Richard III: The Road To Bosworth Field

by P.W. Hammond, Anne F. Sutton

This book was published to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Richard's death at the Battle of Bosworth; it is superbly illustrated and some of the pictures were produced especially for this book.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Medieval, Own

240 pages, Hardcover

First published August 19, 1985

About the author

Peter W. Hammond is a medieval historian and a leading authority on the reign of Richard III. For thirty years he was research officer of the Richard III Society and he is currently President of the society.

Reviews

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

a collection of contemporaneous sources, spanning richard iii's life, but mostly i just had a lot of fun reading 15th century spellings. qwhen (queen), thexcersysyng (the exercising), erledomez (earldoms), & schalbe (shall be) were all highlights.

[Pauline Calkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Various sources are quoted and organized in this work to set forth an account of the life of Richard III. As one reviewer noted, this is not so much a biography as a resource book consisting of transcribed or translated documents, principally various government documents but also including excerpts from the Croyland Chronicle, Mancini, Virgil as well Richard’s own letters. The full test of Titulus Regius is set forth as well as the statutes forbidding benevolences and forbidding forfeiture of a person’s property prior to his conviction of a crime. Richard was committed to uphold the law and proper procedures, as illustrated by the account of his calling together all his justices and posing questions about several cases. The account concludes: “And this is the king’s will, to wit, to say ‘by his justices’ and ‘by his law’ is to say one and the same thing.” The full test of the famous prayer in Richard’s book of Hours is also given. He prays that God bring concord between him and his enemies and destroy the hatred they bear against him.

The authors provide minimal commentary to give context to the documents presented. The book contains ample illustration of places, portraits, and objects associated with Richard. Reading these documents reinforced my impression of Richard as a thoughtful and well intentioned man: pious and devoted to justice. He may have come off as something of a prig, but even in that I always think of the letter he wrote Russell about Thomas Lynmon’s desire to marry Jane Shore: try to talk him out of it, but if you can’t, he has my consent. I must admit that it was not easy reading with the inconsistent spellings and often convoluted phrasing, but it is a volume that Ricardians will want to have in their libraries.

[Lezley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting if you are fixated on Richard III. A lot of the book is written in Old English and takes time to decipher e.g. We wolle & charge you to deliver unto the bringere hereof... However, that said, it's a good book with some remarkable pictures.