Red Lion Inn,” and, going to explore the town while our refreshments were being prepared, found our way to a church, once part of a monastery, where the old fourteenth-century bell was still tolled.  It was in the chancel of this church that Henry, Earl of Richmond, partook of Holy Communion on the eve of his great victory over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, by which he became King Henry VII.  He had also spent a night at the “Three Tuns Inn” preparing his plans for the fight, which occurred two days later, August 22nd, 1485.  There was on the site of the battle a well named “King Dick’s Well,” which was covered with masonry in the form of a pyramid, with an entrance on one of its four sides, and which covered the spring where Richard, weary of fighting, had a refreshing drink before the final charge that ended in his death.  He, however, lost the battle, and Henry of Richmond, who won it, was crowned King of England at Stoke Golding Church, which was practically on the battlefield, and is one of the finest specimens of decorated architecture in England.  But what an anxious and weary time these kings must have had! not only they, but all others.  When we considered how many of them had been overthrown, assassinated, taken prisoners in war, executed, slain in battle, forced to abdicate, tortured to death, committed suicide, and gone mad, we came to the conclusion that Shakespeare was right when he wrote, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”  In his King Richard II he makes the King say: 

  “And nothing can we call our own but death,
  And that small model of the barren earth
  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. 
  For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
  And tell sad stories of the death of Kings: 
  How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
  Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
  Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d;
  All murder’d.”

One good result of the Battle of Bosworth Field was that it ended the “Wars of the Roses,” which had been a curse to England for thirty years.

[Illustration:  BULL BAITING STONE, ATHERSTONE.]

Bull-baiting was one of the favourite sports of our forefathers, the bull being usually fastened to an iron ring in the centre of a piece of ground, while dogs were urged on to attack it, many of them being killed in the fight.  This space of land was known as the Bull-ring, a name often found in the centre of large towns at the present day.  We knew a village in Shropshire where the original ring was still to be seen embedded in the cobbled pavement between the church and the village inn.  But at Atherstone the bull had been fastened to a large stone, still to be seen, but away from the road, which had now been diverted from its original track.