Blue Plaque 8 - Crown Hill

This plaque mounted on a brick pillar at the entrance to the aptly named ‘Crown Hill Bungalow. on Station Road, commemorates the Coronation of King Henry Vll the first of the Tudor Monarchs, on Crown Hill, following The Battle of Bosworth Field, on 22nd August 1485.

The whole area of Crown Hill can best be seen and the whole panoply of the event imagined by taking a short walk along the canal from the bridge on Station Road, towards Dadlington.

On that fateful day of battle, just eighty five years after Thomas Barton had signed his Charity deed, the inhabitants of Stoke Golding learned of the death of their Plantagenet King, Richard lll.

Amid great excitement and anticipation many had crowded into the Church of St Margaret of Antioch for safety and to pray. The battlements of that Church were crowded with onlookers, who, at that short distance could see the dust of battle and hear the faint cries of engagement. The defeat of Richard’s men could clearly be seen, perhaps even the final charge and death of the King himself. And then? Silence, and a brief period of waiting before into the village came fleeing soldiers of Richard’s vanquished army closely followed by the victors, under Henry Tudor. Men at arms, with swords and bows and arrows, bloodstained and dusty. There were the knights, in bright and polished armour, on richly caparisoned steeds, and following at a distance came all the baggage of an army on the move.

Into the village clattered the Tudor victors with Henry in the lead. Wishing to rest a while and take food and water they no doubt took advantage of the springs and wells of Stoke Golding and the villagers no doubt wished to show their allegiance to their new King.

On Crown Hill Field within a few yards of the village church, where a few thousand men could gather, a table and chair were fetched from a nearby farmhouse. There on Crown Hill Field, Sir Richard Bray, one of the Knights, produced 'the battered circlet' worn by Richard when he fell, which was said to have been found in a hawthorn bush after the heat of the battle, and placed it upon Henry's head.

Then, we are told, there broke out a mighty cheer, which extended throughout all the King’s scattered troops, and the field became known as Holloa Meadow. There was then a thanksgiving and the ‘Te Deum’ was sung. Did the new King attend The Church of St Margaret afterwards? It seem unlikely that he cannot have done so.  After the Battle, pits were prepared around the village for the reception of the dead, and various hollows which appeared in certain places are said to have been caused by these burials. About 1000 men died in the battle and Henry’s army did not escape unscathed, when an attack of the ‘sweating sickness’ killed many of his men on the march from Stoke Golding to London.  It is said that the table used for the Coronation was preserved in an
Atherstone house and the chair is also in Warwickshire at Maxstoke Castle. Tradition has it too, that a field in Stoke Golding called ‘The Dining Room’ marked the spot where the soldiers fed before the battle.  It is also said that the deep grooves in the stones beneath the windows of the Church of St Margaret were caused by the sharpening of swords in preparation for the battle.

Whilst the accession of Henry brought in that great Tudor dynasty, no one can doubt the bravery of King Richard, who, it is alleged, said, “Bring me my battle axe in my hand and set the crown of gold upon my head, for by Him that shope, both se and land, Kynge of England this day will I dye, one foote away I will not fle, whill brethe whil byde my brest within”.

Blue Plaque 9

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