February 2008

“The Wars of the Roses:

Military Thought and Practice”

September 27, 2008

Our 2008 conference will take place on September 27, 2008 at the Market Bosworth High School and Community College, located at Station Road, Market Bosworth, Nuneaton, Warwickshire.

Our speakers and their topics will include:

David Baldwin - Reconstructing a Medieval Battle: Stoke Field 1487.

Glenn Foard - Warfare in a medieval landscape: finding Bosworth battlefield

Prof. Anthony Goodman - Richard 111 as a Military Commander.

Dr. David Grummitt - Military Thought and Chivalric Expectation: Edward IV's French Campaign of 1475.

Dr Paul Stamper of English Heritage - Battlefield conservation, designation and display: aims and approaches from across the world.

Prof. Matthew Strickland - The Price of Defeat: The Treatment of Prisoners in the Wars of the Roses.

With Special Guest - the Foundation's Honorary Patron - Robert Hardy.

Professor Matthew Strickland will be chairing the Round Table Discussion that will include Mr. Robert Hardy

For an informational package on the conference, please contact us at Richard3Foundation@yahoo.com.

Battle of Towton Commemorative Feast 2008

Date: Saturday 15^th – Sunday 16^th March 2008

Venue: Towton Hall, Towton, North Yorkshire

Towton Battlefield Society (TBS) and its affiliated re-enactment group, the Frei Compagnie, cordially invite you to attend our annual Palm Sunday commemoration of the Battle of Towton.

The event is based on a celebration of 15^th century life and respectful remembrance of the dead of Towton. It is a relatively small-scale event with a strong family emphasis for re-enactors and public alike, rather than a big ‘beer & bash’ battle (there is no major battle re-enactment like Tewkesbury or Blore Heath). Saturday is ‘re-enactors fun day’ for setting up, practising at the butts and socialising. The main public event on Sunday comprises an all day living history camp, morning guided battlefield walks led by TBS members, followed by a short remembrance service behind Towton Hall, then an afternoon of archery, sword combat and falconry, and a closing melee.

If you would like to attend, please contact Helen Doggett on helen@herstory.eclipse.co.uk or 01924 255969 stating the number of people and tents you will be fielding, when you plan to arrive, and whether you need extra space/special facilities for your living history displays. (As a small educational charity, TBS regrets that it cannot offer fees or expenses to participating groups).

ARRIVAL/DEPARTURE: If you have a long distance to travel, arrangements can be made to receive you on Friday afternoon/evening - please let us know. Otherwise, arrive any time on Saturday 15^th. Pack down after 4pm on Sunday.

DIRECTIONS: The campsite is situated behind the Rockingham Arms public house/Towton Hall in the centre of Towton village.

From the North: From the A1 take the A64 towards York, then the A162 south at Tadcaster. Follow the road straight into Towton - when you see the Rockingham Arms ahead on the right, turn right onto the unclassified road (‘Old London Road’) immediately before the pub.

From the South: Take the B1217 from J47 M1 (signposted for Garforth and Lotherton Hall). Follow the B1217 past Lotherton Hall and the Crooked Billet. Turn left at the T junction onto the A162, (signed for Towton and Tadcaster), and left onto the unclassified road next to the Rockingham Arms.

INSURANCE: TBS’ event insurance does not cover living history activities. In this increasingly litigious age, all participating groups must have their own public liability insurance. Please send a copy of your current insurance certificate or a valid cover note to Helen Doggett – TBS regrets that without one, your group will be unable to attend.

STANDARDS: We ask participating groups to observe Wars of the Roses Federation costume/kit standards and codes of conduct on site. Also, as the event depends entirely on the goodwill of the landowner and people of Towton, please keep noise levels down at night and dispose of your rubbish considerately (recycling bins will be provided for glass, cans and plastic bottles).

Health & Safety: Please make sure that fires, sharps, arms/armour and living history displays are supervised at all times when members of the public are on site, and that all archery and weapons practice are carried out within the double-roped arenas. In the event of accident or illness, TBS will have First Aid kits on site.

Weapons Training: Archery butts/nets and a sword arena will be set up by TBS on the Saturday morning, and will be available for practice sessions throughout the day.

No Black Powder: Sorry, gunners – we have no police permit for black powder and cannot allow it on site, although you are welcome to bring along hand guns and cannon for display purposes.

CAMPSITE & FACILITIES:

We are allowed to camp on this special site courtesy of the landowner/owner of Towton Hall. It is believed to be the site of the Lancastrian camp, and lies close to where the famous bodies featured in ‘Blood Red Roses’ were found.

After unloading your kit, please move your vehicles to the designated parking area to allow easy access for new arrivals. All vehicles must be off the campsite by 9.00 am on Sunday 15^th for the public event.

Space for plastic camping can be arranged, but we can only allow authentic tents on the main event field.

