On the morning of Sunday, the 21st of August, about three weeks after his landing, Richmond, having marched from Milford Haven without a check, encamped in Leicestershire at a place then known in the locality as Whitemoors, and erected his standard on the margin of a rivulet now known in the locality as the Tweed. To the north of Richmond's camp was a morass, and beyond the morass a spacious plain nearly surrounded by hills. At the farthest verge of these hills, about three miles north from the camp, but concealed from view by the elevated ground that intervened, was a little town, to which the inhabitants of that part of Leicestershire were long in the habit of repairing weekly to market. Since that time, however, the name of that market-town has become famous as the scene of a great battle, which destroyed a dynasty and overturned a throne. It was Bosworth. CHAPTER XLIX. RICHARD BEFORE BOSWORTH. While Oxford was leaving Hammes, and Richmond was at Paris maturing his projects, and Reginald Bray was carrying messages from the English malcontents to the Welsh earl, the king appears to have been unaware of the magnitude of his danger. Richard was not, however, the man to be surprised by armed foemen in the recesses of a palace. No sooner did he hear of an armament at the mouth of the Seine, than Lord Lovel was stationed at Southampton, Sir John Savage commissioned to guard the coasts of Cheshire, and Rice ap Thomas intrusted with the defense of Wales. At the same time, Richard issued a proclamation, describing Richmond as "one Henry Tudor, descended of bastard blood both by father's and mother's side;" who could have no claim to the crown but by conquest; who had agreed to give up Calais to France; and who intended to subvert the ancient laws and liberties of England. Having thus endeavored to excite the patriotism of the populace, Richard, about midsummer, set up his standard at Nottingham, and around it, with the Earl of Northumberland at their head, came the men of the north in thousands. While keeping his state in Nottingham Castle, Richard heard of Richmond's landing at Milford Haven, and soon after learned, with indignation, that Rice ap Thomas had proved false; that Sir Gilbert Talbot, with two thousand retainers of his nephew, the young Earl of Shrewsbury, had joined the invaders; that, after leaving Shrewsbury, Richmond had pursued his way through Newport to Stafford, and from Stafford to Lichfield, and that men were rapidly gathering to his standard. Vowing vengeance, the king issued orders that his army should forthwith march southward to Leicester.