Bosworth Eagle Badge LEIC-4405A7

This is part of a silver-gilt livery badge, which would have been worn by a high ranking member of a household of one of the main players in the battle of Bosworth. It appears to show an eagle with a snake in its mouth. Along with the Bosworth Boar and the lead shot scatter, it was one of the key objects found during the Bosworth Survey that helped us locate the Battlefield.

Since it was found, members of the survey team have been working with experts trying to identify it. We now believe that it is part of the livery of Arthur Plantagenet. As his name suggests he was linked to royalty, indeed he was the illegitimate son of a king, Edward IV. Edward was king before his brother Richard and was the father of the ‘princes in the tower’.

There is no record of Arthur being present at Bosworth, but he was of fighting age, being born between 1461 and 75. We know he survived and served in the court of his half-sister Elizabeth of York and became an Esquire of the King’s Bodyguard to his nephew Henry VIII, to whom he was a close companion. He died of a heart attack in 1540, two days after being released from the Tower, after being held (incorrectly) on suspicion of Treason over Calais, where he was born and had been Constable.

Found by the Bosworth Survey team 2006, the eagle can be seen at Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre