The old annalists and chronicles have left us much in the dark, as to the exact place near the camp of the Lancastrians, where Edward’s forces passed the night prior to the battle; but on the morning of the battle, and immediately before it commenced, his army, according both to tradition and probability, took up a position upon some elevated ground, adjoining the turnpike road, and to the southward of, and scarcely half a mile from, the Lancastrian army. From that position, a small tract of ground (now inclosed fields) slopes downwards so as to form a depression between it and the spot occupied by the Lancastrians. This tract of ground was formerly called the Red Piece; and is intersected by the turnpike road, leading towards Cheltenham and Gloucester, and at present forms two fields, one of which, on the right side of the road, is called the Near Red Close, and the other, on the left side of the road, is called the Further Red Close, belonging to Mr. Naish, of Bristol, of which the tenant is Mr. William Brown, a farmer and cattle-dealer. The portion of it on the left side of the road extends to the field called Margaret’s Camp; and it was on the southward side of the latter, that Edward’s forces appear to have made their attack. A meadow rather in the rear of the Lancastrian position, but lying on the westward side of the turnpike road, half a mile from Tewkesbury, and within a few hundred yards of the Tewkesbury union workhouse, is called the Bloody Meadow; it belongs to Miss Shapland, and is tenanted by Mr. William Trotman, innkeeper and farmer; and an idea is generally entertained, that it derived its name from the slaughter of many of the fugitives, who fled from the battle towards the meadow, probably in hopes of getting over the Severn, as there is a ford and ferry called Lower Lode, near it. On the 27th of May, 1856, when I last visited the field of battle, a husbandman who was at work in the garden of Gupshill Farm, informed me, that when he was working a few years ago in a field near Lower Lode Ferry, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Bloody Meadow, he found a quantity of horses bones, and a considerable number of horseshoes in the ground there. Mr. William Trotman informed me, that fourteen or fifteen years ago, he found in the Bloody Meadow a long piece of iron, which from its appearance, he believed had been part of a sword-blade. He also showed me a cannon ball of small size, weighing one pound six ounces, which had been dug up in the same meadow. {153a} Besides the importance which we may fairly attach to tradition, and to the name “Margaret’s Camp,” it is very remarkable how many strong proofs are afforded, by the works of the ancient annalists and chroniclers, that the before-mentioned spot, contiguous to the high road from Tewkesbury to Cheltenham and Gloucester, was the place where the battle was fought.