Skidmore on Bosworth
Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-08 11:54:24
I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill – looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
Jan.
Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill – looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
Jan.
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-09 09:51:23
I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
________________________________
From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
To:
Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
Jan.
________________________________
From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
To:
Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
Jan.
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-09 10:33:31
I've had another look at Skidmore's article & he does mention artillery being used by both sides. The act of attainder against Richard's forces mentions guns; "The Ballad of Bosworth Field" speaks of 140 serpentines chained in a row & the same number of bombards, although I don't know how reliable the ballads are considered to be by current historians. Commynes is cited as a source for Henry Tudor having got artillery from Charles VIII of France, & Skidmore says he could have collected more from Welsh castles, Stafford, Tamworth & Lichfield on his route to Bosworth. Henry appointed Sir Richard Guildford as master of the ordnance the day after he landed in Pembrokeshire. No comment is made on the relative modernity of the guns or which shot came from what sort of cannon, but then I suppose we are meant to buy/read his book.
I live in Richard Guildford's area of influence in Kent. He must have been involved in the Wealden iron industry although I have yet to look for, yet alone find, evidence to confirm this.
Jan.
Sent from my iPad
On 9 Jun 2013, at 09:51, Hilary Jones <hjnatdat@...> wrote:
> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
>
>
> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
> Jan.
>
>
>
>
I live in Richard Guildford's area of influence in Kent. He must have been involved in the Wealden iron industry although I have yet to look for, yet alone find, evidence to confirm this.
Jan.
Sent from my iPad
On 9 Jun 2013, at 09:51, Hilary Jones <hjnatdat@...> wrote:
> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
>
>
> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
> Jan.
>
>
>
>
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-09 13:49:22
I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
>
>
> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
> Jan.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
>
>
> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
> Jan.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-09 14:51:04
I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
________________________________
From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
>
>
> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
> Jan.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
________________________________
From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
> To:
> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
>
>
> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
> Jan.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-09 15:08:45
Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>> Jan.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>> Jan.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-09 21:07:22
The Swiss seem responsible for an awful lot - seeing that they are normally seen as peaceful :)
________________________________
From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 15:08
Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>> Jan.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
________________________________
From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 15:08
Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
Paul
On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>> Jan.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>>
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-10 10:52:05
15th century Italy gave us murders, papal corruption, endless war and
pestilence. It also produced two of the greatest artists ever known, and
the Renaissance. After 300 years of peace what did Switzerland give us?
The cuckoo clock.
Or words to that effect, courtesy of Orson Welles in The Third Man, one
of the greatest movies ever made!
Paul
On 09/06/2013 21:07, Hilary Jones wrote:
> The Swiss seem responsible for an awful lot - seeing that they are normally seen as peaceful :)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 15:08
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
> The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
> that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
>> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
>> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
>> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
>> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
>> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
>> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
>> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
>> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
>> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
>> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
>> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
>> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
>> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
>> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
>> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
>> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
>> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
>> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
>> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
>> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>>> To:
>>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>>> Jan.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
pestilence. It also produced two of the greatest artists ever known, and
the Renaissance. After 300 years of peace what did Switzerland give us?
The cuckoo clock.
Or words to that effect, courtesy of Orson Welles in The Third Man, one
of the greatest movies ever made!
Paul
On 09/06/2013 21:07, Hilary Jones wrote:
> The Swiss seem responsible for an awful lot - seeing that they are normally seen as peaceful :)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 15:08
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
> The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
> that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
>> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
>> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
>> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
>> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
>> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
>> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
>> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
>> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
>> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
>> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
>> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
>> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
>> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
>> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
>> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
>> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
>> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
>> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
>> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
>> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>>> To:
>>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>>> Jan.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
2013-06-10 12:31:32
Ah Orson Welles - a great Wolsey too I recall!
________________________________
From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
To:
Sent: Monday, 10 June 2013, 10:52
Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
15th century Italy gave us murders, papal corruption, endless war and
pestilence. It also produced two of the greatest artists ever known, and
the Renaissance. After 300 years of peace what did Switzerland give us?
The cuckoo clock.
Or words to that effect, courtesy of Orson Welles in The Third Man, one
of the greatest movies ever made!
Paul
On 09/06/2013 21:07, Hilary Jones wrote:
> The Swiss seem responsible for an awful lot - seeing that they are normally seen as peaceful :)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 15:08
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
> The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
> that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
>> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
>> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
>> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
>> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
>> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
>> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
>> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
>> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
>> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
>> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
>> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
>> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
>> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
>> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
>> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
>> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
>> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
>> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
>> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
>> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>>> To:
>>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>>> Jan.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
________________________________
From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
To:
Sent: Monday, 10 June 2013, 10:52
Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
15th century Italy gave us murders, papal corruption, endless war and
pestilence. It also produced two of the greatest artists ever known, and
the Renaissance. After 300 years of peace what did Switzerland give us?
The cuckoo clock.
Or words to that effect, courtesy of Orson Welles in The Third Man, one
of the greatest movies ever made!
