The Battle of Towton

460 July The Battle of Towton HE year 1460 closed well for the Lancastrians. On 29 Dec. T Richard, duke of York, had been defeated and killed at Downloaded from Wakefield, and Margaret had followed up this success by routing the earl of Warwick at St. Albans and advancing upon London itself. There, however, the tide had turned. The rapacity of the northern men, gens Borea, gens perfidies, gens prompta rapines, brought them into no small detestation of the southerners; * http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ Edward, earl of March, fresh from his victory at Mortimer's Cross, was threatening their rear; and Margaret, finding no hope of a diversion in her favour, gave orders for a retreat. As they went the northern men plundered shamefully. According to one autho- xity, ' Queen Margaret's council had granted and given leave to the northern men to spoil and rob the said city of London, and also the towns of Coventry, Bristol, and Salisbury.' Disappointed of their prey, the northerners in their retreat ' did harms innumerable, at University of Rhode Island on April 7, 2015 taking men's carts, wagons, horses, and beasts, and robbed the people and led their pillage into the north country, so that men of the shires that they passed by had almost left no beasts to till their land.'s Edward, who had been received as king by the Londoners, was soon in pursuit. The rapacity of the northerners 1 The following account of Towton is the result of a study of all the authorities to whioh I have been able to obtain access, and of an examination of the ground and neighbourhood. Towton has been singularly unfortunate in its ohroniolers. For such an important battle, the space allotted to it has been very small, and no fifteenth or sixteenth century narrative, of whioh I am aware, claims to be that of an eyewitness or even of a mni who knew the ground. Consequently an account has to be pieced together by selection from a variety of sources, and checked by study of the ground itself. Fortunately the ground on which Towton was fought is well defined, and a map enables the modern reader to understand the action much better than even a contemporary who had no such aid. Besides the early authorities, I have also consulted two papers on Towton, whioh have been published by the York- Bhire Topographical and Historical Society, the work of Mr. Clements Markham, C.B., and of Dr. Alexander D. H. Leadman, and have compared their views with my own. I am also indebted to Major Guise Tucker, EMJL, who has been with me to the spot, for the accompanying map. 1 Whethamstede's Chronicle, i. 888-401, B.8. ' Old English Chronicle, published by the Oamden Society, from internal evidence written between 1461 and 1471. Unfortunately it leaves off at the accession of Edward IV, and Warkworth's Chronicle does not take up the story till after the •coronation. Downloaded from http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Rhode Island on April 7, 2015 Downloaded from http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ at University of Rhode Island on April 7, 2015 1889 THE BATTLE OF TOWTON 461 had flung the southern shires into his arms. Every wealthy county and every flourishing town sent its contingent to his banner, and at Pontefract he found himself at the head of 48,650 men.4 The men of Coventry were there under their banner the 'Black Bam,' and the citizens of Bristol under their ' Ship.' * Every one who had anything to lose felt that the south must not again be exposed to the risk of a northern invasion. Arrived at Pontefract, Edward's first care was to secure the passage of the river Aire at Ferrybridge, and this duty was handed to Lord Fitzwalter ' with a great number of tall personages.'6 From Ferrybridge the great north road takes a straight line towards Downloaded from Tadcaster, where it crosses the Wharfe, and four miles south from Tadcaster and nine miles north of Ferrybridge the Lancastrians had pitched their camp, intending, as Hall says, ' to prohibit Tftng Edward to pass over the river of Aire.' The rapidity of Edward's movements, however, must have disconcerted their action, and Lord http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ Clifford was immediately detached to regain the passage. Clifford advanced with his light horsemen during the night of Friday, 27 March, reached Ferrybridge at daybreak, and surprised and slaughtered Fitzwalter and his men. Edward, however, met the movement by ordering the vanguard, under Lord Falconbridge, Sir Walter Blount, and Kobert Home, to cross the river at Castleford, three miles higher up the river, intending to surround Clifford. That officer, as soon as he learned his at University of Rhode Island on April 7, 2015 danger, abandoned Ferrybridge and fell back