Arms and Armour Research Group

Projects

BOSWORTH 1485: A BATTLEFIELD REDISCOVERED

On 23^rd August 1485 Richard III was killed in battle and Henry VII was crowned as the first of a new Tudor dynasty. In recent centuries the true site of this iconic English battle was lost. Long thought to have been fought on Ambion Hill, near Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire, in 1985 one historian challenged the accepted story. This set off a quarter century of dispute with alternative sites scattered across more than six kilometres of western Leicestershire.

Between 2005-2010, a team led by Dr Glenn Foard applied the techniques of battlefield archaeology to resolve the problem. The work was for the Battlefields Trust, commissioned by Leicestershire County Council with Heritage Lottery funding.

The original documents for the battle and the armies were reviewed; map reconstructions of the historic landscape of five townships were prepared from archaeological and documentary evidence; and archaeological reconnaissance survey with metal detectors tested an area of six square kilometres. On the 1^st March 2009 the site was finally found, when artillery round shot began to be recovered on the very western edge of the survey area – in a location never before suggested as the site of the battle.

Between March 2009 and December 2010 we recovered 34 lead projectiles - more than from archaeological survey on all 15^th & 16^th century battlefields in Europe put together. They were accompanied by a small number of other distinctive objects which confirm beyond reasonable doubt that this is the site of the battle of Bosworth field.

The definitive find, from beside a former area of marsh on the eastern edge of the round shot scatter, is a badge in the form of a boar. This was Richard III’s own badge, given in large numbers to his supporters.

But this is silver-gilt and so would almost certainly have been worn by knights in the king’s own retinue. Did this man ride with Richard to his death in the desperate cavalry charge, launched in a last bid to kill Henry as victory was falling from his grasp? But they were driven back and the king was cut down as his horse became stuck in a mire. This badge and all the other battle archaeology fits neatly within the reconstructed terrain in exactly the way the battle accounts suggest the action should. But the battlefield lies 3km from the traditional site on Ambion Hill!

The Bosworth study is one of the most vivid demonstrations of the potential of battlefield archaeology to resolve long standing problems of military history. But it also offers far more. The discovery of well preserved lead round shot has enabled us to develop at Huddersfield a new strand of archaeologically led research into the Origins of Firepower on the battlefields of Europe.

The Bosworth study will be published in 2013 as a jointly authored book by Dr Glenn Foard & Professor Anne Curry.

 

View the article here (PDF)

 

Diving into the past 

Treasures retrieved from sailing vessels wrecked in treacherous waters off the Florida coast are to be analysed by experts at the University of Huddersfield.  They won’t be getting their hands on gold, silver or casks of fabulous jewels.  But to members of the Arms and Armour Research Group, the artefacts they will examine are equally precious.

The group, which includes historians, scientists and specialists in weaponry, has been forging important international links.  And the  latest is with the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society, a not-for-profit organisation which runs a massively popular museum at Key West, in Florida.  It is named after its benefactor, a diver who combed the seas off the Florida coast in search of sunken ships.  One of his most spectacular finds was a Spanish galleon named the Atocha, sunk in 1622.

But although Mel Fisher was a professional treasure hunter, he also dreamed of a museum and educational facility that would enable the public to learn about his undersea world.  It was established in 1982 and Mel Fisher – who died in 1998 – endowed it with a large collection of objects that he had discovered and they help to attract visitor numbers of 200,000 a year.

The Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society continues its underwater research. “But for us it’s not about finding treasure but finding historical events that helped shape the way that we look at the past,” says Corey Malcom, who is the Society’s Director of Archaeology.  “So for us a slave ship, for example, is just as valuable as a treasure-laden galleon.”

 He has recently become the first scholar to enrol in a PhD programme set up jointly by the University of Huddersfield’s Arms and Armour Research Group and its partners the Frazier International History Museum in Kentucky.  As part of this latest collaboration, members of the research group and Corey Malcom will be working together on weaponry retrieved from a Spanish ship named the Santa Clara that was sunk in 1564.  Records show that all of the crew were saved when they were taken on board a nearby ship, but they had to leave the entire contents of the Santa Clara behind them.

