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The Wars of the Roses

Battle of Towton - the Bloodiest Battle on English soil?

Just outside the city of York, on the B1217 travelling west, it is easy to drive past the weather-beaten stone monument that is the only reminder of one of the most significant battles of the Wars of the Roses. There is no parking place as such but it is quite possible to stop on the verge of the quiet country road and spend a few moments gazing over the now, still fields that stretch to the Vale of York in the north and Selby to the south. It does not have the bearing of Tewksbury or the facilities and history attached to Bosworth but its silence and modesty offers a poignancy and resonance that only the coldest of souls could not feel. Once in a while, you will find flowers, usually red in colour, left by those with a sentimental heart who remember the scene as one of the bloodiest battlefields in the country. It was a cold, snow-swept Palm Sunday in April 1461 that the two armies gathered: the Lancastrians under Henry VI and the Yorkist army under the new king Edward IV and it is said that so many were killed, the adjacent streams ran red with blood for days after.
The significance of the battle could not be over-estimated. It was of critical importance for Henry and his protective wife, Queen Margaret to defeat Edward before he could establish his credibility in the land and gain general acceptance. It was equally important for Edward to assert himself and his newly founded candidacy to the throne to the active Lancastrians who still sided with Henry.
Contemporary figures for the number of men that fought that day were grossly exaggerated (it was so easy for chroniclers of the time to be over-awed by the troops that assembled that day). The London Chronicle compiled by William Gregory tells us that the Yorkist army numbered 200,000 men even though he was not anywhere near York at the time. Since accounts also tell us that the Lancastrian army was superior in numbers to Edward IV’s, the conclusion can only be that half a million men were engaged that day. As the population of England was only two and a half million, this would have meant that nearly all the men in England of fighting age were involved! This is clearly implausible and makes it equally clear why it is usually seen as the battle with the highest tally of casualties. More realistically, 50,000 men (some have said 75,000) gathered on that biting spring day in one of only a handful of pitch battles during the Wars -most of the battles were more akin to skirmishes; St Albans in 1455, has been described as little more than a scuffle in the street.
Regardless of numbers, the battle was a pivotal moment in the wars and saw Henry VI and his wife, Queen Margaret lose to the new Edward IV. Within a few months of the battle, Edward was able to establish himself as the credible King of the realm.

Edward had marched from London after assuming the crown in March. He soberly dispensed with the coronation and subsequent feasting believing that his throne would only be secure by defeating the Lancastrians on the battlefield. He reached Pontefract by the 28th March after moving in planned stages to gather as much support as possible. Henry VI for his part was successful in recruiting the majority of the English nobility. When the two armies faced each other on Palm Sunday, 29th March they constituted the largest set-piece battle of the entire civil war.

On the day of the battle, William Lord Fauconberg, was able to use the adverse weather conditions to his advantage. With the wind behind him, he ordered his archers to send a volley against the unsighted Lancastrians and immediately withdraw. Believing they were under threat, the Lancastrians blinded by the snow, fired again and again at their enemy. Before long, they had no arrows left. The Yorkists collected their arrows from the frozen ground and continued their attack.
Even so, the battle degenerated into a bloody close quarter engagement, which continued until the arrival of fresh forces from the Duke of Norfolk’s command that supported the Yorkist rear guard. Most battles of the civil war were hand-to-hand clashes, fought on foot and involving all of the warring classes – from the knight to the common foot soldier. However there was a world of difference between the local men who were called to battle and the fully trained men-at-arms. As a foot soldier who served under the Earl of Warwick observed:
“The substance that got the field were household men and fee’d men. I ween there were not a 5,000 men that fought in the Queen’s part, for the most part of the Northern men [by this he means the local, country levies] fled away, and some were taken and spoiled out of their harness by the way as they fled.”
The close fighting made the position of leading commanders extremely vulnerable to injury, death and capture. At the Battle of Towton, the Earl of Northumberland fell as did the Earls of Devon and Wiltshire. When the battle was over, the cream of the northern nobility lay dead on the field or were taken prisoner and executed soon after. Due to large numbers of casualties amongst the gentry, the Battle of Towton forced the great northern families to choose a pragmatic route and they soon made peace with the new King. Not for another ten years were they able to offer any credible resistance and confront the young Edward IV again.

Maybe it is the wealth of historical places of interest in the city of York that deflects interest from this famous site. However for those coming from the East or West, a detour of a little more than five minutes takes you to one of the most pivotal places of battle in English history and the largest and one of the most important battles of the Wars of the Roses. Was it the bloodiest battle fought on English soil? Some would defiantly argue that it was. Other would point to Flodden in 1513. Regardless, it is worth a visit – even for a Lancastrian!

The "Battle" of Heworth Moor
It is well known that the Nevilles and the Percies dominated the political scene and were chief protagonists and decision makers in the Wars of the Roses. The two families had been rivals a long time and both had properties in the Vale of York, including Spofforth, Topcliffe and Catton for the Percies and Middleham, Sheriff Hutton and Elvington for the Nevilles.
During during the period 1452-55 1453-4 the antagonism between the two families spilled over into a private war and led to a number of skirmishes were men were "beten, slayne and hurte".
On the 24th August 1454, a year before the battle of St Albans, the forces of the Nevilles and the Percies met for the first time.

Heworth Moor is described as the first overt battle in "a greate discorde betwixt" Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury. A 15th century analyst has described the skirmish that took place near York as "the beginning of great sorrows in England".
The attack was led by Lord Egremont against the bridal party of Thomas Neville. It appears that Lord Cromwell had obtained some Percy states some years ago, and now Thomas Neville was going to marry Cromwell’s heir, Maude Stanhope. The prospect of Percy manors passing to the Neville family was too much for Lord Egremont who spent days fiercely recruiting in York. Together with his recruited army he ambushed the Nevilles on their way home to Sheriff Hutton. His intention, no doubt, was to slay the Nevilles. However Lord Egremont had probably underestimated the size of the Neville’s retinue. Still, the Percy force was almost certainly larger in size (710 names have been preserved, they probably numbered over a thousand). Armies in these times were generally made up of local levies rather than professional soldiers. By July 1453 the Percies and Nevilles had mustered 5000 armed men between them. Of the names and occupations of 710 who were indicted for their share in this incident, 94% of them were from Yorkshire. They included 6 knights, 32 esquires, 26 gentlemen and 24 clerks (amongst them several chaplains and belligerent priests. The city of York provided a sizeable contingent of around 100 artisans and tradesmen, but the largest single group was the 330 yeomen. The Nevilles were able to defend themselves although a mutal fear of staging a pitched battle meant there was little if any bloodshed and the Nevilles were able to retreat swiftly to their stronghold in Sherrif Hutton.
The skirmish, described by contemporaries as a battle is often regarded as the first military action of the War of the Roses and drove the Nevilles to seek the protection of the House of York.