Fires: No digging of pits is allowed - please keep all fires off the ground in fire trays. Some firewood will be provided, although feel free to bring your own/charcoal if you prefer.

Water: There is a source of fresh drinking water behind Towton Hall, but sorry – no shower block!

Toilets: TBS provides Portaloos on the main event field, which will be set up on Friday 14^th.

Food & Drink: Both the Rockingham Arms and the Crooked Billet at Saxton do excellent food. TBS/Frei Compagnie usually dine at the Billet on Saturday night, if you would like to join us. On Sunday, refreshments will be on sale in and around the Barn.

Other Information

Accommodation for non-campers:

Wheelgate Guest House, 7 Kirkgate, Sherburn-in-Elmet; tel. 01977 682231; fax 01977 685287

Church Hill Guesthouse, 3 Church Hill, Sherburn-in-Elmet; tel. 01977 681000

The Old Presbytery Guest House, London Road (A162), Saxton; tel 01937 557708; fax 01937 557392; web site www.presbyteryguesthouse.co.uk

Tourist Information: www.touristinformationcentres.com/ or www.ytb.org.uk/

Running Order:

Saturday 15^th: No formal programme. Just enjoy yourselves - although if anyone’s at a loose end, help with the setting up is always appreciated! (Be aware that while the site isn’t officially open, a few locals/dog-walkers regularly visit us on Saturday).

Sunday 16^th: All day living history camp, traders, refreshments and information stands in the Barn

9.00 am: Authenticity, all vehicles off site. Although the event is not billed to start until 10am, members of the public always arrive early!

10.00: Guided battlefield walks start. Officially, at least – in practice we often get early arrivals off by c. 9.30. Re-enactors are welcome to join the tours led by members of TBS/Frei Compagnie

10.30: Falconry Shows and Archery Practice start

1.00pm: Memorial Service

1.30: Arming the Knight (Frei Compagnie/European Historical Combat Guild)

1.45: Sword Combat Display (Frei Compagnie/European Historical Combat Guild)

2.15: Archery/Firepower Display (Carrick Free Company/guest re-enactors)

2.45: Falconry Show

3.30: Bill Drill and Closing Melee (all re-enactors)

4.00: Event Ends

NB: as ever, we are at the mercy of the elements – especially this year, as the event is so early. So if the weather is poor on the day, we may not be able to adhere to the published programme – apologies in advance for any inconvenience or disappointment this may cause.

Helen Doggett, Frei Compagnie Secretary/Palm Sunday Organising Committee

Email helen@herstory.eclipse.co.uk or Tel. 01924 255969

The new exhibition at the Bosworth Battlefield Centre will open on December 1st.

They have a new and exciting webpage. Their new address is: www.bosworthbattlefield.com

Dave Cooke (Battlefields Trust member & author) will be taking a walk around the Wakefield battlefield on Friday 31st August, starting from Sandal Castle at 1900 hrs. Anyone is welcome to come along and there is no cost. The walk will be followed by a visit to a local hostelry.

The Fulford Battlefield Walk will take place on Sunday 23, September at 11am. Please meet on the field opposite Fulford cemetery (YO19 4QG for those with satnav). There is no charge. For those who need a coffee before the walk, > the Designer Centre (well signposted) has footpaths to the site and just 10 minutes walk away.

The Battle of Bosworth re-enactment 18th and 19th August, unfortunately has had to be cancelled due to water logged ground

The recent floods in England have damaged some Ricardian locations, especially in Tewkesbury where the abbey has taken water in, and Minster Lovell.

The Foundation has launched a campaign to assist these and other Ricardian locations. If you wish to send a donation, please contact us at Richard3Foundation@yahoo.co.uk or Philippa Shaw, Executive Officer, Tewkesbury Abbey, Church Street, Tewkesbury Gloucestershire, GL20 5RZ.

Our thanks to Sharon K. Penman for providing us with these revealing pictures of the Abbey and the damage that Tewkesbury has sustained. Steve Goodchild, Chair for the Tewkesbury Battlefield Society has informed us that while the battlefield is under water, they do not feel it has had any significant damage.

For donations for Minster Lovell, please contact Graham Kew, 130 Burford Road, Minster Lovell, Witney OX29 ORB.

Evesham has also suffered significant damage and the park containing a memorial statue and church for Simon de Montfort has been flooded.

Honorary patron of the Foundation, actor Robert Hardy has agreed to provide a recorded commentary for the Swan Players latest production.

When a group of amateur actors from Yorkshire wanted a commanding voice for their latest production, they never dreamed one of England's favourite TV stars would volunteer.

But the story of the bloody battle of Towton, near Tadcaster, was close to the heart of actor Robert Hardy. He has agreed to provide a recorded commentary for the Swan Players latest production for nothing.

