Battle of Bosworth Field of visible combat. Despite the dramatic licences taken, Shakespeare's version of the Battle of Bosworth was the model of the event for English textbooks for many years during the 18th and 19th centuries. This glamorised version of history, promulgated in books and paintings and played out on stages across the country, perturbed humorist Gilbert Abbott à Beckett. He voiced his criticism in the form of a poem, equating the romantic view of the battle to watching a "fifth-rate production of "Richard III"": shabbily costumed actors fight the Battle of Bosworth on-stage while those with lesser roles lounge at the back,
Richard III (1699 play) in the original version. Around the middle of the eighteenth century, David Garrick began to establish himself at the London stages, and eventually became one of the most widely known actors for the role of Richard III. In 1745, William Hogarth, generally considered the most influential painter of his generation, painted Garrick in his role as Richard II. The role became the one Garrick was most famous for, and the painting one of the best known images of the 18th-century theatrical world. The painting shows Richard III in the tent scene, in which he is haunted by the ghosts of