42 



tlemen from the nortli of the name of Brecher, who had been taken 

 prisoners ; and sentencing to imprisonment for Ufa in the tower an 

 innocent and defenceless boy, Edward Plautagenet, Earl of Warwick, 

 whose only crime was his being the son of George, Duke of Clarence, 

 and the only surviving male of the royal house of Plantagenet, and 

 whom Henry very wickedly at last put to death in 1489. Henry also 

 caused an act of attainder^ to be passed by parliament, shortly after the 

 battle, in which he had a great number of persons who had been the 

 subjects and adherents of Richard III. attainted and declared guilty of 

 high treason, and all their lands and possessions confiscated, on the 

 alleged ground of their support of Richard against Henry ; although 

 Henry had never, previously to the Battle of Bosworth, been recognised 

 as King, nor had he even assumed the royal title or functions. It was, 

 therefore, not only an iniquitous proceeding, but was an insult to the 

 understandings of men, to treat any acts done by any persons in the ser- 

 vice of the then reigning king, at the Battle of Bosworth, as treasonable 

 actions committed against Henry. Those attainders and confiscations 

 affecting, as they did, the lives and property of many persons whom 

 Henry wished to destroy, or crush, were acts of gross despotism and 

 tyranny.' 



Many years ago I saw in the collection of Colonel Stretton, of Lenton 

 Priory, in Nottinghamshire, some spurs and bridle bits, said to be relics 

 of Bosworth Field ; and Grose, in his Military Antiquities, gives an 

 engraving of a helmet found there.' 



Many relics of the battle are described in Mr. Huttou's work, which 

 had been discovered there ; besides which, human bones were found 

 about four years ago, in cutting a drain in a field in front of the farm 

 house standing upon the slope of the hill, and called Amyon Hill Farm, 

 mentioned before, belonging to Mr. Stuart, and occupied by Mr. Brad- 

 field. The field whei'e they were discovered adjoins that in which 

 King Richard's Well is. 



Mr. John Rubley, informed me that he found, not many years 



Henry VII.— see Rot. Pari., 1 Henry VII. (a.d. 14S5), vol. vL, fo. 275; and in the 

 act of the reversal of the attainder in favour of his son and heir, George Catcsby, in 

 the eleventh year of the reign of Henry VII. — see Rot. Pari., 11 Henry VII. (a.d. 1495), 

 vol. vi., fo. 490, in ■which the latter is called, the son and heir "of WiUiani Catysby, 

 Squier," which seems tolerably conclusive of his not having been knighted. 



» Rot. Pari., 1 Henry VII. (m November, 1485), vol. v., p. 276. 



* As if to make the injustice and mockery of such a proceeding the more glaring, 

 the act of parliament states the battle to have been fought in the first year of Henry's 

 reign (1485) ; but it might perhaps have perplexed Henry, to have asked, him at what 

 exact date the first year of his reign commenced, and how men could commit treason 

 against him before the commencement of it. 



' Grose s "Mihtary Antiqviities, " vol. ii., p. 356, and plate 30. 



