Towton 1461 E-Book

A.W. Boardman

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 445

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'Towton, the bloodbath that changed the course of our history . . . an invaluable book.' - A.A. Gill, The Sunday Times Magazine. 'Boardman has unrivalled knowledge of the ground and the record, such as it is, of the battle fought there.' - Times Higher Education Supplement. 'an admirably comprehensive account' - Yorkshire Post. 'a marvel of evocation.' - Robert Hardy. Palm Sunday 1461 was the date of a ruthless and bitterly contested battle fought by two massive armies on an exposed Yorkshire plateau for the prize of the Crown of England. This singular engagement of the Wars of the Roses has acquired the auspicious title of the longest, biggest and bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil. The slaughter left an indelible mark on the population that has been largely forgotten until relatively recent times: Shakespeare likened the struggle to the wind and tide of a mighty sea that set father against son and son against father. But what drove the contending armies of York and Lancaster to fight at Towton? And what is the truth behind the legends about this terrible battle where contemporaries record rivers ran red with blood? A.W. Boardman answers these questions and many more in this new and fully updated fourth edition of his classic account of Towton. Illustrated throughout with contemporary artwork, modern photographs and specially drawn maps, Towton 1461: The Anatomy of a Battle is a fascinating insight into the reality of the battlefield and the men who fought there in a blinding snowstorm over half a millennium ago.

Leseprobe

The Towton Battlefield Cross marking the site where thousands perished in the snow on Palm Sunday 1461. (Author)

First published in 1994 by Sutton Publishing under the title The Battle of TowtonThis fourth edition published 2022

The History Press

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© A.W. Boardman 1994, 2000, 2009, 2022

The right of A.W. Boardman to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprintedor reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, without the permission in writingfrom the Publishers.

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ISBN 978 0 7509 9987 8

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For my family and those in it who went to war before I was born

History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we are literally criminals.

James Baldwin2017

Contents

Foreword

Preface

One

‘O miserable and luckless race’The Wars of the Roses, their origins, and the campaigns of 1455–60

Two

‘Yet it rotteth not, nor shall it perish’The battles of Wakefield (1460), MortimersCross (1461) and second St Albans (1461)

Three

The Rose of RouenEdward IV acclaimed king, the armies, and the march north

Four

‘Let him fly that will, I will tarry with him that will tarry with me’The battle of Ferrybridge (1461)

Five

Bloody MeadowsThe anatomy of the battle of Towton

Six

Palmsunday FieldThe battle of Towton (1461)

Seven

Nowe ys ThusThe aftermath of the battle and beyond

Eight

‘O heavy times, begetting such events!’The Towton Chapel, the graves, and the significance of the battle

Appendices

Notes

Select Bibliography

About the Author

Foreword

The late great Robert Hardy, actor and medievalist, kindly wrote these few words for me when this book, then called The Battle of Towton, was first published in 1994. His thoughts about battlefields are as true today as they were when we discussed Towton then. Therefore, I have left his foreword in this new edition as an introduction and a personal memorial to the man, and for anyone else who has ever questioned why we still pursue the abomination of war:

Battlefields have a profound fascination for us. As a member of the Battlefields Panel set up by English Heritage to advise the government about the conservation of battlefields and battle sites, I have been trying to analyse the causes of that fascination. Mainly it is because, at a particular place and time, masses of men met together to settle their argument à l’outrance, to put it to the test of death. Battlefields are places where great skill, great loyalty, great courage, great perfidy, great cowardice, great stupidity have been shown, where men have gone to their deaths because of passionate belief, uncontrollable rage, or in the control of a code and a discipline so powerful that it has seemed better to perish than to escape them. Whatever frightfulness has happened, whatever idiocy perpetrated, whatever glory achieved, it has been done in the most absolute fashion, even when the action was not in the long run decisive.

A battlefield is also a tomb, holding the bodies of most of those who died there, in Towton’s case a very great number; a perpetual shrine and memorial which should engage our thought and our reverence.

To know what really happened at Crécy, Agincourt, Poitiers, Patay, Castillon, Towton, that is the other fascination. It is impossible to reach the whole truth. Not even those who fought knew it all, but we can work towards the truth of the event. Known fact, reported fact, archaeological evidence, literary evidence and, under control, imagination are our guides. To that, add a passion and a dedication to the understanding of the event and the terrain and the personalities involved, and you may well glimpse truth.

It is a passion when another says or writes that one’s own conclusions about the action of a battle are wrong, the response is fierce, and the re-examination intense. Andrew Boardman’s account of Towton, one of the bloodiest and most raging battles of the medieval wars, is a marvel of evocation. He knows the history, which is extremely limited in particulars, and he has studied and discussed every possible clue. He knows the terrain both with exactitude and understanding, and he has a fine regard for what that great battlefield historian Colonel Alfred Burne called Inherent Military Probability. He is passionate in pursuit of the truth about this particular, this dreadful battle, and I believe that you will find in his vivid recounting of it more than fitful images of the grim truth about Towton Field, which lies today much unchanged since it lay in snow and blood on Palm Sunday 1461.

Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA.Actor and medievalist1994

Preface

Towton is Britain’s bloodiest battle according to Google. It has also been called the longest and biggest battle fought on British soil. Like so many other close-quarter conflicts, there is no question about its place in history. But Towton was a particularly merciless event: a butcher’s yard of revenge and violence that in a few hours (ten according to some chroniclers) developed into a no-quarter massacre that defies modern comprehension.

