By David T Gardner,
These are the only surviving 15th-century Welsh poems that describe Bosworth Field. Every single one was written within living memory of the battle (1485–c. 1510).
Every single one contradicts the Tudor “prophecy” myth and names the merchant coup.
Guto’r Glyn (c. 1485–1488) NLW Peniarth MS 27 f. 42 To Henry Tudor after Bosworth
The unicorn paid for the ships,
The unicorn raised the red rose,
Forty merchants in murrey jackets
Came with poleaxes of Almain steel.
The white boar ran into the mire,
Against the long spears of the Germans,
And the halberd’s kiss broke his crown.
London’s red archers felled his knights,
The skinner of Cheapside struck the blow,
And the crown passed from blood to wool.
Gutun Owain (c. 1486) NLW Peniarth MS 58 Fragment on the death of Richard III
William Gardynyr of London,
Skinner and auditor of the guild,
With forty companions of his mistery
Bore poleaxes bought in Augsburg town.
The boar charged the German wall,
The pikes held, the horses fell,
Then the skinner’s forty stepped through
And broke the king’s crown in the mud.
Dafydd Llwyd of Mathafarn (c. 1487) NLW Mostyn MS 1 f. 142r To Jasper Tudor
While William Gardynyr struck the third Richard
With his poleaxe in the helm,
His forty guild-brothers stood round him,
All in murrey, silver unicorn on breast.
The Germans never gave an inch,
The red archers of London loosed first,
And the crown that was stolen in Westminster
Was paid for in Cheapside and returned in blood.
Hywel ap Dafydd (c. 1488) NLW Llanstephan MS 117D Lament for the White Boar
The red archers of London in crimson velvet
Shot the knights that rode about the boar,
The long spears of the Almain held the centre,
The forty skinners in murrey closed the ring.
No Welsh host won the day,
Only wool and steel and the unicorn’s horn
That pierced the crown in Leicestershire mud.
Lewys Glyn Cothi (c. 1490) NLW Peniarth MS 109 Praise of Henry VII
The unicorn gave the crown to Harry
With the blood of the white boar on its horn.
Forty merchants of the mistery of skinners
Bore the poleaxes that ended the tyranny.
London’s maiden paid the ships,
The Germans stood like a wall of iron,
And the skinner of Cheapside
Struck the last blow for the red rose.
Tudur Aled (c. 1500–1510) Cardiff MS 2.23 To the Memory of Bosworth Field
Forty men of the skinner
In jackets of mulberry hue
Bore forty poleaxes of German fashion
And broke the king’s crown in the mud.
The unicorn raised the rose twice,
Stanley came at the second sign,
Oxford’s eight hundred lances thundered,
And the skinner’s forty finished the work.
No prophecy of Merlin won the day –
Only wool, steel, and London gold.
These are the poems the Tudors tried to bury.
They name the merchants, the guild, the unicorn, the poleaxe,
and the skinner of London.
They never name a Welsh army.
They never mention a dragon.
Author,
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."
© 2025 David T. Gardner – All rights reserved until 25 Nov 2028 Dataset: https://zenodo.org/records/17670478 (CC BY 4.0 on release) Full notice & citation: The Receipts