Mr Hardy, best known for the TV series All Creatures Great and Small but who recently appeared as Minister of Magic in the Harry Potter films, is also a medieval historian with particular interest in the Wars of the Roses.

He has written widely on the subject and is also a recognised expert on the longbow, as well as being patron of the Towton Society.

He also has connections with the Richard III Foundation whose Las Vegas office heard about the production, thought he might be interested in taking part, and suggested that the Swan Players should make an approach.

Mr Hardy's links with Yorkshire date back to when he was a regular visitor to the Dales for the filming of All Creatures Great and Small. He played Siegfried Farnon from 1978 to 1990.

A spokesman for the Swan Players, David Rose, said: "It was just a voice-over part. There was no one lined up to do it but it was probably going to be one of the cast.

"I contacted Mr Hardy through his agent and I sent off the script. When I rang him he said he quite enjoyed it and was only too delighted to help us out."

Mr Rose, 52, a production manager for a steel foundry in Leeds who lives in Tockwith, near York, will travel down to the 81-year-old actor's Oxfordshire house next week to record the commentary. The play Towton will be staged at The Carriageworks, Leeds, next month.

The play, written by Harrogate author Andrew MacHutchon, tells the story of the origins of the battle of Towton. It opens with the fighting itself on a snowy Palm Sunday in 1461, then goes back to see how it was sparked by the relationship between King Henry VI and his wife Margaret of Anjou, and her "liaison" with Richard of York.

Mr MacHutchon wrote the script 11 years ago for the Joseph Rowntree Theatre in York but always dreamed of performing it in a bigger venue with live action. When the Carriageworks opened, it seemed ideal.

Mr Rose, who is playing King Henry, added: "It is just going to give us a fair bit of impetus for the play and although Mr Hardy unfortunately won't be on stage with us it will be nice to work with a professional of some note."

Mr MacHutchon, 63, a corporate finance consultant, added: "To have him as a participant is to say the least flattering."

It will not be the first time that the audience's attention has been diverted off stage. Last year the Players staged a satire called Cut and Run about private medicine in the NHS.

• Robert Hardy – Draw Archers Draw
• Professor Ralph Griffiths – Owain Glyn Dŵr’s Revolt and Henry V’s War
• Jackson Webster Armstrong – Arrangements for Defense on the Anglo-Scottish Border during the Fifteenth Century
• Matthew Bennett - Generalship in the Wars of the Roses
• Dr. Helen Castor – The Paston Family and the Wars of the Roses
• David Santiuste – "Fighting 'fulle manly': the Wars of the Roses in Gregory's Chronicle
• Dr. Sean Cunningham – The Richard III Scholarship for Medieval Studies.

Andrew Stewart Jamieson is one of the few practitioners who combines the crafts of heraldic painting, calligraphy and manuscript illumination working today.

His website at www.medieval-arts.co.uk is a tour of pages of beautiful art depicted in heraldic illumination, calligraphy, illumination and heraldic illumination.Updated information on our student programs.

The Richard III Foundation is a non-profit educational organization. The Foundation sponsors two awards that are designed to assist graduate students of Medieval History.

The Richard III Foundation Scholarship for Medieval Studies is awarded annually to a graduate student who is writing a dissertation on an aspect of English history during the later middle ages (c1350-1500). Applications will be accepted from PhD candidates who are seeking to fund an extension year.

The Scholarship is intended to help a student meet the costs of research and/or living expenses. The successful applicant must be able to provide evidence of both academic excellence and financial need.

The deadline for applications is July 1st, 2007. The successful applicant will be notified by September 1st.

The Foundation also sponsors a smaller award to assist a graduate student with the costs of their research. Applicants should be studying an aspect of English history during the Yorkist period (c1450-1500).

The Loyal to the Truth Award is intended to help with the funding of a discrete, short-term project that is consistent with more general research aims. This award is not intended to provide assistance with general living expenses, although applicants should again be able to provide evidence of financial hardship.

Priority in this case will be given to applicants whose research projects are specifically related to the study of King Richard III and his reign.

The deadline for applications is April 30th, 2007. The successful applicant will be notified by June 1st.

For further details of both awards, and an application form, please contact Mr David Santiuste at david_santiuste@hotmail.com. Alternatively you may write to Mr Santiuste at: 19 Coningsburgh Road, Edenthorpe, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, UK, DN3 2JT

New Publication on Francis, Viscount Lovel by Joe Ann Ricca - published by The Richard III Foundation, Inc.

