Richard had a substantially larger army, and he held the defensive advantage. The battle took place in a field in Leicestershire near the town of Market Bosworth. The specifics of the engagement — the exact deployment of forces, the precise sequence of events — have been debated by historians, and archaeological work conducted at the Bosworth site in recent years has revised the traditional understanding of where the battle was actually fought.
What is consistent across accounts is that Richard’s position was undermined by the failure of key allies to commit their forces. The Stanleys — Thomas, Lord Stanley, and his brother Sir William — held large forces that could have decisively reinforced Richard’s army but instead held back, eventually intervening on Tudor’s side. The Earl of Northumberland’s forces similarly failed to engage. Whether these were preplanned betrayals or opportunistic decisions made in the course of the battle remains uncertain.
Richard made the decision to charge directly at Henry Tudor’s position, leading a cavalry attack aimed at ending the battle by killing or capturing the Tudor claimant. This charge nearly succeeded. Richard got close enough to engage Henry in personal combat; eyewitness accounts described the encounter, and Henry’s standard-bearer was killed. But Richard’s cavalry was cut off and surrounded, and he was killed in the fighting.
The manner of Richard’s death — a cavalry charge aimed at his rival’s position rather than a tactical retreat — has been interpreted in different ways. Some historians see it as the desperate gamble of a man who understood his political position was collapsing and chose to risk everything on a decisive blow. Others emphasize the element of chivalric tradition: the direct personal combat between leaders. The skeletal evidence — multiple blows to a head made vulnerable by the loss or removal of a helmet — is consistent with a man who rode into close quarters and was overwhelmed by multiple attackers once his cavalry charge was stopped.