The Battle of Bosworth Field

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Battle of Bosworth Field, the celebrated encounter between Lancastrian and Yorkist forces in August 1485. The battle, the penultimate of the Wars of the Roses, resulted in the death of Richard III. The victory of Henry Tudor enabled him to succeed Richard as monarch and establish the Tudor dynasty which was to rule for over a century. These events were immortalised by Shakespeare in Richard III, and today the battle is regarded as one of the most important to have taken place on English soil. But little is known about what happened on the battlefield, and the very location of the encounter remains the subject of much debate.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Anne Curry 4 episodes
  Professor of Medieval History and Dean of Humanities at the University of Southampton
• Steven Gunn 3 episodes
  Tutor and Fellow in Modern History at Merton College, Oxford
• David Grummitt No other episodes
  Lecturer in British History at the University of Kent

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Programme ID: b01ghc43

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ghc43

Auto-category: 942 (British history during the Tudor period)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, 118 years of Tudor rule began in a field in Leicestershire on the 22nd of August 1485.