Wars of the Roses: Battle of Towton

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On September 29, 1459, James Tuchet, fifth Lord Audley, tried to intercept Salisbury at Blore Heath. Outnumbered but more cannily led, the Yorkists emerged victorious, leaving Audley and some 2,000 of his followers dead. A subsequent confrontation at Ludlow Bridge saw the Yorkists disintegrate, however, as one of their supporters, Anthony Trollope, defected to Henry’s side. York fled back to Ireland, while Salisbury, Warwick and York’s eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, withdrew to Calais.

That debacle did not spell the end of Yorkist hopes, however. Warwick maintained an aggressive stance across the English Channel, and by June 1460, he had secured a beachhead at Sandwich. From there, he and Salisbury, with swelling support, marched on the capital. Caught unprepared, Henry scurried southward from mustering in the Midlands while the Yorkists came north to force an encounter at Northampton, which ended with the hapless king again becoming a prisoner.

The Duke of York returned to England on October 10 to find himself again de facto ruler of the realm. By a swiftly engineered Act of Settlement, the young Prince of Wales was excluded from the royal succession and York instated as Henry’s heir. That was too much for Queen Margaret. Retiring northward, she summoned her supporters. York and Salisbury pursued her, celebrating Christmas at Sandal Castle, near Wakefield. On December 30, York came out to fight, but he died in the ensuing battle; Salisbury was captured. On York’s order, Sir Robert Aspall tried to take the duke’s young son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, to safety, but Lord John Clifford broke away in pursuit, capturing them at Wakefield Bridge. Clifford then killed them both, allegedly saying as he butchered Edmund, ‘By God’s blood thy father slew mine and so will I do thee and all thy kin.’ York’s, Rutland’s and Salisbury’s heads were subsequently mounted on the wall over Micklegate, and legend has it that Margaret ordered that room be left there for the heads of the earls of March and Warwick.

Edward, Earl of March, was at Shrewsbury when he learned of his father’s death. Though still in his teens, he showed the mettle of one of the great commanders of his age. Hearing that the earls of Wiltshire and Pembroke were advancing through Wales, he moved to intercept them. At Mortimer’s Cross on February 2, 1461, he routed the Lancastrians and killed 3,000 of his enemies.

Meanwhile Margaret swept southward, reaching Dunstable by February 16. Warwick, leading forces drawn from the south and East Anglia, advanced to engage the queen at St. Albans, scene of his earlier triumph, on the 17th. The Second Battle of St. Albans, however, had a disastrously different outcome than the first. Overextended and overconfident, Warwick had failed to properly deploy his levies when Trollope struck his army in the rear. Amid the rout, King Henry was recovered and reunited with his strong-willed royal consort.

Edward was, to say the least, critical of his cousin’s failure. On the other hand, Margaret had an able joint commander in the 24-year-old John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, and his adviser, the veteran Trollope. When the Council of London refused to let his army in, Henry VI, indecisive to the last, was unwilling to hazard a final advance on the capital, thus robbing the Lancastrians of the prize for which they’d fought so hard. Margaret was trying to negotiate entry into the city when word arrived that Edward had joined Warwick near Oxford and was marching on London. On February 26, Henry’s army began a long retreat, apparently with the intention of establishing a defensible line on the north bank of the Aire River and await reinforcements from the north.

Warwick had failed as a general, but he was a skilled politician and diplomat, immensely wealthy, yet popular with the masses. Long the guiding hand behind York, he now led Edward across the fateful Rubicon. There would be no more pretense of fighting to rescue Henry from evil counselors. On March 4, the Earl of March rode to Westminster, where his supporters publicly proclaimed him Edward IV, King of England. His older cousin, Warwick, would be known thereafter as ‘the Kingmaker.’Edward IV, 6 feet 4 inches tall, dazzling and charismatic, was a peerless knight even at age 19, though given to indolence when not steeled for war. He was cool and incisive under pressure and had already demonstrated a consummate understanding of strategy at Mortimer’s Cross. Warwick had proved to be a flawed tactician at the Second Battle of St. Albans, but William, Lord Fauconberg, who was uncle to both men, was an experienced and able commander.

Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

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