William Brandon (standard-bearer)

Sir William Brandon (1456[1] – 22 August 1485) of Soham, Cambridgeshire was Henry Tudor's standard-bearer at the Battle of Bosworth, where he was killed by King Richard III.

[4] He had numerous siblings, including Sir Thomas Brandon, who fought with him at the Battle of Bosworth and later became a leading courtier and Master of the Horse of Henry VII.

Pardoned in March 1484, he boarded a ship at Mersea in November and sailed for France, where he was supposedly joined by his wife, who gave birth to their eldest son in Paris.

As such he appears in stanzas 155 and 156 in The Ballad of Bosworth:[6] amongst all other Knights, remember which were hardy, & therto wight; Sir william Brandon was one of those, King Heneryes Standard he kept on height,

& vanted itt with manhood & might vntill with dints hee was dr(i)uen downe, & dyed like an ancyent Knight, with HENERY of England that ware the crowne.