Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Erin Manky,

listener discretion advised.

King Richard III was preparing for battle. After three decades of the civil conflict

that have come to be known as the Wars of the Roses, the fighting between two rival

claimants to the throne of England was finally reaching its head. Richard knew, as he was

preparing to face off against his rival Henry Tudor, that this would be the end of the

fighting. This battle at Bosworth Field would be, as Richard remarked, the end of either

Wars or his life. Though pop culture portrayals in these centuries since Richard's death

have often painted him in the imagination as a middle-aged man, an August 22, 1485, Richard

III was only 32 years old. He would lead his men into battle, descending into the fray

himself, and so he wore heavy armor and a helmet covered his face. And whether it was

a symbolic decision or whether it was a strategic one meant to inspire and rally his troops,

a top his helmet, Richard III secured his actual crown. On that morning at Bosworth Field,

Henry Tudor's men approached first. They had the advantage of readying themselves on the

field of battle before Richard's men. But soon the king descended on Tudor with full strength.

And it seemed like Richard III would be victorious. His men knocked over the Tudor standard

bearer, the men holding the banner which marked the position of their commander. It was an

incredibly powerful and symbolic move that would have alerted Tudor soldiers to the fact that

their captain might be dead. But then the tide shifted. Tudor had reserved men, led by a noble

named Lord Stanley, and Stanley's fresh army overwhelmed the exhausted Ricardian men.

At some point King Richard was thrown from his horse. Shakespeare famously imagined him in the

heat of battle, shouting, my kingdom for a horse. And then the king fighting on foot lost his helmet.

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