← Back to the front page

Tolkien vs. Disney and Other Major Historic Feuds

Khalid Elhassan August 20, 2021 37 min

Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby. Luminarium

6. The Betrayal That Ended a Feud and a Dynasty

King Richard III and Henry Tudor met at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22^nd, 1485, but the king’s reluctant ally, Thomas Stanley, was still undecided. So he kept his armed contingent to one side of field, and waited to see who looked like a winner. Richard sent Stanley a message that ordered him to immediately attack the Lancastrians, and threatened to execute his son if he did not. The earl coolly replied: “Sire, I have other sons“. A livid Richard ordered the execution of Stanley’s son, but the order was not immediately carried out, and before long, it was too late. As the afternoon wore on, Stanley made up his mind that Richard was losing the battle, so he ordered an attack – against Richard and the Yorkist forces.

King Richard III's final charge at the Battle of Bosworth - his death ended the feud at the heart of the Wars of the Roses — King Richard III’s final charge at the Battle of Bosworth. Steam Community

Stanley’s betrayal decisively tipped the scales in favor of Henry Tudor, and against Richard III. The king launched a fierce attack in a desperate attempt to reach and cut down his rival, but was cut down himself. After Richard’s death, Stanley found his fallen crown in some bushes, and personally placed it on the head of Henry Tudor, henceforth King Henry VII. Stanley’s stepson and new king of England brought the intra-Plantagenet feud to end when he ended the Plantagenet dynasty and replaced it with his own House of Tudor. As to Stanley, treachery paid well, and he was handsomely rewarded by his son-in-law for his betrayal of King Richard.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.