Home World & Ancient Coins Forum

King Richard III , A Gold Angel found near the Battle of Bosworth Field 1485.

King Richard III , The Gold Angel & Battle of Bosworth Field.
22nd August 1485
Remarks surrounding the disappearance of King Edward’s children in the Tower of London.

www.petitioncrown.com

The GOLD ANGEL a coin as struck in the name of a King of Machiavellian intrigue and was found not far from the site of the battle. Richard III who took the Crown of England 500 years ago to become King and put the two young Princes of his late brother Edward IV in the Tower of London to achieve his ambition. Hated by many he was the last King to lose his life on the battlefield, having been King for just over two years.

King Richard III human remains were uncovered in September 2012 in what is now the car park of Leicester City Council’s social services department. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248448/Human-remains-Leicester-car-park-DO-belong-Richard-III--scientists-holding-findings-Channel-Four-documentary-aired-claims-insider.html
The body found in the car park has an arrow in its back – matching Richard’s death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. It also has scoliosis – severe curvature of the spine – tying in with the famous description by Shakespeare and others of the monarch as a hunchback.


In the summer of 1485, an unknown person lost a freshly minted angel near the site of the Battle of Bosworth in the county of Leicestershire. Was he one of Richard III’s or Henry Tudor’s soldiers making his way to do battle in the seemingly endless conflict of the ‘War of the Roses’, or was the coin lost whilst the previous owner was leaving to return home? We can never know if the coin witnessed the battle as the location itself has become the subject of considerable debate with at least three sites in contention. The currently favoured location is near Stoke Golding, two miles to the south-west of the previously accepted battle site on account of new archaeological evidence. But irrespective of the actual site of the battle, its loss so soon after being struck is a bonus for the modern collector as a piece of such quality is a rarity. Richard III’s wonderful ‘boar’s head’ mint mark is as clear as a summer day.


A gold ANGEL coin (1483-1485) with a value of 6 Shilling & 8d. Whoever owned such a coin was a person of wealth.
The image of the Archangel Saint Michael slaying a dragon, The image of an English galley with the monogram 'R' over “E” and a rose set below the main topmast, the ship surmounted by a shield bearing the King's arms, the legend inscribed
PER CRVCE TVA SALVA NOS XPC REDE.
RICARD DI GRA REX ANGL Z FRANC
A superb specimen Good EF Weight 5.16g
full flan, frosted surfaces, superb detail of mintmarks and St,Michael,
Unique ID: LEIC-E209C1


Bosworth was possibly England’s most important battle. The fortunes of the two Houses contesting the throne of medieval England were reversed; where history was about to have a change of author; where a rebel force defeated the King’s army which was twice its size; where King Richard III of England died on the battle field, and with this the Yorkist claim to the throne was effectively quashed. Like a phoenix from the ashes, Henry VII was to stake his claim to the English throne and reinstate the House of Lancaster as the Royal line following the deposition of Henry VI by Edward IV in 1461 and again in 1471.

Richard III made many enemies along the way, not least because he was not first in line for the throne and had acquired it under a cloud of suspicion. Richard as the brother of Edward IV, he was given custody of his nephews (Edward V and the Duke of York) on Edward IV death on 9th April 1483, but having locked them up in the Tower of London they disappeared and Richard acceded to the throne on 26th June that year.

Sir Robert Brackenbury (Master of the Money in the Tower) was the only person allowed to mint Angels. Brackenbury was also Constable of the Tower of London.

Whatever happened to the Princes in the Tower, Brackenbury as Constable of the Tower of London was party to the outcome of the fate of Richard III's nephews. Thomas More later says that after the coronation on 6 July 1483 while on his way to Gloucester, Richard ordered Sir James Tyrrell to go to Brackenbury with a letter by which he was commanded to deliver to Sir James all the keys of the Tower for one night, "to the end he might there accomplish the King’s pleasure".

When Richard III marched against the invader Henry, Brackenbury hurried himself to reach the King and arrived two days before the Battle of Bosworth Field (22 August 1485), he had joint command of Richard's vanguard; he took part in the final charge on Henry and was killed fighting beside Richard III.

A jig-saw of treachery, Richard was who was supposed to be the ‘protector’, created a web of mystery as to who gave the order for the death of the young Princes, children that should have been Kings of England.

Treachery and changing sides was the order of the day during the Wars of the Roses where nobody’s support could be taken for granted and none more so than during this final battle when Stanley’s soldiers changed sides, taking with them one third of Richard’s 12000 strong army thus providing Henry with the larger force. On seeing this defection, Richard’s reserves led by the Earl of Northumberland failed to join in battle and this proved decisive in sealing Richard’s fate after only a couple of hours.

With the defeat of Richard at Bosworth, the near 90 year old festering sore arising from the overthrow of Richard II by Henry IV was finally resolved when Henry Tudor married Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth in 1486, thus uniting the two warring factions.

Richard III is the subject of an eponymous play by William Shakespeare.

www.petitioncrown.com
A collection uploaded on www.petitioncrown.com is a fifty- year love affair with beautiful British coins, medals and Roman brass

Comments

Sign In or Register to comment.