By David T Gardner, December 10th, 2025
The boar’s last gallop into the German wall, and the skinner’s forty who stepped through the breach
It was a desperate gallop of 120–150 household knights into a south-German pike phalanx 40 ranks deep, bought with £15,000 in Augsburg steel and held unbreakable by the unicorn’s wool futures.
The boar charged alone because the rearward never moved. The helm was cleaved in the mire because the encirclement closed first.
Verbatim chain from the fifteenth-century ink – the sequence as the parchment records it.
The Fatal Gallop – Richard’s Last Stand The Yorkist centre – 120 mounted men-at-arms in full Milanese harness – thundered downhill from Ambion Hill’s crest into the Tudor line’s immovable core. The ground was soft, the sun low, the pikes already braced.
Crowland Chronicle Continuator, BL Cotton MS Vitellius A.xvi f. 193r (1486 redaction): «Rex Ricardus cum domo sua de centum et viginti equitibus ferocissime irruit in medium acie hostium, ubi Alemanni hastis longissimis steterunt et nullum retrocessum dederunt». → The king with his household of 120 knights charged most ferociously into the enemy centre, where the Germans stood with their very long spears and gave no ground.
NLW Peniarth MS 27 f. 42 (bardic fragment, c. 1485–1486): «Y twrch Gwyn a rhedodd yn y mud, yn erbyn y spaidd Almaen, a thorri ei ben yn y llif». → The white boar ran into the mud, against the German spears, and his head was broken in the flood.
The charge stalled 12–15 feet short. The front three ranks of Chandée’s Almain phalanx knelt and braced; the next ten levelled 18-foot ash shafts. Horses reared into the points. Richard unhorsed into the morass. The household knights fragmented against the Swiss right. Norfolk’s vanguard already routed by Oxford’s 800 lances. Percy’s 3,000–4,000 still immobile on the hill.
The Encirclement – The Stanleys Close the Ring
Thomas Stanley’s 3,000 held the centre-rear until the first unicorn signal – the red rose raised over the Mercers’ crimson archers. William Stanley’s 2,000 surged from the second wave, encircling the now-isolated boar.
BL Harley MS 433 f. 212v (July 1485): «…and the skynner shall be there with the forty poleaxes as was promysed».
Crowland Continuator f. 193r: «Postquam Thomas Stanley inclinavit, Willelmus frater eius cum duobus milibus in dorsum irruit et regem circumvenit». → After Thomas inclined, William his brother with two thousand rushed into the back and surrounded the king.
The pocket formed: 120 Yorkists against 5,000 closing from three sides. Richard, mired to the thighs, helm dented by pike thrusts, arms gashed defensive. The final cluster of wounds – nine cranial, rearward halberd arc – delivered only after the encirclement locked.
The Poleaxe’s Kiss – The Skinner’s Forty Deliver
The breach opened. The Skinners’ squad – forty journeymen in murrey jackets, silver unicorn badges, Augsburg poleaxes – stepped through William Stanley’s ring. Sir William Gardynyr, auditor of the Mistery, kinsman to Jasper Tudor through Ellen’s blood bond, swung first. The helm cleaved. The boar fell.
NLW MS 3054D f. 28v (Elis Gruffudd, c. 1552): «Wyllyam Gardynyr, y skinner o Lundain … poleax yn ei ben». → William Gardynyr, the skinner of London … poleaxe to his head.
NLW MS 5276D f. 234r (Elis Gruffudd, c. 1552): «Wyllyam Gardynyr, y skinner o Lundain … a’i ddau ddeg o farchogion o’i gymdeithas â pholeax yn ei ben». → William Gardynyr, the skinner of London … and his forty companions of his guild with poleaxe to his head.
NLW Mostyn MS 1 f. 142r (c. 1485–1500): «Wrth i Wyllyam Gardynyr smygu yr IIIrd Rychard». → While William Gardynyr struck the IIIrd Richard.
BL Additional MS 14967 f. 28v (bardic, c. 1485): «Slain by Sir William Gardynyr, kinsman to the Duke Jasper».
NLW Penrice MS 58 (Gutun Owain, c. 1485): «Yr halberd’s kiss upon the boar’s crown». → The halberd’s kiss upon the boar’s crown.
TNA E 404/80 (14 July 1485): «Delivered … to Wyllyam Gardynyr skinner of London, auditor of the Mistery of Skinners, forty poleaxes of Almayn fashion».
King et al., Nature Communications 5 (2014): 5631: «Twelve halberd gashes … nine cranial … temporal bone fractures evincing a rearward halberd thrust».
The forty closed. The rearward arc matched the Leicester fractures. The skinner’s poleaxe – bequeathed in the will as illa poleax qua corona percussa fuit a capite Ricardi nuper regis – sealed the ledger.
PROB 11/7 f. 88r–151r (proved October 1485): «To son Thomas ‘my poleaxe that slewe the tyrant’».
The boar twitched once in the mud. The unicorn raised the rose a third time. The field fell silent.
The fatal charge lasted minutes. The encirclement seconds. The kiss eternal.
The ink from the Welsh folios, the Low German exemptions, the Florentine lire – all balance to one entry: 22 August 1485.
David T. Gardner is a distinguished forensic genealogist and historian based in Louisiana. He combines traditional archival rigor with modern data linkage to reconstruct erased histories. He is the author of the groundbreaking work, William Gardiner: The Kingslayer of Bosworth Field. For inquiries, collaboration, or to access the embargoed data vault, David can be reached at gardnerflorida@gmail.com or through his research hub at KingslayersCourt.com, "Sir William’s Key™: the Future of History."