This is escapist fare for those worn down by worries over current politics. This series attempts a simplified account of the political and military struggle among the English ruling classes in the 1400s.
No prior knowledge required! (Just like Congress!)
Part 1 showed the roots of the conflict arose in a disputed succession, a lost foreign war, and a weak king.
Part 2 covered the initial combat in 1455, followed by an uneasy peace until 1459, when hostilities were renewed.
We begin our story at the end of 1459, with the Yorkists in exile and scheming to return to England and defeat the House of Lancaster. This part will show the see-saw struggle during the approximately 18 months between late 1459 and early 1461 where each faction sustained triumphs and suffered bitter defeat, and for the surviving leaders, exile.
First, a brief reintroduction of the main characters and recap of the renewed fighting which began in 1459.
Symbols
- Red rose = Lancaster.
- White rose = York.
The House of Lancaster
The house of Lancaster was the reigning royal house of England from 1399 to 1461, and from 1470 to 1471. In 1459, the Lancasterian king was Henry Windsor (1421-1471), reigning as Henry VI). Henry Windsor was a good-natured person, but a weak king who suffered from a severe mental illness.
The real driving power behind the house of Lancaster was Henry Windsor's wife, Margaret Anjou (1430-1482). (Margaret and Henry Windsor had a single child, Edward Westminster (1453-1471), the Prince of Wales.
The most important noble supporters of Lancaster were the Beauforts. They were close relatives and allies of King Henry Windsor, so much so that the wars truly should be thought of as a struggle between the house of Beaufort and the house of York. The chiefs of the house of Beaufort generally bore the titles Marquess or Duke of Somerset.
The House of York
The House of York was headed by Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, (1411-1460). This arrogant nobleman, who was generally called "York", had adopted the name "Plantagenet", previously unused for many generations, as a reminder that he was of royal blood. York was an enormously wealthy and powerful man, and he was married to Cecily Neville (1415-495), of the powerful Neville family.
York and Cecily Neville had seven children who lived to adulthood; in 1459 their two oldest sons, Edward March (1442-1483), and Edmund Rutland (1443-1460) were at or nearing military age.
Cecily Neville was the sister of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, generally referred to as "Salisbury". Salisbury's most prominent son was the astoundingly nimble politician Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (1428-1471), better known to history as the Kingmaker.
The rival claims (recapitulation).
All parties traced their claims to the throne back to Edward III (b.1312; reigned 1327-1377).
When Edward III died in 1377, he was succeed by his grandson, Richard II (b1367-d1400; reigned 1377-1399), the son of Edward III's first son, Edward, the Black Prince (1330-1376), who predeceased Edward III.
The Lancastrian claim to the throne.
In 1399, Henry Bolingbroke, the son of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340-1399), the third son of Edward III, usurped the throne from Richard II, and in 1400, apparently ordered the murder (by starvation) of the deposed king.
Bolingbroke (who was the grandfather of Henry VI (Windsor)) also usurped the prior claim of the heirs of Edward III's second son, Lionel of Antwerp (1338-1368), which by 1399 was held by an 8 year-old girl, Anne Mortimer, (1390-1421) the great-grandchild of Lionel of Antwerp. (Her father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (1374-1398) had been the heir presumptive to Richard II.
The Yorkist claim to the throne
Anne Mortimer, who was one of the wealthiest heiresses in the kingdom, married Richard Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge (1375-1415), who was the son of Edmund Langley, the fourth son of Edward III. Richard York was their son, and thus heir to the Mortimer claim.
Succession to the throne in 1459 (simplified)
Up until the birth of the Prince of Wales in 1453, York had been the heir presumptive, that is, he would have become king if Henry Windsor had died without issue. The birth of the Prince pushed York one life back from the throne.
Military disaster in 1459 forces Yorkist leaders to flee the country
In the early fall of 1459, open fighting broke out, with York winning the first battle, at Blore Heath, in Shropshire on September 23, 1459. Not much later, on October 12, 1459, the Yorkists suffering a military disaster at the battle of Ludford Bridge.
