As usual, Osprey’s Campaign series does an excellent job of presenting the background and people involved in the battle in question. In this case, the later stages of the Wars of the Roses, and Richard III’s reign are covered very well. There is a lot that cannot be known through the distorting lens of Tudor propaganda, but some good points are made.
The general course of Henry Tudor’s landing and march into central England are handled well (I like the Campaign series in general because it is as much about the maneuvering to battle as much as the battle itself), with the usual excellent maps. There are also several very nice two-page spread original color paintings by Graham Turner scattered throughout, instead of art borrowed from previous books. There are two problems here: One, they usually have a paragraph or so of the main text over part of the art, and the contrast is often low enough to make reading the text difficult. Two, the people, even when they are supposed to be in motion, look posed. Other than that, they’re fine pieces, but my eyes are trained by an artist also educated as an animator; these people don’t look like they’re moving.
A final problem is that the book was published in 1999, and a couple surveys conducted since then indicate the battle may have been fought about two miles from where it was previously believed to be. It is still worth picking up, especially if found cheap, but I hope that once the resulting arguments start working their way through academia, Osprey will release a new edition of the volume.
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