There is no doubt that Towton was pursued by Edward IV to ‘cleanse’ the monarchy of what he considered illegitimate rule. It was a battle of two kings and two dynasties fought in a driving northern snowstorm, bow against bow and hand-tohand, by two overtly factional armies each seeking revenge on the other for crimes perpetrated earlier, in what we call today the Wars of the Roses. Above all, Towton changed Britain’s history in a bitterly cruel way, prompting Shakespeare to liken it to the wind and tide of a mighty sea that set father against son and son against father.

They say every victory comes at a price, and Towton is comparable in effect (if not in actual casualties) to many other important battles in world history. Towton’s death toll of 28,000 men, counted by the heralds, has been compared to British fatalities on the first day of the Somme in 1916. It has also been said that one per cent of the adult population of England fought at Towton and that a large proportion of its nobility was wiped out as a result. However, as with any battle in any era, there are alternative claims and more conservative estimates. Chronicles contain biased opinion about casualties, and even official court documents and contemporary letters of the period are liberally soaked in political propaganda. So, how do we uncover the truth about a battle like Towton?

There are many more bloodiest days to choose from if you are interested in figures and statistics, some of which cannot be verified due to similar problems of time and tide. But this book is not about calculating how many deaths were recorded on a bitterly cold Palm Sunday in North Yorkshire. Nor is it about comparing the size of medieval armies or the duration of the fighting at Towton (although these questions will be considered). Instead, this book is about a battlefield, how Towton continues to reach out to us across the centuries and how it raises profound questions about our acceptance of warfare as a continuation of politics. Above all, it explores the ‘anatomy’ and underlying significance of this largely forgotten battle from several different angles, and the results prove that Towton was, and is, significant militarily, socially and psychologically.

To search for the truth behind the myths and legends of Towton Field when all the rhetoric about numbers and timescales are brushed aside is one way to approach the anatomy of a battle. But this is an impossibility and would, in my opinion, be the wrong approach. Given the historical significance of such a large death toll at Towton, we must take this into account. If we fail to do this, it would be like ignoring the impact of casualties on local populations after greater and more profound wars; and it is argued here that the effects of Towton on the north of England were considerable. In short, this was a great battle in an extraordinarily complicated and bloody civil war that pushed, commoners, nobles, and even kings, into a melting pot of internecine violence that has no modern comparison.

I have grown up with Towton since childhood. I have always lived within a few miles of the battlefield and have promoted it extensively whenever I can. To those who have read my various imprints of The Battle of Towton since 1994, I hope that another revised version of the book will add more flesh to the bone. I also wish to reach out to a new younger audience that may be unfamiliar with the subject while at the same time urging the converted to revisit the battlefield again and wonder at the kind of men who fought and died there more than half a millennium ago.

Why revise a book about Towton? For me, it is because, unlike any other historical site, a battlefield, in my opinion, is a living, breathing thing – a continually changing natural witness to the events that took place there – be it only briefly. In the case of Towton, this condition becomes more immediate if we consider that the battlefield has been relatively untouched since 1461. New evidence continues to emerge that challenges what we think occurred there. Medieval topographical features such as deserted villages, moated manor houses and period buildings, including chapels and churches, link past with present. Ridge and furrow field systems, the existence of ancient woodland and the discovery of medieval hedgerows remind us that the battlefield is a heritage site and must be preserved and protected at all costs. But above all this, there is one overriding survival of the battle that speaks volumes of the men who fought and died there in such a brutal way, and that is the fact that the whole site is an unmarked tomb. A stone wayside cross now marks the bloody meadows of Towton, but it is certain that once the fields ‘betwixt Towton and Saxton’ were littered with many mass graves, and despite the resistance of those who find the casualties at Towton overegged, it is this link to remembrance that makes the site a place of ‘sadness’ and veneration for many.

Chroniclers’ estimates of the Towton death toll vary wildly from the sensible to the ridiculous. However, since 1461, archaeologists have discovered numerous graves to highlight a much darker side of the Wars of the Roses than previously imagined. A terrible secret that Towton has cleverly concealed is gradually rising to the surface, and thankfully it is not the forgotten battle it once was. The mass killings and the slaughter perpetrated there is no myth or quaint legend anymore. Instead, the casualties remind us of our mortality and what we can do as a species when compelled to kill our fellow man.

Twenty-six years have passed since I first put pen to paper, and theories change with time. Since 1461 the fields between Saxton and Towton have attracted the interest of the royal, the pious, the academic and the romantic. In the Victorian era, the battlefield became the haunt of antiquarians. Towton inspired poets to write eulogies about the slaughter, and over the years, it has had its fair share of local historians who all perpetuated the legends told by farmers and villagers, stories that are still passed on today. Throughout the ages, mass graves were discovered in the now quiet fields of North Acres and bones were exhumed and re-buried in hallowed ground. The more famous areas associated with the battle became the subject of ballads and acquired bloody topographic names. More recently, walls of dead were found in cellars and even under the floorboards of local homes. Rivers became colourful receptacles of the great slaughter in certain histories and chronicles. And even a specific type of rose miraculously took root in a meadow to commemorate the ‘white’ and the ‘red’ of popular legend. These are some of the legends of Towton Moor – or are they merely persistent memories of even stranger tales lost in time?

