attempt an invasion in the following summer. To meet this he was driven to the expedient of a forced loan, too much like the benevolences that he had condemned in parliament, and this increased his unpopularity. Further, he seemed to have contemplated somehow getting rid of his queen, of whose barrenness he complained to Archbishop Rotherham and others, and marrying his niece Elizabeth. The queen actually died on 16 March—the day of an eclipse of the sun—and the talk about his intention was so strong that it dismayed for a time the Earl of Richmond in France; but the idea met with such opposition that he was obliged to deny publicly that he had ever entertained it. He sent Elizabeth to Sheriff-Hutton, where also he kept his brother Clarence's son Edward, earl of Warwick [q. v.] After his own son's death he had proclaimed the latter heir-apparent. But he now set him aside in favour of his other nephew, John, earl of Lincoln, the son of his sister Elizabeth by the Duke of Suffolk. He left London in the spring, and was at Nottingham again in June. He put Lord Lovel in command of a fleet at Southampton. On 22 June commissions of array were issued to every county, with orders for every one to be ready at an hour's warning, and next day the proclamation of December against Richmond and his adherents was renewed. Richmond, however, landed at Milford Haven on 7 or 8 Aug., and, notwithstanding some alarms of opposition, succeeded easily in about a week in reaching Shrewsbury, with a considerable accession made to his forces by Welsh chieftains whom Richard had too much trusted.
Richard was collecting an army at Nottingham, but the troops had not all come together. Among others he had required the presence of Lord Stanley out of Lancashire, but Stanley sent an excuse that he was ill of the sweating sickness. His son, Lord Strange, at the same time endeavoured to escape from the court, but being taken, confessed that he and his uncle, Sir William Stanley, had been in communication with the enemy. The young man, however, throwing himself on the king's mercy, offered the strongest assurances that his father at least would shortly bring his forces to Richard's aid. Richard took care to keep him safe as a hostage.
The intelligence that Henry had reached Shrewsbury struck Richard with dismay. He had heard of his landing, and yet had deferred for one day setting out against him, as the 15th was the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady. But hearing next that Henry had reached Lichfield, he set out for Leicester, his army drawn out in long array, with the baggage in the middle, he himself following on a great white courser with his bodyguard. His frowning countenance in this day's march was noted. He reached Leicester at sunset on the 20th, and marched out again on the morning of the 21st, at the head of a larger army, it was thought, than had ever before been seen in England. He wore his crown upon his head, and encamped at night at a spot some little way south of Market Bosworth. His adversary that same night encamped within three miles of him, and early on the 22nd both parties prepared for battle. Richard rose in the twilight, pale and haggard, disturbed, as he admitted, by fearful dreams, and said the issue of that day's conflict would be disastrous for England, whichever party prevailed. He summoned Lord Stanley, who had approached within a short distance of either camp, to join him at once. Stanley refused, and Richard ordered his son Strange to be at once beheaded; but the execution of the order was deferred in the preparation for battle. Richard occupied Ambien Hill, and there was a marsh between him and the enemy, along the side of which Henry led his men, leaving it to the right as a protection. But when he had passed it Richard ordered the attack, and a shower of arrows on either side began the engagement, backed up by some volleys of cannon from that of Henry. The armies then came to close quarters, and the Stanleys, both Lord Stanley and Sir William, joined Henry openly. Richard, finding his followers half-hearted, dashed over the hill against his antagonist in person, killed William Brandon, his standard-bearer, and threw to the ground Sir John Cheney, a man of great strength. Henry, however, maintained his own against him, till the coming up of Sir William Stanley changed the fortune of the day, and Richard was surrounded and killed.
After the battle his dead body was carried to Leicester, trussed across a horse's back, behind a pursuivant, and with a halter round the neck. After two days' public exposure it was buried there at the Grey Friars. But some years later Henry VII erected a fine tomb for him, with an effigy in alabaster, which was destroyed within fifty years after it was built, at the dissolution of the monasteries (Excerpta Historica, p. 105).
That Richard was an undersized, humpbacked man, with his left shoulder, as More tells us, higher than the right, has always been the tradition; and though doubts have been cast on his deformity, there is an interesting record of a petty squabble at York within six years after his death, in which he