In a spectacular display of cowardice (or discretion, have your pick), York, Warwick, and Warwick's father the Earl of Salisbury deserted their army while it was still arrayed in line of battle, with York going to Ireland, and Warwick and Salisbury to Calais. Once the Yorkist leaders were out of the country, Queen Margaret, the wife of King Henry did her best to finally be rid of Warwick. She sent an expedition to lay siege to Calais; this failed, one of the reasons being that Warwick sailed over from Calais and burned the ships.
Warwick's invades and defeats Lancaster
The opening of the year 1460 found the House of Lancaster in shaky control of the kingdom, and expecting either York to return to England from Ireland (thought to be the more likely event), or an invasion from Calais under Warwick. It was Warwick who came first however, using a port he had seized when burning the Lancasterian ships
Warwick quickly moved north into and through London, and further north. With the decisive aid of a treacherous Lancastrian commander who switched sides in the middle of the battle, Warwick defeated King Henry Windsor (Henry VI)'s army at the Battle of Northampton, and captured King Henry Windsor. This time it was the Lancastrian lords who had to flee the country. Warwick then returned to London with Henry, ostensibly as a loyal subject of the King.
York returns from Ireland and asserts the Mortimer claim
When Parliament met in October of 1460, York made the extremely bold gesture of advancing towards the actual ceremonial marble throne, called the King's Bench, in (the still existing) Westminster Hall. He actually laid his hand upon the throne, which horrified the assembled lords. York spoke in Parliament at that time, and he was quite clear that he was reviving the Mortimer claim to the throne, regardless of its age. It also seems to be that it was about this time that York started using the surname "Plantagenet" to remind people of his claim to the throne, even though the royal family had not used this name for many generations.
Compromise fails in Parliament
York's proclamation in Parliament of the Mortiimer claim proved to be the worst product roll out in all history until New Coke 525 years later. Immediately afterwards, the room was silent until after some time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, York's own kinsman, asked York if he would like to see the King, as if he had simply not heard York proclaim himself to be the king.
While the weakness of Henry Windsor was public knowledge, a situation which caused the government to be run (and very poorly) by whomever could get access to the King, the King was still considered God's anointed, as well as being the son and grandson of duly anointed Kings. Parliament just wasn't going to bite on the lure. So by the end of October, Parliament hit on a not very good compromise, enacted the optimistically named Act of Accord whereby Henry Windsor would remain king for the remainder of his life, and upon his death, the crown would go to Richard York and York's heirs, should York predecease Windsor.
Of course this necessarily cut the Prince of Wales, Edward Westminster, completely out of the succession to the throne, and would also have forced the Beauforts to come to terms with the Yorkists, which given the fate of those who had incurred York's wrath in the not very distant past, was not something they would willingly do.
At the time the parliamentary compromise, Margaret Anjou was in Scotland, where the queen was a Beaufort. Margaret Anjou was capable of almost any kind of machination, but the one thing she would never permit would be to have her son kept from the succession. This was not just a matter of greed for power, as the (then) not particularly distant in time examples Edward II and Richard II showed that imprisonment followed by secret murder might well be the fate of anyone who lost the crown.
Lancaster and York prepare for war.
In late 1460, Margaret was in Scotland under the protection of that country's queen, who was a Beaufort. Of course, quite aside from family ties (which didn't necessarily count for much where the parties were sufficiently ruthless) Scotland was only too happy to encourage disharmony among the English ruling class.
The principal Lancastrian lords were also in the north of England, not far from the Scottish border,organizing a Lancastrian army. Other Lancastrian lords were in Wales, organizing a second army. The objective was to join these armies together, move south, defeat the Yorkists once and for all, and rescue the King from Yorkist custody.
York also marshaled armies, one that would advance north under the command of Richard York himself, to deal with the principal Lancastrian lords near the border with Scotland. A second army would move west, towards Wales, under the command of York's oldest son, the young but capable Edward March. A third army would remain in the London vicinity, under the command of Warwick the Kingmaker.