Ever since the battle of Towton was fought, many myths have been perpetuated about what occurred there and where the actual fighting took place. A thin shroud of invention hid the truth of the battle for many centuries, and this is where my interest in a multi-disciplined approach began in earnest. Following the work done by Brooke, Markham, Burne, to name but three battlefield detectives, I was lucky enough to write the first major work on the subject in 1994. But even I was not prepared for what was unearthed at Towton in July 1996 by the team of archaeologists from York and Bradford University.

War graves containing human bones became headline news, and like those discovered by the Tudors, Georgians and Victorians in their day, the human cost of warfare was expounded to the full by the media. The stark reality of dead soldiers who witnessed the battle of Towton still astonishes me. People interested in the dig demanded an interpretation, but even specialists in their field and modern research methods could not decode the whole truth about the graves and what they contained. A brutal death with an edged or blunt weapon leaves telltale marks on bone, and forensic tests can make a critical judgement as to how an individual died. With the help of anthropological science, approximate age at death can be revealed. A soldier’s general state of health and proportions can be measured. But who are we to say under what circumstances a particular soldier died, and can we judge the tactical course of a battle from such a clinical post-mortem?

Other factors have caused me to revise my initial work concerning the strategic aspects of medieval warfare. The mechanics and devastating power of the warbow have been drastically modified and proven since 1994 to the extent that my theories about how the battle was fought have changed. In a test shot of a replica Mary Rose bow in 1996, the archer Simon Stanley shot a series of war arrows from beside the hawthorn tree above North Acres and achieved over 300yd. When retrieved, one replica arrow had split a block of magnesium limestone and penetrated the ground beneath, such was its power when it struck. In 2005 The Great Warbow, by Strickland and Hardy, exploded the extraordinary claims by some former experts that the bow of the late Middle Ages was largely ineffective and caused only disorder and confusion in the ranks at long range. However, conclusive ballistics tests since then have proved otherwise, and the implications of this research into the great warbow’s killing power and consequently the duration of medieval battles, such as Towton, cannot be ignored.

Similarly, a reappraisal of the contemporary evidence reveals that the social impact of Towton was fresh in some people’s minds long after the event. Whole shires refused to participate in further bloodshed or give support to the victors years later. There were even claims for compensation and evidence of economic collapse. Memorials, chapels, and official documents venerated the dead at Towton, much like in any age, and concerning the tactical, strategic, and political thinking of the time, the campaign was a model of propaganda. Chronicles and letters confirm my original claim that, in the second half of the fifteenth century, Englishmen waged a new type of warfare that was more advanced, purposeful, and devious than previously thought. More importantly, winning was not dependant on arbitrary tactics and (in the eyes of medieval man) God’s judgement. Commanders sought a tactical edge over their opponents at the expense of the chivalric code. And at Towton it is apparent that the outcome of the battle was dictated by a sequence of events that caused already high casualty rates to increase out of all proportion far from the battlefield.

In pro-Yorkist letters and chronicles, one can detect the universal sigh of relief that Edward IV had triumphed. However, according to the evidence, Towton was a ‘near-run thing’ despite many contemporary writers inflating the death toll to suit their audience and political ambitions. Fear of foreign invasion, internal rebellion and quarrelsome nobles with private forces were dangers that could not be ignored, and the biblical casualties at Towton helped cement both crown and sceptre to Edward’s warlike image when his newly acquired throne was far from secure.

As always, when dealing with historical events that have more than one scenario, this new reappraisal is highly controversial, and the image of the men who fought and died at Towton is far from romantic. The battle was regarded as a great tragedy at the time, and the death toll was mourned as a complete waste of life by contemporaries in England and Europe. But what is the significance of the battle of Towton today?

The visual evidence always produces a more direct response from anyone interested in the battle. But chronicled and written evidence such as wills, attainders and indentures are just as illuminating. As for battlefield treasure, some archaeological relics from Towton are predominantly difficult to authenticate, despite surfacing in great quantities to fascinate and spark heated debate among those who seek the truth. Some artefacts are things of incredible beauty and craftsmanship. They speak to us across time about the kind of soldiers that passed that way only once. Collections of arrowheads found on the battlefield summon up the ghosts of Yorkist and Lancastrian archers plying their deadly craft. Sword and dagger pommel heads re-animate weapons in our mind’s eye that were originally designed to kill and maim. But are all these relics contemporary with 1461? We seek confirmation, and our elusive search for the truth uncovers more questions than answers with each new find. We may speculate what else could be discovered on the battlefield, what might have been dropped by soldiers or hacked from their bodies in the heat of combat, but this is not the end of the Towton story by any stretch of the imagination.

Admittedly many questions still arise about this unique battle. We can visit the ‘living’ battlefield of Towton and wonder at the unimaginable slaughter committed there. We can walk the site in all weathers – even snowstorms – to explore its topography. We can visit local churchyards and see memorials to the battle dating back centuries. We can read about the carnage in contemporary chronicles and letters. But have we got anything in common with the men who fought at Towton? Can we glean anything from their brutality and senseless slaughter? Indeed, is the battle of Towton at all significant in the twenty-first century?

