, Professor of Medieval |
| 1:39.2 | History and Dean of Humanities at the University of Southampton, Stephen Gunn, tutor and fellow in |
| 1:44.8 | Modern History at Merton College, Oxford, and David Grummit, lecturer in British |
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