York, Salisbury and Rutland killed at Sandal Castle.
York, Salisbury and York's second eldest son Edmund Rutland and their army occupied York's stronghold of Sandal Castle. Meanwhile a very large Lancastrian army gathered around the castle. The situation was summarized by a modern historian (Haigh, The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses), as follows:
... the Lancastrians, lacking siege artillery, were limited in their response to York at Sandal Castle. They decided to sit things out and await York's move, their plan being to engage him in open battle once he left the castle, and thus decide the issue. They taunted York daily. sending insulting messages to the effect that he was a coward to sit behind the walls of a castle and that he must be afraid of a woman (Margaret Anjou) to do so.
Unfortunately, the literal text of the Lancastrian taunts and insults is lost to history, but if they were lucky, they would have had a bard or a minstrel at hand to compose something like this:
I wave my private parts at your aunties, you cheesy lot of second hand electric donkey-bottom biters!
The castle was ill-equipped to withstand a siege, being low on provisions. York had foraging (the military word for "thievery") parties sent out of the castle to gather supplies. He was warned that this would operate as a signal to the approaching forces of Lancaster that the castle was weak, but York ignored him.
Precisely what happened to cause York's death is not quite certain. What is known is that on December 30, 1460, as a force of Lancastrian troops was arriving, there was a skirmish within the view of the castle, on an open field that runs north to a stone bridge (still extent) over the River Calder.
York may have mistaken the arriving column as Yorkist troops, and he might have been thinking he could trap the Lancaster troops between them. But in any case, York and his soldiers sallied forth from the castle with Salisbury and Rutland, and he was killed in what became known as the battle of Wakefield The actual fighting lasted perhaps one-half hour before the Yorkists were surrounded.
The overproud York himself was backed up to a elm tree, still fighting, he refused an offer of quarter, and was hacked down by the Lancastrians. His son Edmund Rutland was also killed under circumstances not wholly clear. It seems that York, seeing the battle was going against him, charged Rutland's tutor/chaplain with taking him out of the battle. Legend says that Rutland was killed as the retreating Yorkists sought to cross the stone bridge across the River Calder
Lord Clifford made him prisoner, but did not then know his rank. Struck with the richness of his armour and equipment, Lord Clifford demanded his name. 'Save him,' implored the Chaplain; 'for he is the Prince's son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter.'
This was an impolitic appeal, for it denoted hopes of the House of York being again in the ascendant, which the Lancastrians, flushed with recent victory, regarded as impossible. The ruthless noble swore a solemn oath:- 'Thy father,' said he, 'slew mine; and so will I do thee and all thy kin;' and with these words be rushed on the hapless youth, and drove his dagger to the hilt in his heart. Thus fell, at the early age of seventeen, Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland, Lord Chancellor of Ireland
Shakespeare quite inaccurately portrays Rutland as a small child. An example of this false depiction is shown in this 1793 etching showing Rutland as a helpless child. In fact Rutland was 17 years of age at the time, old enough to be a combatant; he was both fully armed and in full armor, although as a prisoner even under the customs of the time, he should not have been wantonly murdered.
The Paper Crown
Salisbury, York's brother-in-law, was captured and executed by beheading the next day. Normally a prisoner of his rank could expect to be ransomed. But even the presence of Salisbury's uncle, who was fighting on the Lancaster side, was unable to save him. The explanation usually given for this is the intense hatred felt by the Lancastrian leaders Clifford Harry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland (1421-1461), arising out the killing of both their fathers by the Yorkists at the first battle of St. Albans in 1455.
The Lancastrians cut off the heads of York and Rutland and stuck them, with that of Salisbury on pikes at the top of Micklegate Bar, a still-extent gate in the walls of the city of York. On the head of York was placed a paper crown in mockery of his ambitions to the throne, and before the heads was place, it is said, a sign which said:
Let York overlook York.