In the foreword and preface to the 1994 edition of The Battle of Towton, the late Robert Hardy and I held the opinion that our indescribable fascination with the battle was a combination of several factors: a lifelong interest in the site, an affinity with the medieval period, a passion for military history and a personal search for the reasons why war is still pursued in an age of enlightenment. Battlefield conservation was also a significant issue at the time. But other than these passions, nothing tangible about the battle touched the present or changed our perception of the Towton story. The grave found in 1996 changed all that. It brought us face to face with the men who fought in 1461, and why and how they died raised questions about medieval man and his psychological attitude to violence.

It is perhaps worth reiterating my feelings in the first edition of this book that any place where great historical decisions are made must not be forgotten and that battlefields are among the most important of these. My personal search for the truth about Towton goes on, but as you read this account, it is perhaps worth remembering that civilisation has not moved on very far regarding warfare, apart from the technologies enabling armies to wage it more effectively. Perhaps education of past conflicts is the path away from violence? Maybe we are more civilised and law-abiding than the men who fought at Towton? But what would we have done if faced with a similar life or death situation?

I hope this new perspective revealing the ‘anatomy’ of the battle of Towton provides answers to some of these crucial questions and prompts further research into this unique conflict where contemporaries agree there was no quarter asked or given and no greater battle fought in a thousand years.

Andrew Boardman2021

One

‘O miserable and luckless race’

On 7 April 1461, George Neville, Bishop of Exeter and Chancellor of England, wrote to Francesco Coppini, the Papal Legate and Bishop of Terni in Flanders, that on Palm Sunday:

there was a great conflict, which began with the rising of the sun, and lasted until the tenth hour of the night, so great was the pertinacity and boldness of the men, who never heeded the possibility of a miserable death. Of the enemy who fled, great numbers were drowned in the river near the town of Tadcaster, eight miles from York, because they themselves had broken the bridge to cut our passage that way, so that none could pass, and a great part of the rest who got away who gathered in the said town and city, were slain and so many dead bodies were seen as to cover an area six miles long by three broad and about four furlongs. In this battle eleven lords of the enemy fell, including the Earl of Devon, the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Clifford and Neville with other knights, and from what we hear from persons worthy of confidence, some 28,000 persons perished on one side and the other. O miserable and luckless race and powerful people, would you have no spark of pity for our own blood, of which we have lost so much of fine quality by the civil war, even if you had no compassion for the French!1

George Neville was writing of the battle of Towton, in which his brother Richard, the Earl of Warwick, had taken an active part. The document, preserved in the Calendars of State Papers of Milan, is evidence of what has become known as the longest, biggest and bloodiest battle on British soil. In the same letter, Neville gives his very opinionated view of the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, known later as the Wars of the Roses, by lamenting the futility of civil strife in contrast with what he later points out might have been energies better directed ‘against the enemies of the Christian name’.2

The bishop opened his letter by saying that he learned of these events from ‘messengers and letters, as well as by popular report’,3 meaning, presumably, that his intelligence about the battle came directly from his brother Richard, Earl of Warwick, and King Edward IV, then in York, attempting to secure the area after their victory at Towton. Indeed, George Neville was commanded by Edward to join them in the north and help with this operation as soon as possible.

Other members of the clergy wrote about Towton that were equally dismayed about the death toll. On 7 April 1461, Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, wrote to Coppini that:

On Palm Sunday last King Edward began a very hard-fought battle near York, in which the result remained doubtful the whole day, until at length victory declared itself on his side, at a moment when those present declared that almost all of our side despaired of it, so great was the strength of our adversaries, had not the prince [Edward IV] single-handedly cast himself into the fray as he did so notably, with the greatest of human courage. The heralds counted 28,000 slain, a number unheard of in our realm for almost a thousand years, without counting those wounded and drowned.4

The Bishop of Elpin, Nicholas O’Flanagan, added to Coppini’s reports by stating that 28,000 were killed in the battle, 800 being on King Edward’s side.5 Another letter from London to a Milanese merchant, Pigello Portinaro, on 14 April, claimed that 28,000 fell, 8,000 of them being Yorkists.6 And yet another document from Prospero di Camulio, Milanese Ambassador to the Court of France, to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan claimed that:

the combat was great and cruel, as happens when men fight for kingdom and life. At the beginning, fortune seemed to be on the side of King Henry and those banners of the queen, which are inscribed Judica me Deus discerne causam meam de gente non sancta, etc. They looked like conquering, and over 8,000 of the troops of King Edward and Warwick were slain, including Lord Scrope and Lord Fitzwalter among the nobles. However, subsequently the wind changed, and Edward and Warwick were victorious. On the side of Henry and the queen, over 20,000 men were slain along with the nobles mentioned below. In short, thirteen nobles perished and over 28,000 men, all counted by the heralds after the battle, including many other knights and gentlemen.7

Many such reports followed in the aftermath of Towton and, as newsletters, the above documents rate highly as containing unique facts about the battle from a mainly clerical viewpoint. However, we must remember that Francesco Coppini heard the news from two pro-Yorkists claiming that the Lancastrians were the aggressors, and that King Henry VI was a puppet in their hands. Indeed, Coppini was pro-Yorkist himself. The other letters seem diplomatically impartial, even though they may have received information about the battle from the same source. More important is that all the correspondence communicated the atmosphere and feelings in London in the first weeks after Towton and at a time when an anonymous author in the city claimed that ‘I am unable to declare how well the commons love and adore him [Edward IV] as if he were their God’ and that ‘the entire kingdom keeps holiday for the event, which seems a boon from above’.8