Paul
On 09/06/2013 21:07, Hilary Jones wrote:
> The Swiss seem responsible for an awful lot - seeing that they are normally seen as peaceful :)
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
> To:
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 15:08
> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>
>
> Apology accepted ;-) Civil War circa 1648? Yep, all the rage by then!:-)
> The way the pikemen were used had not been seen in England. A method
> that slowly moved up the continent from Switzerland.
> Paul
>
>
> On 09/06/2013 14:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>> I apologise I meant 'correct'. No it wasn't TR it was a much better one, I think by battlefield detectives who were examining cannon shot and testing the range of a reconstructed cannon based on a Swiss (?) model. They didn't say Richard didn't have cannon, just that these were the latest model not yet seen in England. They never got to pikemen - they were into guns. Never knew pikemen were new over here (in fact took it for granted but am not a military historian) - you tend to think of the Civil War where they're always shown as all the rage.
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Paul Trevor Bale <paul.bale@...>
>> To:
>> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2013, 13:49
>> Subject: Re: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>
>>
>> I would dispute your use of "new" Hilary, and substitute, 'correct', and
>> a lot of the evidence is based on the artillery shot found. I don't know
>> which programme you are talking about. If the Tony Robinson show, a lot
>> of that has been updated. Richard had his own long range artillery, and
>> was firing them from the ridge, over the heads of his army.
>> The foreign mercenaries part of the new thinking that grabs me as being
>> close to the truth is that Henry had French pikemen with him that he
>> used as his personal bodyguard, as well as attacking the flank of
>> Norfolk's line. The only way to combat the pikemen attacking Norfolk
>> would have been with the hand held artillery or archers, both of which
>> were being used in the vanguard attacking Oxford. The use of pikes was
>> something Richard would not have seen in England, as they had not been
>> used before. It was essentially thought of as being an ancient Greek
>> idea, long past it's sellby date. But whereas the Greeks of Alexander
>> the Great used their long pikes to help combat charging chariots, their
>> use at Bosworth prevented the charging horsemen getting close enough to
>> Tudor to bring him off his own horse, while killing Richard's horse and
>> the horses of his household. I think seeing the household losing their
>> mounts and being forced to fight on their feet was what brought Stanley
>> in, knowing that his horsemen would have the advantage.
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> On 09/06/2013 09:51, Hilary Jones wrote:
>>> I haven't done what you suggest but I seem to recall that the programme some time ago which identified the 'new' Bosworth was about the cannon shot excavated there and one of the things they discovered was that it came from more sophisticated European cannon than Richard would have had at his disposal - indeed a lot of the programme was given over to testing and identifying the cannon and shot. That they took as additional proof that the battle was won by foreign mercenaries.
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>> From: "janmulrenan@..." <janmulrenan@...>
>>> To:
>>> Sent: Saturday, 8 June 2013, 11:54
>>> Subject: Skidmore on Bosworth
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I get the magazine Current Archaeology as part of the flurry of buying stuff that I fell into after joining the R3 Soc; the editors marketed an offer by putting the Leicester dig & the facial reconstruction on their front cover so I fell for that one!
>>> Now the editors are dangling their publication Military History by sending an introductory copy & again the facial reconstruction is on the front along with a bill looks a bit like a halberd to me, but I'm happy to be corrected. This one I won't fall for. It may be after reading this that you won't want to lash out £20 on Skidmore's Bosworth, the birth of the Tudors!
>>> It has a grim article on the King's death which I won't relate, & one by Chris Skidmore in which he promotes the generalship of the Earl of Oxford. He reckons Oxford used a textbook manoeuvre out of Christine de Pizan's Fais d'armes et de chevalerie, which is based on the classical text De Re Militari by Vegetius. He says Henry VII asked Caxton to translate this book into English in 1498 & that Oxford presented it to the king when it was ready.
>>> The manoeuvre was to keep his men close enough to each other to stop opponents getting through & past them, but not so close they had no freedom to swing their weapons about when fighting as a group. At Barnet Oxford's men had got too far from the main army & ended up attacking their own side.
>>> Skidmore also discusses Polydore Virgil's version of the battle, pointing out that when Virgil was writing in 1508 only Oxford was left alive of the leading participants, which implies nobody was likely to dispute his version. Skidmore suggests that Oxford described the course of the battle to Virgil as if he had executed a textbook manoeuvre perfectly, matching his interest in the book Caxton published, but that the actual fight was not perhaps so clear-cut. Perhaps Oxford wanted to be seen as a classical military general in Renaissance style & Virgil approved.
>>> Skidmore doesn't mention that Richard also had a copy of Vegetius's book; it's still in the British Library. I expect he read it just as thoroughly as Oxford would have done! Whether John Duke of Norfolk knew the book or not, we have no evidence as far as I'm aware, but somebody, Jones, I think, made the point that the French mercenaries supporting Henry & Oxford would have had more recent experience of fighting than Norfolk's contingent. Otherwise the manoeuvre sounds like a piece of commonsense advice that is easy to give but much harder to execute in a face-to-face fight where even those on horseback cannot see a clear overall picture.
>>> Has anybody tried adding up the different versions of the battle?
>>> I'll look up Christine de Pizan later!
>>> Jan.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
--
Richard Liveth Yet!
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
Richard III on Amazon
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