This was said to have been done by Clifford, who according to legend left space between the three heads to mount those of March and Warwick. Some sources attribute the whole heads on a spike and paper crown thing to Margaret Anjou; this was well within her character, that is for sure.
After Wakefield the wars became far more vindictive. The bitterness was perhaps enhanced by the fact that the principal participants were more or less closely related and they were all drawn from the same small but wealthy ruling class of the country.
War moves to a new stage of bitterness with a York victory.
A few weeks after the defeat at Sandal Castle, the Yorkist forces under the command of the youthful Edward March, defeated the Lancastrians at the battle of Mortimer's Cross on 4 Feb 1461. A number of Lancastrian lords were captured at the battle and summarily executed by beheading. Notable among these was the Lancastrian commander Owen Meredith Tudor (Welsh: Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur) (c1400-1461) who was the step-father of King Henry VI (Windsor). Owen Tudor had married, in what appeared to have been a love match, Catherine Valois (1401-1437) whose first husband had been the famous conqueror of France, Henry V (Monmouth) (b.1387; reigned 1413-1422). It is said that on account of his age and rank, Owen Tudor could not at first believe that he would be executed, but then said:
The head which used to lie in Queen Catherine's lap would now lie in the executioner's basket.
It was also said that after his execution, a mad woman gathered up his head, wiped off the blood, kissed the lips, and lit a circle of candles around it. Or, as Johnny Carson would say, wild and wacky stuff!
Battles tended to generate legends and superstitions. At Mortimer's Cross, the Yorkists are said to have witnessed three suns in the sky (actually an atmospheric optical effect known as a sun dog). This gave rise to the use of the symbol of the sun in splendor as an emblem of the House of York, and it is this which is referred to in the pun in the famous lines at the opening of Richard III:
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York.
Lancaster surges south
Weakened but undeterred by the loss at Mortimer's Cross, Margaret's forces, half army and half mob, moved south towards London down the ancient Roman road known as Watling Street. (The word "street" in those days simply meant a paved road, it did was not yet strictly used to connote an urban avenue). They are noted, at least by Yorkist chroniclers, for having done quite a bit of looting, robbery, arson and the occasional murder along the way, which must have been bad indeed, for all armies looted in those times, in fact, the opportunity to loot was one of the main attractions of soldiering.
Eventually the Lancastrians came on 17 Feb 1461 to the little town of St. Albans, scene of Lancaster's defeat in 1455, where the Yorkist forces commanded by Warwick were concentrated. This time it was the Yorkists where defending the town rather than the Lancastrians.
After a difficult struggle which has come to be known as the Second Battle of St. Albans, in which, as was becoming customary, part of the opposing army (in this case it was the Yorkists), having seen which way the battle was headed, deserted to the enemy. As a result, Lancaster was able to prevail, and King Henry Windsor was released from Yorkist custody and reunited with his wife and son. The Lancastrian army, short of provisions, looted the town of St.Albans and its vicinity.
Executions after the battle.
Again, there was more bitter killing by the victors of the defeated leaders. Warwick had brought King Henry VI (Windsor) to the battlefield at St. Albans, and assigned two widely respected knights to keep guard over him and make sure he came to no harm. (This does not necessarily mean Warwick was particularly noble -- it was in his best political interest to keep Henry alive so long as Margaret and the Prince of Wales were still at liberty.)
In this case, when the traditional skedaddle began of the defeated commanders, the knights guarding King Henry asked them for his word to protect them should they remain by his side and be captured. Henry gave his word, but when the battle was over, Margaret Anjou disavowed it, and had the two knights beheaded after a sham court-martial. It is said that she let her son, then aged no more than 8 years, make the decision to execute the knights. From a modern history (Royle, Lancaster against York):
Before the King could say anything -- earlier he had promised to save their lives, Bonville and Kyriell were dragged in front of the court. Margaret then turned to her son and asked what should be done with the two men:
Let their heads be taken off,
was the boy's cool reply, to which Bonville angrily responded:
May God destroy those who taught thee this manner of speech.
Both were taken outside and beheaded without further ado.