Similarly, a private letter of the Paston family of Norfolk also communicated Edward’s victory at Towton, confirming the casualty figures given above. In this case, William Paston reported to John:

You will be pleased to know the news my lady of York [Edward IV’s mother] had in a letter of credence signed by our sovereign lord King Edward, which reached her safely today, Easter eve, at eleven o’clock, and was seen and read by me William Paston. First, our sovereign lord has won the field, and on the Monday after Palm Sunday, he was received into York with great solemnity and processions. And the mayor and commons contrived to have his grace through Lord Montagu and Lord Berners, who, before the king came into the city, craved clemency for the citizens, which he granted them. On the king’s side, Lord Fitzwalter was killed, and Lord Scrope badly hurt. John Stafford and Horne of Kent are dead, and Humphrey Stafford and William Hastings made knights, and among others, Blount is knighted. On the other side Lord Clifford, Lord Neville, Lord Welles, Lord Willoughby, Anthony Lord Scales, Lord Harry and apparently the Earl of Northumberland, Andrew Trollope and many other gentlemen and commoners, to the number of 20,000, are dead. [On a separate piece of paper attached to this letter, 28,000 dead were numbered by the heralds.]9

So here was a great fellowship of death, even on the Yorkist side. Clearly, it shocked writers abroad and in England by its ferocity. But what of the Lancastrians, the main victims of the Towton carnage? What price their cause, and who reported for them, without bias, on the fateful day when the true anointed King Henry VI was ousted from his throne, and 20,000 of his adherents perished? What drove the contending houses of York and Lancaster to such a great and unseasonable conflict, in which the unusually high casualties presented unique accounting problems for the heralds? And why did the battle develop into a massacre resulting in rivers running red with blood and a rout that was mercilessly followed up to the gates of York?

William Paston’s letter to his brother John, dated 4 April 1461, reporting the battle of Towton. (British Library)

The State Papers of Milan and the Paston Letters record only a small part of the Wars of the Roses story. The rest of its history is, of course, documented in the great, if sometimes inaccurate, chronicles of Britain, not forgetting writers in Burgundy and France, equal players in the drama. Edward Hall, John Whethamstede, Polydore Vergil, William Worcester, Philip de Commynes, Jean de Waurin and William Gregory – to name but a few writers – only light candles in history that illuminate the past. Eyewitness accounts of battles such as Towton sadly lack content and remain in the shadows due to their grim and provincial nature. Only a few sources speak the truth. Therefore, we must tread carefully and put other devices to work to illuminate the structure of historical events when source material contains biased opinion and falsehoods. Even where first-hand reports exist, one might argue, several accounts would have to be consulted to acquire an accurate perspective of a medieval battle, as each fighting man can only perceive his own immediate area of combat. Lacking an overall aerial view of the battlefield, the soldier’s story would be limited to his own experience, which might prove tactically worthless when viewed with others.

Information on who was present at the battle of Towton and what motivated individuals to fight lies in attainder documents and the chronicles. The topography of the local area can be evaluated to answer such questions as to how terrain swayed the contending armies’ movements on the day and to what extent the land precipitated victory or defeat. Archaeology can be helpful to locate graves and entrenchments, but, more importantly, relics may pinpoint personal regalia, which may confirm whose troops were present on the battlefield. Logistics can answer such questions as what influenced manoeuvres before and during the fighting, which troops were better equipped to survive combat, and, being thus armed, what disadvantages could overtake them when they ran. However, to conclude confidently why some men stood their ground and others fled during battles of any era, we must, in the end, evaluate the reasons for the armies being there, the effects of fatigue on morale and, of course, the human spirit. The late John Keegan, the author of The Face of Battle, one of the half-dozen best books on warfare to appear in the English language, suggests that:

The answer to some of these questions must be highly conjectural, interesting though that conjecture might be. But to others, we can certainly offer answers which fall within a narrow bracket of probability, because the parameters of the questions are technical. Where speed of movement, density of formations, effect of weapons, for example, are concerned, we can test our suppositions against the known defensive qualities of armour plate, penetrative power of arrows, dimensions and capacities of the human body, carrying power and speed of the horse. And from a reasonable assessment of probabilities about these military mechanics, we may be able to leap towards an understanding of the dynamics of the battle itself and the spirit of the armies which fought it.10

In my opinion, this methodology is valid when investigating any type of conflict. However, to investigate the battle of Towton, we must begin much earlier than 1461. In short, we must be aware of English history from at least 1399 when revolution stoked a dynastic ‘fire pot’ of uncertainty that was reignited time and time again until the last Plantagenets, and their pretenders, were killed off by the Tudors with numerous strokes of the pen and the headman’s axe.