Francis, Viscount Lovel represents the Yorkist age in many ways. He should have been an important figure, and yet he was swept up in the passion and power struggles that were so typical of these years, where uncertainty about the rule was to dominate mens’ lives. In his early life, bereft of parents, he was nothing more than trading material of great value as people used his income to better themselves, from a Lancastrian family to a Yorkist one, from a follower of Warwick back to the Yorkist persuasion, until in his last years, he emerged as a person. His land and income had been freely enjoyed by Edward IV, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and the Fitzhugh’s, with no regard for his own wishes. But now, in close association with Richard, Duke of Gloucester, he began his own life. Apparently the two became good friends, for Richard bestowed honors on him and kept him close. Francis responded with loyalty.

Viscount Lovel was not a fighting man; there is no record of his knightly training, and none of battle experience. When Richard made him a banneret in Scotland, it was at Dumfries, and so he may have been involved in the taking of the castle, but this is not stated and was probably not a fact. He seems more to have been an administrative type, an executive, a friend and advisor. All the more of a surprise that after Richard’s death, he was outraged sufficiently enough to go into the field to organize a revolt. He seemed to do this for no other reason than outrage.

He secured money and men from Burgundy, then willingly surrendered power to the earls of Warwick and Lincoln, who, at that time, were no more than silent partners. His military experience was a mercenary captain. Even at the crowning of Edward VI in Ireland, although undoubtedly the stage manager, Lovel did not push himself to the front.

The appeal of Francis to Joe Ann Ricca may lie in the fact that after Richard’s death, Lovel remained loyal and determined to right a wrong when he could have made his peace with the new king and lived a safer, richer life. Instead he held off and did his best to organize a counter invasion that would drive Tudor out of England, back into exile and into the obscurity that he deserved.

His mission failed, and Francis disappears from our view, dead perhaps, perhaps an anonymous exile in perpetual fear of discovery. But in failure, Francis demonstrated that precious quality of loyalty to a man and a dream of better government. We know of no instance of simple greed or avarice, of false loyalty, of uncontrolled egotism. He made the history books as a failure, surrounded by failure, but we also see him as a success in one value that we admire, loyalty.

This book could not have been easy to write for the obvious lack of record. His beginnings are vague, his maturing years obscure, and in the end, he simply vanishes. His moment of fame is brief and glorious, but not of historical importance. It is important, though. He is the first of many who stand for Richard III after the King’s death, who say to the world that the black legend mantle belongs on the shoulders of Henry Tudor, usurper of little achievement.

The Lovel line extends through Buck to Markham to Tey to Kendall to Ricca; she had to write this book as a tribute to Sir Francis Lovel, a man who first honored Richard III in a most dramatic and selfless way.

To purchase a copy of the book, please contact us at Richard3Foundation@yahoo.com

EAGLE HOLDS CLUE TO BATTLE BY DAN MARTIN - 10:30 - 20 April 2007

A silver eagle unearthed by archaeologists could help settle a long-standing debate about one of the most important battles in English history.

More than 500 years after the Battle of Bosworth Field, experts are divided on where the clash took place.

The decisive clash of the Wars of the Roses, in 1485, led to the death of Richard III and the crown passing to Henry Tudor.

While many believe the conflict was settled on Ambion Hill, near Sutton Cheney, others claim the fight could have happened up to eight miles away, in Warwickshire.

A tiny heraldic trinket - an eagle with wings spread standing on a branch - could now be a key piece of evidence.

It was found by volunteers working for Leicestershire County Council who have been searching in the vicinity of the visitor centre at Ambion Hill.

They are two years into a three-year archeological survey of the area to pinpoint the battle's precise location.

The badge dates from the late 15th century.

Peter Liddle, keeper of archeology for the county council, said: "The item in itself is not valuable because, sadly, it is broken.

"It would, however, have belonged to a man of wealth - perhaps a retainer to a nobleman.

"Far more significant, though, is its age which matches the battle date exactly. It is the sort of thing that could easily get lost in
the melee.

"Of course we can't be sure how it got there. It is unusual because looters would have stripped the field of valuables.

"It is a straw in the wind, but it is exactly the right kind of
straw."

Heraldry experts have so far been unable to match the symbol to a noble known to have been at the battle.

Mr Liddle said: "We are feeling more confident now that we are closer to finding the right place than we have been before.

"We still have a year left and we hope to find more evidence."

Yesterday, the badge was declared an item of treasure at an inquest in Loughborough.

The court heard it was found in farmland by Richard McInder in December 2005 but has only recently been dated by the British Museum.

Mr McInder has waived his rights to a fee if the item is sold, but the landowner may still be paid a sum.

It is hoped the badge will eventually be displayed at the battlefield site's visitor centre.

Sutton Cheney resident Pauline Foster used to give guided walks at the site.

She said: "We know nobleman William Stanley was at the battle. He was a fence-sitter who only intervened when he saw it was going Henry's way. His family's symbol was an eagle.

"I take the view that if Richard and Henry were around today they wouldn't know exactly where they fought because the landscape has changed.

"I'm not sure the exact location is so important. It doesn't affect the political and historical significance that a king was killed."