Bosworth

Henry Tudor had spent fourteen years in exile in Brittany and France — a child claimant of the Lancastrian line, kept alive partly by his uncle Jasper Tudor and partly because the kings of France found him useful as leverage on the English crown. By 1485 Richard III had been on the throne of England for two years, his nephews dead in the Tower, his support among the great Yorkist magnates visibly thinning.

Henry landed at Mill Bay near Dale in Pembrokeshire on 7 August 1485 with around two thousand French and Scots troops and a small core of Welsh exiles. He marched up through Cardigan and Machynlleth, raising men under the red dragon standard of Cadwaladr, then east through Powys and across the English border at Shrewsbury. The Stanley brothers — Sir William Stanley and Thomas, Lord Stanley, Henry's stepfather — held the Cheshire and Lancashire forces and, until the morning of the battle, would not commit which way they would move.

The two armies met on flat farmland near the village of Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire on 22 August 1485. Henry's army numbered perhaps five thousand. Richard had ten thousand or more. Stanley had three thousand, sitting on a flank, watching. When Richard saw Henry's standard on the field he led a personal cavalry charge to try to kill him before Stanley could move. Stanley moved. Richard's charge broke against Henry's pikes; Richard was unhorsed, fought on foot, and was killed in the press. The crown — taken from his helmet, by tradition — was placed on Henry's head on a small rise that became known as Crown Hill.

Henry VII rode to London. The reign that began that morning lasted twenty-four years for him, and a hundred and eighteen for the dynasty he founded. Wales was incorporated into the kingdom of England by his son Henry VIII through the Acts of Union of 1536–1543; the Welsh language and the patronymic system survived because Welshmen had taken the throne, not despite it.