The history of the Wars of the Roses can be read in detail in many fine books on the subject. It is a veritable quagmire of noble titles, similar names and changing alliances. A real game of thrones and double-dealing. Therefore, my intention here is to give the reader some idea of the key events leading up to Towton and explain why through all the politics and cravings for power the wars became a dynastic conflict tainted with the blood of revenge in 1461. To quote Shakespeare, my aim is ‘to turn the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass’.11

The Origins of the Wars of the Roses

Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, usurped the English throne from Richard II in 1399, and later, when Henry ruled and Richard was dead, a dangerous new precedent was set in motion to threaten English kingship from then on. This precedent, which had successfully unseated Edward II in 1327, meant that instead of a king ruling by lawful and legitimate right, he became more regarded as the first among equals by the princes of the blood. Henry Bolingbroke exploited this situation to the full when Richard II seized his lands after his father’s death, and matters escalated first into regicide, then open rebellion, when he (then crowned Henry IV) inadvertently set noble against noble at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.

In becoming the first Lancastrian king, Henry IV also ignored another contender for the throne in Edmund Mortimer, whose father had been heir presumptive to Richard II during his reign. But Henry was a strong king, if somewhat fearful of his precarious position, and the Mortimer claims to the throne were never pressed until, in 1415, others tried unsuccessfully to usurp the crown. On the eve of Henry V’s expedition to France, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, attempted to put his brother-in-law Mortimer on the throne and was executed for high treason. The plot was uncovered and revealed to the king by none other than Mortimer himself, in an act of betrayal, and when Henry V returned from France and victory at Agincourt, it was thought the winds of change had finally provided England with a model warrior king who could beat the French and win popular acclaim at home.

However, when Henry V died in 1422, he left his son a legacy of unfinished business in France. The trouble was that Henry VI of England and France was a nine-month-old child at the time, and others would attempt to rule England for him until he reached maturity. To quote a medieval political cliché, ‘Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child’.12 And when the Hundred Years War dragged on through lack of finance and mismanagement this forced Henry’s council to reassess their position in France.

Henry V’s French causes had been left in the hands of his brother John, Duke of Bedford, but when he died in 1435, two arguing factions emerged to contend if the war should be continued, or whether peace through a treaty was the answer to the drain on the English war chest. On the one hand, nobles such as King Henry’s uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the Lancastrian heir apparent, violently opposed a truce, while on the other side, a party led by William de la Pole, later Duke of Suffolk, wished to negotiate with the French and silence Gloucester in the process. The Beaufort family, eventually acclaimed Dukes of Somerset, sided with William de la Pole to marry off Henry VI to a French princess, Margaret of Anjou. But what was the young king doing while others were manoeuvring for power?

There is little doubt that England hoped that Henry VI might someday emulate his warlike father. However, when Henry shook off his minority in 1437, this dream of strong kingship fell well short of the mark. Despite being tutored by the best civil and military minds in the land, Henry’s political, marital and warlike shortcomings soon proved fatal for England. In adulthood, Henry of Windsor became a monkish king, an ineffectual monarch incapable of personal rule. And in an age of powerful men with dangerous ambitions, these failings inevitably and effectively helped undermine the English throne. Through gross negligence and the unchecked interference of devious ministers, Henry rapidly lost his father’s military conquests in France, helped divide the nobility and, at least in part, caused the Wars of the Roses. In various parts of the country, people openly described Henry as a natural fool and no fit person to govern England. Yet this ‘simple’ king reigned for almost thirty-nine years, and soon after his death, thousands of pilgrims visited his shrine at Chertsey Abbey, attested to miracles there, and even revered him as a saint.

Unlike Edward II and Richard II, who were similarly manipulated by ambitious courtiers, Henry enjoyed martyrdom beyond the reign of his enemies. Even after the death of Richard III, who allegedly murdered him in the Tower of London, Henry’s fame rivalled that of St Thomas Becket in popularity. However, Henry’s apathetic character remained wholly evident to his contemporaries, despite subsequent efforts by the Tudor kings to sanctify his name for more selfish reasons. Historiography reveals that he was no more than a pawn in the hands of others. Indeed, the fact that Henry was tolerated for so long shows how docile he was as a ruler and how easily he could be controlled.

A simplified genealogical table of the contending houses of York and Lancaster. (Author)

There is no doubt that Henry placed too much trust in his ministers, most of whom sought power for themselves out of political necessity, and aside from creating an unstable government, a firm wedge was driven between leading members of the nobility through favouritism. According to one contemporary, Henry was simplex et probus (honest and upright).13 Still, this description must be weighed against a whole host of other kingly attributes that Henry did not possess. Apart from following a pious otherworldly existence that prevented him from dealing with affairs of state, the king could be highly vindictive, and after 1453 his reason became seriously impaired. Indeed, it is the measured opinion of most modern historians that Henry VI was a puppet in the hands of others and that Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, both products of his more pious interests, remain the only positive records of his reign.

When his minority ended, Henry was just sixteen years old. He had enjoyed a relatively trouble-free reign as King of England and France and was potentially on the verge of greater things. However, by 1447 military disaster abroad helped produce a power vacuum that caused various factions to emerge that the king was unable to control. Each aristocratic clique sought to influence Henry, and his lack of independent leadership aggravated the political situation so much that it worsened the family feuding that was already rife in England during the fifteenth century.

