Richard Leland (right) in training with Charles Brandon (left)
Richard Leland is a soldier who serves in King Henry's Army at the Siege of Boulogne. He appears in episodes 4.07-4.08 of The Tudors, a minor character.
Richard is picked out as a sniper by Charles Brandon, who is impressed by his marksmanship skills with a musket during training. Richard later befriends a conscript named Harry, formerly a farmhand; the two converse in depth about their former lives. On arriving at Boulogne, they cheer along with the rest of the army when the King arrives to take up command. Despite the dramatic bombardment, however, Boulogne does not fall, and the army is soon caught up in a brutal and demoralizing siege.
Richard is able to wait out the siege in relative comfort, picking off enemy soldiers on the town walls from the safety of the English trenches. He pities Harry, who is part of the sapper team digging a tunnel under the walls; reasoning that Harry is suffering far worse than him, he gives Harry half his rations when he can. At one point, he warns Harry against seeking the company of prostitutes in the English camp because of disease; his advice proves sound, as many of the English soldiers subsequently die of the 'bloody flux'.
After Henry's engineers detonate an explosion under the walls via the tunnel, a huge section of the walls collapses, opening Boulogne to the English. When Richard stands up to cheer with the rest of the army, he is shot in the throat by a French crossbowman and dies instantly. Harry later leaves a flower- and his helmet- on Richard's grave.
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