Richard III and the Bosworth Campaign by Peter Hammond

Author:Peter Hammond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain
ISBN: 9781844687589
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2011-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

The Stanley Forces

Lord Stanley has been often credited with having as many as 5,000 men, but given that Richard had ordered the men of Lancashire and Cheshire to put themselves at the disposal of the two Stanley brothers, this seems a very modest number for him to have raised. He would probably have heard of Tudor’s landing very soon after it had happened. One of the Stanleys certainly raised troops from the city of Chester, as the sheriffs here were afterwards allowed a reduction of their fee farm since they had sent troops to help Henry in his ‘victorious journey’. Depending on which side he chose to support, Stanley obviously had the capacity either to even up the fight or to make one army overwhelmingly larger than the other. Vergil says that Sir William had 3,000 men under his command.6 Obviously Vergil might have downplayed the numbers of rebel troops and overplayed the numbers of the royal army, but given the speed at which the men had to be raised, and the fact that it was harvest time, when men would be reluctant to serve in any army, these figures seem reasonable.

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