Battlefield defenders

SIR – The threat of a car-testing track at the site of the Battle of Bosworth

– now thankfully scotched – reveals the short-sightedness of Historic England in 2015 in dispensing with its long-standing battlefields panel of historians and archaeologists.

This panel once had statutory status. Without it, no expert was aware of the risk to the Bosworth site until the 11th hour. Battlefields are not like listed buildings but they need specialist input. This the Battlefields Trust can provide pro bono. Professor Anne Curry University of Southampton

SIR – You refer to Henry Tudor defeating Richard III at Bosworth.

Titulus Regulus, the act which gave Richard Duke of York the crown, was repealed in the first parliament of Henry VII’S reign. Therefore, legally, the reign of Edward V ran until the accession of Henry Tudor as Henry VII. The battle was thus between two pretenders to the throne: Henry Tudor (Earl of Richmond) and Richard Plantagenet (Duke of York). Andrew Wauchope London SE11