Battle of Bosworth Field certain details of the battle. The multitude of different accounts, mostly based on second- or third-hand information, has proved an obstacle to historians as they try to reconstruct the battle. Their common complaint is that, except for its outcome, very few details of the battle are found in the chronicles. According to historian Michael Hicks, the Battle of Bosworth is one of the worst-recorded clashes of the Wars of the Roses. Henry tried to present his victory as a new beginning for the country; he hired chroniclers to portray his reign as a "modern age" with its dawn in 1485.
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,