upon the main army by the high road. Seven miles north of Ferrybridge lies Barkston Ash, beyond which the road rises rapidly and then falls away in an abrupt slope towards the valley of Dintingdale. Up to this point the retreat seems to have been unmolested, and Clifford himself, ' whether for pain or heat,' 7 had relieved himself of his gorget. Suddenly, however, they found themselves in an ambush. Clifford was Btruck down by an arrow, and ' almost all his company were there slain.'8 This disaster, which happened within a couple of miles of the Lancastrian camp, shows conclusively the badness of the Lancastrian generalship, (1) in not securing Ferrybridge, (2) in allowing all Saturday to pass without supporting Clifford, and (8) in allowing an ambush to be formed all but within sight of their camp. Meanwhile, the main body of the Yorkists had been making its way from Castleford, and by .the evening must have been somewhere on the high ground to the south of Saxton, a village which lies in the Dihtingdale depression some half-mile to the west of the scene of Clifford's disaster. John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, who com- manded the rearguard, being sick,9 had been left at Ferrybridge • Hall, on the authority of the paymasters. • Bristol, in the Historio Towns series, by W. Hunt. • HalL ' HalL. • HalL 462 THE BATTLE OF TOWTON July with Sir John Wenlock and Sir John Dynham, but was expected to co-operate on the following day. The little village of Saxton, in the churchyard of which stands the tomb of Lord Dacre, killed in the action, lies at the foot of the plateau on which the battle of Towton was fought. This plateau is bounded on the west by a very sharp declivity, at the foot of which runs a little river or stream, the Cock beck, so narrow that an active jumper would now have no difficulty in clearing it. Four hundred years ago, however, it was probably both greater in volume and more formidable from the marshy nature of its banks than is the case at present. To the east the plateau extends nearly to the Downloaded from Tadcaster and Ferrybridge road, and then the ground trends away rapidly towards the east and soon loses itself in the plain of York. Towards the north it stretches beyond Towton village. The breadth of the widest part of the plain between the Cock beck and the road is about a mile; the distance from Towton village http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ to the southern extremity towards Saxton is about a mile and a half. Within this parallelogram of one mile by one and a half the battle of Towton was fought. At the Saxton end of the plateau it is crossed by a depression called Towton Dale, the Bides of which north and south project westward from the plain and cause the Cock beck to make a couple of sharp corners. In the northern corner is Eenshaw Wood, and in the southern Castle Hill Wood. at University of Rhode Island on April 7, 2015 It was on the highest ground between Benshaw Wood and the road that the Lancastrians drew up their force of 60,000 10 men. The position thus chosen was extraordinarily strong. It com- manded both the roads towards Tadcaster that came from Ferry- bridge and Castleford. The right was absolutely safe, and any attempt to turn the left by a flank march would have exposed the Yorkists to an attack in which all the advantage of the ground would have been with the Lancastrians. The assault, therefore, would have to be made in front, and tradition says that the Lan- castrians had thrown forward a detachment into the Castle Wood in order to take their opponents in flank. The one weak point in the position appearB to have been that it was somewhat cramped, so that the Yorkists with a smaller force could show an equal front to the Lancastrians. Turnip and corn fields now occupy most of the plateau, but in the fifteenth century the ground is spoken of as a heath, and no mention is made of inclosures or indeed of impedi- ments of any kind. The leaders of the Lancastrians were Henry, duke of Somerset, and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland. On Palm Sunday morning, in the twilight, the Yorkists pre- pared to attack this formidable post. The day was bitterly cold, for snow was falling when they faced the ascent from Saxton. Their u Hall 1889 THE BATTLE OF TOWTON 463 numbers were small. Edward had only 49,000 men at Pontefract. Some had fallen at Ferrybridge and at Dintingdale, and the rearguard was still on its march. It appears to have formed no part of the Lancastrian plan to dispute the climb from Saxton, and the Yorkists came out upon the plateau without opposition, and at nine o'clock11 found themselves in presence of their opponents drawn up on the northern slope of Towton Dale.

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