And they include artillery, firearms, swords, crossbow and armour – exactly the sort of artefacts that the Arms and Armour Research Group are eager to analyse.  The Rev Paul Wilcock, a Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield who leads the group, has already paid an initial visit to the Mel Fisher museum and has just welcomed Corey Malcom on a first visit to Huddersfield.

Corey explained that the wreck of the Santa Clara was discovered in the early 1990s  and over the years thousands of items were brought to the surface.  Then came the long process of cleaning, stabilising and restoring the objects.  Now it is time to analyse the finds and see what story they have to tell.

A fatal combination of submerged reefs and frequent hurricanes means that the Florida Keys and the Florida Straits are riddled with shipwrecks, according to Corey Malcom.

“The wrecks aren’t easy to discover,” he says. “They are buried under the sand and are broken up pretty badly and it takes a lot of work to find them.

“People have this cartoon image of shipwrecks – sharks swimming through them... skeletons... tattered sails and so on.  But it’s nothing like that because they are levelled out, completely flattened.

Nevertheless, when discovered, the wrecks yield wonderful artefacts and fascinating information about the Spanish colonial period and the Transatlantic slave trade.

“You can think of these wrecks as time capsules,” says Corey Malcom. 

“Imagine a small floating town out in the middle of the ocean that is suddenly dashed to the sea floor in an instant.  As a result you have this wonderful view of how people lived their lives at this time and the values they had – economic systems, technological systems, even their artistic values.  So really, shipwreck archaeology offers an almost more complete view into the times than land archaeology does.”

 

Frazier museum Executive Director joins Arms and Armour Research Group

Research into weaponry and war must have an American dimension and the Arms and Armour Research Group has welcomed a US expert into its ranks.

Dr Madeleine Burnside is Executive Director of the Frazier International History Museum in Kentucky.  This popular museum was endowed by philanthropist and weapons collector Owsley Brown Frazier – whose family company distils the famous Jack Daniels whiskey and the exclusive Woodford Reserve – and is located in three historic warehouses in Louisville, a city with a central location that made it strategically important in conflicts such as the American Civil War.

The Royal Armouries, based in Leeds, the Tower of London and at Fort Nelson near Portsmouth, Hampshire, forged a link with the Frazier International History Museum, and the University of Huddersfield’s Paul Wilcock – an expert on swords and Head of the Arms and Armour Research Group – was invited to become an historical consultant on the academic advisory board of the US museum.

The next chain in the link was an invitation to Madeleine to join the Arms and Armour Research Group as a Visiting Research Fellow.  She has just paid her first visit to the University of Huddersfield, where she lectured students on the theme of placing arms and armour in their historical context.

 “It is important for the research group to have an American connection,” says Madeleine.  “If you are looking at the history of arms in the nineteenth century in particular you have to go to the States because that is where the innovations were being made.”  

New developments such as the Colt revolver were among the technical breakthroughs that helped to fuel the Civil War, argues Madeleine, because now almost everybody could get their hands on a weapon and take part in the conflict.

 “The Wild West was a direct consequence of the Civil War,” she adds.  “A lot of the young Confederates who maybe joined the army at the age of 17 were out again when they were 22 and knew no other lifestyles than to be essentially a guerrilla fighter.  It was very hard for someone like that to go back into society as a farmer or whatever.  A lot of them tried that, but couldn’t handle it.  They were used to solving things with violence, so they became outlaws and had a short but colourful career!”

The holdings of the Frazier Museum include many weapons and artefacts closely linked to episodes of US history.  They include pistols believed to have been owned by General Custer, a war bow attributed to Geronimo, a sword that belonged to Josiah Bartlett, one of the USA’s founding fathers, and – more peacefully – Daniel Boone’s family bible.

An entire floor at the Frazier Museum is filled with artefacts loaned by the Royal Armouries, covering an immense sweep of British history.

Currently, Madeleine Burnside’s own principal area of research is the early history of the slave trade and she has worked on artefacts, including shackles, recovered from a British slave ship, the Henrietta Marie, which sank of the coast of Florida in 1700.

Madeleine was welcomed to Huddersfield by The Rev’d Paul Wilcock, Director of Student Services and a Research Fellow in Department of History. 