Curses were taken quite seriously in those days, they were considered the opposite of oaths, which likewise were serious. It must be remembered that in an age of universal religious belief, combined with widespread illiteracy, the spoken word was much more important than it is in today's time where the written word is worshiped and the spoken language is deprecated. Bonville was one of the highest ranking of the English nobility; his son and grandson had been captured at the recent Lancastrian victory at Wakefield and executed. Bonville's curse was therefore remembered, and all the more so because within 10 years it would have come true almost in its entirety.
Lancaster retreats north, pursued by Edward March, now claiming to be king
Fearing being looted by the Lancastrian army, which included lots of Scots and other types generally accounted as riff-raff in those days, the burgers of London had become pro-Yorkist, and they consequently refused to open the city gates to Margaret. Running out of supplies and hugely unpopular among the southern English, the more disciplined parts of Lancaster's army fell back to the north, while the less disciplined portions simply dissolved. Edward March, then, with the full backing of the London merchant class, explicitly claimed the throne as Edward IV, pursued them north.
Sharp but inconclusive combat at Ferrybridge.
A fierce but indecisive battle took place at Ferrybridge, where Lancastrians held a strategic bridge over the river Aire. While the Yorkists under Warwick were able to capture and repair the partially destroyed bridge on 27 Mar 1461, the following day a Lancastrian counter attack, led by Clifford and by John Neville, the Earl of Westmoreland (coincidentally the great-uncle of Warwick) threw the Yorkists back in an ambush.
Warwick cooks up some propaganda?
By this time Warwick was beginning to acquire a reputation as a not very good military commander. He was blamed for mishandling his troops at the recent defeat at Second St. Albans, and the victories he seemed to have organized were said to have been due either to the efforts of other people (First St. Albans) or his unrivaled skill at bribery and dirty tricks (Northampton). And of course Warwick had run away at the battle of Ludford Bridge.
Talk was getting around. With this most recent setback at Ferrybridge, and the Lancastrians appearing about to renew the attack, Warwick, at least it is said, decided to do something dramatic. And so the legend goes that Warwick drew his sword and said:
Flee if you will but I will tarry with he who will tarry with me.
Supposedly he then killed his own horse to show that he would retreat no further.
Ah, sure. It could happen. However, conveniently, the Lancastrians did not press the attack further, and Warwick, if he did kill his horse, seems to have done so unnecessarily. In fact, this seems like one of those stock tales of valor common in the Middle Ages, and other times of course. A very silly version of this legend can be seen in this 1797 painting (was Warwick really stark naked and painted blue all over?) Realistically, how could Warwick have expected to command an army without a horse?
The next day 28 Mar 1461, additional Yorkist forces arrived. They marched upstream, bypassing the contested bridge crossing by crossing at a ford, then moved back to outflank the Lancastrians. In the ensuing combat, Clifford and Neville, the Lancastrian commanders, were killed.
Yorkists win a decisive victory at Towton
At Towton, on 29 Mar 1461, Yorkist and Lancastrians met in the largest battle ever fought, before or since, in the British Isles.
From 60,000 to 70,000 total troops were engaged, with roughly equal numbers on each side. The Yorkists were commanded by Edward March, then just 19 years old. Warwick's involvement in this battle is unclear; some modern historians say he commanded a wing of the Yorkist army; other's say he was not engaged much on account of an injury or wound he sustained at the battle of Ferrybridge.
On the other side, the Lancastrians were commanded by Henry Beaufort, 3d Duke of Somerset (1436-1464). Beaufort was a fairly close relative of Warwick wife; this of course did not keep either Beaufort or Warwick from making war upon each other.
At that time, there was a military custom called "quarter" whereby a combatant could surrender, and be treated honorably. (Note: common soldiers need not apply!) This was also linked to the idea of ransom, so it was not purely a matter of nobility. But in the case of the battle of Towton, the leaders of each side, before the battle, determined neither to ask for nor to give quarter. Both sides were determined to end the struggle then and there.
