The Redmore Foreclosure: The Industrial Blood-Feud That Built the Tudor Dynasty

 By David T. Gardner, 

History is written by the victors, but it is funded by the survivors. For five centuries, the world has been sold a fairy tale about the Battle of Bosworth—a story of chivalry, a "tragic" Yorkist King, and a providential Tudor rise. But the archives of the Gardiner Syndicate tell a colder, more calculated truth.

The events of August 22, 1485, were not a mere battle. They were a Hostile Takeover. The "Kingslayer," Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr, was not just a soldier; he was a Foreclosure Agent for a merchant syndicate that had been systematically dismantled by the Yorkist regime twenty-four years earlier.

The Origin Wound: The 1461 Industrial Theft

To understand the poleaxe at Redmore, you have to understand the Ixyng (Exning) Pits. In 1461, following the Yorkist victory at Towton, the Gardiner family was subjected to a brutal 50% Attainment of their ancestral holdings (Ref: TNA C 1/29/145).

The Yorkists didn't just take land; they seized Industrial Nodes. These warrens and pastures in the East Anglian corridor held the "Soft Water" Riparian rights essential for the syndicate’s high-end dyeing operations. For over two decades, the Gardiners—the premier clothworkers and financiers of London—were forced to operate under "Distress" (Ref: TNA E 101/458/15), watching Yorkist "squatters" bleed the profits from the very pits the Gardiners had engineered.

This was the "Origin Wound." The Yorkists had stolen the infrastructure. The Gardiners decided to take the Crown in exchange.

The Tactical Lure: The Riot at Market Bosworth

The syndicate didn’t leave the outcome of 1485 to chance. While Henry Tudor was still rallying his French mercenaries, the Gardiner Board of Directors was already manipulating the geography of the battlefield.

We now possess the "Pardon Receipt" (Ref: TNA C 66/561). It proves that Thomas Gardynyr, brother of the Kingslayer and the syndicate's future Auditor, was on the ground at Market Bosworth before the battle. He was orchestrating an "illicit assembly"—a tactical riot designed to destabilize the local Yorkist adherents and lure Richard III into the treacherous marshy terrain of Redmore Plain.

Richard didn't ride into a trap set by fate; he was a lamb led to slaughter in a trap set into motion nearly two decades earlier—on a field chosen months, if not years, before the first arrow was loosed. The actions of Sir William Gardiner must be viewed through a cold, mercantile lens: it didn't matter which Yorkist sat on the throne when the syndicate finally chose to open the war chest and spring the trap and exact it's revenge. Millions had already been spent supporting the Lancastrian regime in exile, and the 'Unicorn’s Debt' had reached its limit. Sir William was tasked with paving the way to London for the Lancastrian cause—and he did exactly that, turning a medieval battlefield into a choreographed corporate foreclosure."  

The Execution: A Debt-for-Equity Swap

When the "Skinner of London," Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr, met Richard III on the field, it wasn't an act of knightly combat. It was the delivery of an eviction notice. The poleaxe blow that ended the Plantagenet line was the final stroke in a debt-repayment plan that had been decades in the making.

The proof of this "Foreclosure" is found in the immediate aftermath. While other knights were celebrating, the Gardiners were Auditing.

• The Payout: Within 30 days, the "Gardynyr de Redmore" identity appeared in the royal rent-rolls (Ref: TNA E 36/214).

• The Reacquisition: They didn't just take "noble" land; they seized the specific pastures and manufacturing nodes required to feed their looms.

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• The Vertical Integration: By 1486, the syndicate had reclaimed the Exning Pits and synchronized them with their private "Airlock" at Haywharf Lane in London (Ref: PCC PROB 11/7/455).

The 90-Year Legal War: The Unicorn's Debt

The syndicate’s dominance didn't end with the battle. They used their position as the Crown’s primary creditors to create a Regulatory Capture of the English State. Through the careers of Thomas Gardiner (The Northern Auditor) and Stephen Gardiner (The Lord Chancellor), they turned the Church and the Courts into a "Legal Shield."

The Legal Corpus reveals a staggering 90-year war over the "Unicorn's Debt"—a £40,000 tally that effectively held the Tudor Treasury hostage. The final decree in 1578 (Ref: TNA C 78/1/12) marks the moment the Crown finally managed to legally "default" on the men who put them on the throne.

The Verdict

The history books tell you the Tudors brought peace. The Gardiner Receipts tell you they brought a Monopoly. The "Merchant-Kingslayers" used the blood of Richard III to wash the deeds to their stolen dyeing pits. They didn't just win a war; they performed the most successful hostile takeover in human history, hiding behind an "Orthographic Shield" that kept their names out of the chronicles and their hands in the counting house.

We have Sir William's Key. 

We have the receipts. 

The "Hidden History" is no longer hidden.