An Imagined Dialogue
Scene: ‘Crown Hill’ – Stoke Golding, England after the Battle of Bosworth 1485 (written while living at the location of ‘Crown Hill’ in Stoke Golding, December 2020).
Lord Stanley: Upon this place today is discovered a new king of England – as one that will honour all the pledges of fair justice and lay the hand of peace upon our troubled land – today and in days to come.
As we are gathered close around him now – having given service of all that we had to offer – gladly – we recover evermore our strength and cherish those in memory and future deeds – the fallen in our noble cause today.
It is a token of our fealty that we raise the injured crown high to receive God’s grace that will burn bright its metal in the summer’s light that has been oft been masked and shielded from our eyes.
In the placing of this crown – thus – we commend all this day to the mercy of a worthy victor and kneel one and all in observance of this.
Henry Tudor: Friends – arise this day as one company in my service – where all loyalties will be measured and losses restored in fit measure.
Our way is clear to London now, and coronation on a finer field than this. We will sanction safe burial of the vanquished one, as I do command it so. And all the fallen hereabouts shall be dutifully consigned to rest near where the battle raged. And those that about this place that have lived in quiet ways until this fateful day no doubt will gladly give assistance in this measure.
But let this place – the Hill of the Crown- keep memory of the turning of the tide in history that leads to the victory of a settled land wherein the progress of our realm can ever prosper.