Quite a lot is known about the battle of Towton; its location is known with some precision, and as recently as 1996 a significant excavation produced arrow points, weapons, military artifacts and even skulls are unearthed in the battle area. (A book entitled Blood Red Roses describes the excavation of a grave containing 37 skeletons of soldiers, many of whom had suffered severe injuries to the skull from the hand arms of the period.)
The formation of the battle lines was rather simple; each side formed facing each other across a snow-covered field. It was Palm Sunday, and during the several hours it took for the armies to assemble, the chimes of York Minister could be heard over the field. It began to snow.
The wind then shifted against the Lancastrians, giving extra range to the Yorkist bowmen, and they began shooting into the packed Lancastrian ranks with deadly effect. The same wind blew snow into the faces of the the Lancastrian archers, and caused their arrow volleys to fall short of the Yorkist line. Under these circumstances, the Lancastrian commanders decided the only thing to do would be to advance towards the Yorkists and engage them hand-to-hand.
It must have been a terrifying sight to see the Lancastrian army, numbering perhaps as many as 40,000 men, advancing towards the Yorkist line, as shown in this modern historical painting by Graham Turner. But the Yorkists were also extremely tough soldiers in an very hard age. In addition to the leaders, many of the captains and sergeants on both sides would had experience in the French wars, which were only concluded in 1453. Modern forensic science has shown that skeletons recovered from Towton showed signs that the soldiers had been subjected to hard working conditions from the time they were teenagers.
The battle was extremely fierce and deadly. The standard infantry weapon of the time was the war hammer, basically a pole about 5 to 6 feet long, typically made of ash wood for its strength and flexibility, with a weapon head on one end that looked approximately like modern claw hammer, with a spike projecting from the center. Bands of reinforcing and protective steel would have run along the haft, and the weapon could also be reversed, to be used to knock down an opponent so he could be finished off more readily on the ground. In the hands of a trained soldier, these could do terrible damage even to armored opponents, and some of the skulls found at Towton in the 1990s show huge holes ripped in them, probably by this type of weapon.
Reportedly there were several periods of rest among the combatants when the bodies of the slain had to be cleared away so the fighting could be resumed. The Lancastrians launched a flank attack, which almost succeeded in winning the battle.
On the Yorkist side, Edward March, readily distinguishable wearing on his surcoat the royal arms of England as King, rode along behind the Yorkist line and where it appeared the Lancastrians were about to break through, he would dismount and personally join in the combat.
Just as it appeared that the superior numbers of the Lancastrians were beginning to tell, fresh troops arrived for the Yorkists. These troops, not worn down by hours of combat in the snow and mud, were able to turn the battle around for the Yorkists. The Lancastrians were forced to retreat, and the retreat turned into a rout.
The casualities were high, a figure of 28,000 killed, this seems a high number, possibly exaggerated by Yorkist heralds, but the extent of the slaughter made a deep impression on people of the time. Warwick's brother, John Neville, the Bishop of Exeter, wrote:
... some 28,000 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.
Results of Towton
As a result of Towton, the House of Lancaster's army was completely broken. Edward March's claim to reign as Edward IV was placed beyond serious military (if not leagal) contention for the next ten years. The Yorkists were not able to capture Henry VI (Windsor) , Margaret Anjou, and the Prince of Wales, Edward Westminster. Without these important persons in their hands, the war could never be truly settled, Until about 1464, the war continued including significant military campaigns and sieges, mostly in the periphery areas of the country, such as Northumberland and Wales.
Sneak preview
In our next part, we'll see how the Duke of Somerset, leader of the Lancastrians, will try to reconcile himself to the victory of the Yorkists. Meanwhile Margaret Anjou and her child Edward Westminster go into hiding. Edward March, reigning as Edward IV, appears to have his country united -- or does he? After a controversial marriage, the Yorkists begin a new phase of the struggle, as dueling Yorkist factions feud amongst each other. Warwick the Kingmaker tears down one king and raises up another one -- but for how long? One house then triumphs while the other goes down to apparent permanent defeat.