Paul, who is one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Arms and Armour Research Group with the Royal Armouries, was delighted with the Frazier connection.  Says Paul: “The huge benefit of having Madeleine join us is that her academic expertise stretches the parameters of the Research Group into different fields.  Until now we had nobody who dealt with US history, the history of slavery and early naval history.”

 

The Yeoman Warder Oral History Project

The Yeoman Warder Oral History Project, based at the Arms and Armour Research Group and the Centre for Oral History Research at the University of Huddersfield, will investigate the lives of Yeoman Warders at Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London.  The project began in May 2010 and is the outcome of collaboration between the University of Huddersfield and Historic Royal Palaces.  Yeoman Warders (colloquially known as ‘Beefeaters’) are a quintessential part of British history.  The Yeoman Warders have their origins with the monarch’s own personal body guards, the Yeoman of the Guard, a military corps whose roots can be traced back to 1485.  Yeoman Warders and Yeoman of the Guard are often confused, probably because both bodies share virtually the same red and gilt ceremonial uniform and are popularly called ‘Beefeaters’.  Gilbert and Sullivan also perpetuated this common mistake in their operetta, The Yeoman of the Guard, which is set in the Tower of London.  The Yeoman Warders, however, are a distinct cadre whose historic duties rested entirely with guarding the Tower of London. The Tower was used as a Royal Palace until the sixteenth century, and also as a prison, where state prisoners were held. The Tower has long ceased to be used as a royal residence or a prison and the duties of the Yeoman Warder now focus on maintaining the security of the Tower around the clock and explaining its history to the large number of visitors who arrive daily.

The Yeoman Warders have two distinct uniforms.  The full Tudor State Dress, which is the familiar ‘red and gilt’ uniform that  Yeoman Warders have worn since 1549 and a less elaborate blue and red daily working uniform.  The daily working uniform was a privilege granted to them after a visit to the Tower by Queen Victoria in 1858.   The distinction between the ceremonial dress worn by members of the Yeoman of the Guard (based at St James Palace) and Yeoman Warders is a Cross Belt, which is worn by the former cadre from the left shoulder to the right hand side. In January 2007 Moira Cameron made history by becoming the first female Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. She wears exactly the same blue and red ‘undress’ uniform as the male warders.

The Yeoman Warders have become a tourist attraction in their own right and one of the ‘must see’ sights of London.  Unlike the ‘reinvented’ late nineteenth-century traditions of royal pageantry described by the historian, David Cannadine, many of the ceremonies connected to the Tower of London and performed by Yeoman Warders are of significantly greater antiquity.   The Ceremony of the Keys is said to have been performed nightly for the last 700 years, unbroken except by incendiary bombs dropped during the Second World War. It is now the  longest continuous Military Ceremony held anywhere in the world.  The ceremony welcoming new Yeoman Warders and the ritual ‘Beating of the Bounds,’ are also part of a centuries old tradition. The Beating of the Bounds takes place every three years on Ascension day, while the swearing in of a new Yeoman Warder takes place on Tower Green on average two or three times a year. At least once a year the Ceremony of the Constables Dues takes place when a Ship of the Line visits London.   The participation of Yeoman Warders in the rich ceremonial life of the Tower adds to their popular appeal. Their distinctive Tudor costumes and their highly visible role at the historic Tower of London have made them iconic symbols of ‘Britishness’.  Yet we have very little knowledge of the Yeoman Warders as individuals.  This oral history project will give a unique insight into the life of the Yeoman Warder and shed light on popular ideas of British identity.

 Photographs   © - Historic Royal Palaces

 

HENRY VIII – Dressed to Kill

White Tower, Tower of London
3 April 2009 – 17 January 2010

A stunning new exhibition in the iconic White Tower at the Royal Armouries, Tower of London.

Come and discover a slim, handsome Henry VIII with a lust for weapons and sport.

Marvel at the flexibility of his armour, take a look behind the scenes of a jousting tournament, learn about the chivalry and pageantry of the times and uncover the stories hidden in the famous painting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Come and be amazed by the events of 500 years ago.

 

Please NOTE: Material on these pages is copyright Historic Royal Palaces and University of Huddersfield and may not be reproduced without permission.