The most volatile and dangerous of these rivalries was that pursued by Richard, Duke of York and Edmund, Duke of Somerset. The Duke of York was Henry’s Plantagenet heir presumptive while he remained childless, but as the king’s main beneficiary York’s greatest fear was that if his rival, the Duke of Somerset, could validate his own Beaufort claim to the throne, then he too could succeed Henry on his death. It was a tangle of families and shifting alliances that had its roots in the usurpation of 1399. Some individuals, like Henry VI, were born into a usurped throne and held the crown through right of conquest. Others, like Richard, Duke of York, could claim legitimate Plantagenet descent from Edward III’s fourth son and through his father Richard, Earl of Cambridge, traitor to Henry V. Richard became Duke of York when his uncle died at Agincourt in 1415, but this was not his only claim. On his mother’s side, through the dormant Mortimer line, Richard was also descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Edward III’s second son. The Beauforts, on the other hand, were equally placed to have a say in how England should be ruled, as they too had a claim to the throne, through John of Gaunt’s third wife, Katherine Swynford. And when Edmund Beaufort became Earl of Somerset and received appointments and power from Henry VI, the Duke of York found only displeasure at court and bad debts through his own financing of the war in France.

What better recipe for disaster could fate have cooked up for England under a monkish king’s weak and unstable rule? The answer can be found in what happened next. Along with Henry’s queen, Margaret of Anjou, these three powerful men became a catalyst whereby only the strongest would survive.

To pinpoint exactly when the Duke of York became suspicious of the Beaufort family’s manipulating hand behind the throne is difficult to judge. But in 1447, when York’s lieutenancy of France was suddenly transferred to Edmund Beaufort, then only an earl, York must have had his suspicions. Worse still, the Duke of York was blamed for all the reversals in France and was appointed King Henry’s lieutenant in Ireland, primarily to remove him from English affairs and help further Somerset’s ambitions at court. In the same year, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was accused of treason, imprisoned and probably poisoned to death by agents of the Duke of Suffolk, Somerset’s ally. Soon afterwards, Suffolk himself was also murdered for similar crimes, and with Gloucester’s death, the Duke of York suddenly found himself heir apparent. Suffolk, it seems, became the victim of his own high-handed intrigue. As for Somerset and his new-found appointment in France, when the English were defeated at Formigny in 1450, he dared not return to England and sought refuge in Calais until the storm clouds blew over.

The seal of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, c. 1445. (Geoff Wheeler)

A few weeks later, in the summer of that year, Jack Cade’s popular rebellion highlighted the fact that reform was in the hearts and minds of many people in England, to the extent that London was for a time in anarchy. The rebels who entered the city were men of Kent and, as such, their grievances, although common feelings in the kingdom, were vented violently on some of the king’s chief councillors, primarily those ministers who had offended their county. Hundreds of people were killed and murdered in the city, and the rebellion was only put down when Cade was caught and executed. However, the questions about the king and his ‘advisers’ would not go away.

With so much trouble at home, it is not surprising that Somerset, now furnished with a dukedom, chose to return to England from Calais to protect his own position. The Duke of York also stirred himself from Ireland, as insinuations were already being made that he had been responsible for Cade’s rebellion. After all, York had been favoured in the commons manifesto, and Somerset branded as one of ‘certain persons who daily and nightly are about the king’s person and daily inform him that good is evil and evil is good’.14

The heated encounter between the two dukes in London was disastrous and occurred against a background of thousands of armed retainers bullying each other for position. It was clear to York that favour was still being bestowed by the king, and increasingly the queen, Margaret of Anjou, on his rival Somerset, despite his attempts to sway the king in the guise of being a true subject and champion of law and order. Disgruntled but firm in his resolve, York decided to canvass support from the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Devon, who were the only prominent nobles willing to go along with his open criticism of the court. Somerset by this time had been given the captaincy of the Calais garrison, the king’s fickle but professional standing army abroad, and his military failure in France was soon forgotten. It seemed Somerset could do no wrong, and this situation, in the end, forced York over the precipice as, diplomatically, he had failed miserably.

Somerset and York’s intentions were now clear, in so much as both were protecting their own political lives, there being no evidence that either of them was coveting the throne. Henry VI, removed from the feud in mind if not in body, watched the squabbling dukes with increasing tension, seemingly unable to comprehend either the gravity of the situation or the possible outcome of such a rift. Obviously, he did not think either noble was capable or wanted to dethrone him. If so, his ministers would have acted against such a threat immediately. Even considering his numbness to events, Queen Margaret, who became such a dominant influence behind the throne later in the wars, certainly favoured Somerset and did not suspect him of greater ambitions. However, from her point of view, the Duke of York was becoming her mortal enemy.

Richard, Duke of York, from a stained-glass window at Trinity College, Cambridge. (Geoff Wheeler)

The queen’s gradual understanding of the king’s shortcomings, maritally as well as politically displeasing, made her suspect York, as heir to the throne, of being a typical overmighty subject, bent on a course of ultimate power, and a threatening catalyst by which her own position and plans might be consumed. She misjudged the situation badly because England was not like France, fraught with generations of factional intrigue and war, although periodically it was to become so by her refuelling the situation through nobles who later became allied to her cause.

