heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

76 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
convenient to temporise, as his son, Lord Strange, was now a hostage in
the King's hands.
" For some time," Stowe says, " he inclined to neither party ; " but
the day before Bosworth, with his brother William, he had an interview
at Adderstone with the Earl of Richmond, secretly, in consequence of
Richard's threat to kill his son. His nephew, Sir John Savage, joined the
Earl at the same time, and to him was assigned the command of the
left
wing of his army.
On the following day Lord Stanley, with his brother, Sir William,
with 3,000 men, accompanied Henry; and Stowe records that "the armies
"joyned and came to hand stroke, at which encounter the Lord Stanley
" joyned with the Earl." Indeed, his forces ultimately decided the fortunes
of the day, for Stowe adds that Henry's army, "being almost in despair
" of victory, were suddenly recomforted by Sir William Stanley, which came
" to succour with 3,000 tall men." The whole conflict endured little above
" " two hours ; and then Richard was slain, and the crown which he had
worn on his helmet being found in a bush, was placed by Lord Stanley
on his head amidst the shouts of the victorious army.
King Henry VII. was neither slow nor niggardly in recompensing
those who had so opportunely and efficiently served him. Lord Stanley
was made Earl of Derby, Lord High Steward at the King's coronation,
and Constable of England for life, besides being godfather at the christening
of the young Prince Arthur. To Sir John Savage were granted the
manors and estates in Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, and Shropshire, which
had until then belonged to Francis, Viscount Lovel. He had been conspicuous
for his attachment to the late King; for Stowe says, "In these
" daies were chief rulers about the King, the Lord Lovel and two gentle-
"men, being named Sir Richard Radcliffe and Sir William Catesby, of
" the which persons was made a seditious rime, and fastened upon the
" crosse in Cheape and other places of the city, whereof the sentence was
" as folioweth :
'
The cat, the rat, and Lovel our dogge,
Rulen all
England under an hogge.'
"
Lovel, however, is mentioned by Stowe as " amongst them that ran
" "
away at Bosworth. For the time he saved his life, but, if tradition be
true, only for a worse and ignoble fate, for it is said that in 1708,* upon
occasion of new laying a chimney at Minster Lovel, there was discovered
a large vault underground, in which was the entire skeleton of a man, as
having been sitting at a table which was before him, with a book, paper,
pen, &c. ;
in another part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldered and
decayed, which the family and others judged to be this Lord Lovel whose
exit has hitherto been so uncertain. Hence it has been concluded that it
* Burke's Extinct Peerage.