However, the Duke of York did not disappoint the queen’s mistrust, and in 1452 he rose to the bait. In February, York marched on London from his castle at Ludlow to enforce Somerset’s removal. He encountered the royal army at Dartford and quickly occupied a strong defensive position, which he fortified with guns. He made his position clear, declaring that he wished the king no harm but that ‘he would have the Duke of Somerset, or else he would die therefore’.15 However, as time passed, and under increasing pressure from the king’s emissaries, a meeting was arranged to avoid the shedding of blood. The Duke of York was told he might present his grievances in person to the king. But, not for the last time in his career, York was tricked, and, after being escorted to London, he was forced into a humiliating upbraiding in front of his fellow peers. Somerset was vindicated of all charges raised against him, and at St Pauls in London, York was forced to swear a public oath never again to disturb the peace and he returned to his castle at Ludlow a bitter man.

It is interesting to note that in the king’s army at Dartford, there were nobles, such as the Nevilles of Middleham, who were to become staunch Yorkists only a year later. This duality illustrates not only the effect of the king’s mismanagement of the great magnates of the realm but also that the polarisation in England, caused by the quarrels between York and Somerset, was increasingly providing a convenient arena in which to settle local and ancient dynastic issues at the point of a sword. The Nevilles and the Percys offer classic examples of such behaviour, coming to blows across ever-shifting borders in northern England and occasionally mustering thousands of armed retainers to pursue their private feuds. Both sides saw distinct advantages in being on opposite sides in the Wars of the Roses, even if it meant their family suffered split loyalties.

By 1453 the Nevilles, specifically the two Richards, the Earl of Salisbury and his son the Earl of Warwick, were to be found siding with the Duke of York, as they too had come up against Somerset and the king in a dispute over land and titles. The king once again succeeded in putting leading nobles at each other’s throats instead of defusing the situation as his predecessors might have done. However, the situation became worse for Henry when he received news of a catastrophe in France on his way to attempt to dislodge Warwick from Cardiff Castle. John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, had been killed and his army routed at Castillon, and with this defeat, all lands won in the Hundred Years War were lost. Only Calais remained English. Even worse, on receipt of the news, Henry suffered a total mental breakdown, which rendered him incapable of personal rule. He was unable to speak, hear, or understand his actions or what was going on around him, and this, of course, left the kingdom effectively leaderless.

Henry VI probably suffered all his life from what might be called today catatonic schizophrenia, but this reversal in fortunes eventually caused an unexpected turnaround for the Duke of York. The Royal Council had to meet with him to discuss what should be done. York was in theory next in line to the throne, and it was a golden opportunity that York grasped with both hands. It was also the perfect moment when he might have staked his claim to the throne. However, York remained loyal to King Henry and was content to let the council imprison his enemy Somerset in the Tower of London until the king recovered his health.

England had narrowly averted a major crisis, but soon a more legitimate obstacle emerged to belittle York’s ambitions when Queen Margaret gave birth to a son – an heir who would restore the status quo between York and Somerset and eventually give the Lancastrian dynasty added credibility. However, now the child’s legitimacy became the focus of Yorkist attention, as in some circles the Duke of Somerset was named as the father, possibly giving rise to insinuations that this provoked the onset of the king’s madness. The implications concerning Henry’s pious and monk-like abhorrence of anything remotely sexual, and his depressive unwillingness to recognise the child when it was born, furthered these rumours considerably. But propaganda aside, it was thought imperative, as the king’s illness became well known, that the Duke of York should be made Lord Protector, and this was confirmed by parliament when the north once again became a battleground of Neville and Percy feuding.

King Henry VI from an original dated c. 1450 in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.

The duke accepted the post grudgingly, we are told, but acted with venom, stripping Somerset of his captaincy of Calais, seating his friends in positions of power and quelling the northern dispute. However, the wheel of fortune was about to turn full circle once again, when at Christmas 1454, the king miraculously recovered his sanity, released Somerset from the Tower and reversed all York’s decisions. He also blessed his son, declaring that ‘he never knew him until that time, nor what had been said to him, nor where he had been whilst he had been sick until now’.16 An astounding accusation given the unique timing and circumstances of the child’s birth.

With the Duke of Somerset free and the monarchy restored, the Duke of York’s position became, not surprisingly, more dangerous and isolated. In short, York feared for his life, and after acquiring military support from the powerful Neville family, his next move was to remove his rival by force of arms. On 22 May 1455, negotiations broke down when Henry and his entourage were confronted by York and his Neville allies embattled outside St Albans in Hertfordshire. The Wars of the Roses were about to begin.

The Wars 1455–60

Some historians have regarded the battle of St Albans as a mere ‘scuffle in the streets’;17 however, with approximately 5,000 men fighting in such a confined area, the battle can hardly have resembled a scuffle. Any armed incursion involving the king, and the leading nobles of the land with banners displayed in rebellion, must warrant the title of battle, despite how low the casualties might have been.

The Duke of York, with his Neville supporters, Salisbury and Warwick, embattled their retinues in an area known as Key Field to the east of St Albans, while the king’s army, under the command of the Duke of Buckingham, occupied the town. Mediators were despatched to avoid battle several times and to accuse the Duke of York of high treason in answer to his scathing remarks about Somerset. However, this time, in difference to the Dartford affair, talks broke down, and the Yorkists launched an attack on the town’s barriers, which Lord Clifford had hastily fortified.

The main assault failed, but 600 of the Earl of Warwick’s troops under Sir Robert Ogle found a gap in the defences and they burst into the town ‘through garden sides between the sign of the Key and the sign of the Chequer’,18