At this point in the civil war, the Lancastrians
were on equal terms with the Yorkists,
having eliminated York and Salisbury from the scene at the Battle of Wakefield, and
been victorious at the Second Battle of St Albans. However, Richard Neville, "the
Kingmaker", controlled London and had proclaimed the eldest of York's sons as
King Edward IV. It was Edward himself who decided to take the initiative and
march north in the hope of inflicting a final defeat on his rival, King Henry VI. Henry,
a pious and peace-loving man, and by many reports mentally feeble, took no part in
any military decisions, but allowed his queen, Margaret of Anjou, complete freedom
to employ her battle commanders, chief of whom was Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of
Somerset, on his behalf.
Edward sent a detachment under Lord Fitzwalter
to seize the bridge at Ferrybridge.
They found the bridge broken down, but unguarded, and spent the day repairing it.
Fitzwalter's men were caught completely unaware by a dawn attack led by Lord
Clifford and the Yorkists were forced back across the river.
Edward immediately sent another force
upstream to cross the river at Castleford
and cut off Clifford's retreat. This fresh force caught Clifford's men and killed most
of them within sight of their lines. Somerset, for reasons known only to himself, sent
no troops to help the unfortunate Clifford, but instead waited for the advance of the
main Yorkist army.
Palm Sunday 29 March 1461 the two vast
armies faced each other in a raging
blizzard astride a minor road between the villages of Saxton and Towton.
Contemporary sources place the size of
the combined armies between 76,000-
80,000 a staggering number of men, when one considers the population of England
at that time was only 2.5 million.
About 10 am the Yorkist army opened proceedings,
taking advantage of the
conditions, Lord Fauconberg moved his archers (appox 8,000 armed with the
English Longbow) forward and shot the first volleys of the battle. The following wind
favoured the Yorkist archers and the arrow storm carried deep into the Lancastrian
ranks. The Lancastrians could not see their opponents and were unaware that their
arrow volleys were falling short because of the same wind, and in any event
Fauconberg had moved his archers out of range. The Lancastrians had no choice
but to take the battle to the Yorkists and engage with bill and sword, under the
command of the 23 year old Duke of Somerset.
Initially the Lancastrian advance was
successful and the Yorkist left flank began to
give ground and for some hours a vicious bloody fight took place on the left of the
Yorkist slope, a slope which history would remember as Bloody Meadows.
Sometime in the afternoon the tide of battle swung in favour of the Yorkists when the
Duke of Norfolk appeared with 5-6,000 fresh troops who immediately attacked the
Lancastrian left. (He'd been a taken ill at Pontefract Castle, on hearing that the
Yorkists were committed to battle and to ensure his forces arrived as quickly as
possible, he passed over command to his cousin Sir John Howard) Unable to
withstand this new onslaught the Lancastrian army pivoted round so that its back
was to the Cock Valley, and when the line collapsed they had no choice but to flee
down the steep hillside, throwing away weapons and armour as they ran. However,
the water meadows of Cock Beck were in winter flood and many who were not
killed during the flight were drowned when they stumbled, forming bridges of
bodies. Such was the intensity of the hatred on that Palm Sunday that Yorkist
Knights called for their horses in order to pursue the fleeing Lancastrians, which
they did, killing as they went, up to the gates of York some 10 miles north of the
battlefield. So great was the slaughter on that day that it is said the waters of The
Cock Beck and River Wharfe were turned red with blood. It's estimated that as
many as 28,000 maybe more, died that day. The Bishop of Exeter recorded that
bodies could be seen for an expanse of 6 by 3 miles. Many nobles and many
knights and of course, many ordinary men from all walks of life were killed at
Towton, amongst the nobles was the Lancastrian Lord Darce, whose tomb is
located in nearby Saxton village churchyard.
Both armies were divided into three battles
(divisions), four hours were spent as the
huge masses of men lined up in the blizzard conditions and awaited the final
stragglers. Finally Lord Fauconberg took the initiative as the wind changed
direction and blew the snow into the Lancastrians' faces. He led his archers forth
and sent a rain of arrows into the massed Lancastrian ranks. Visibility was bad and
with the wind blowing in their faces the returning volley of Lancastrian arrows fell
way short of their targets. As casualties mounted the Lancastrian army knew the
only way to stop the slaughter was to engage the enemy. It has been calculated that
Fauconberg would have been sending about 120,000 arrows a minute into the
enemy ranks. In a last clever move, Fauconberg ordered his men (who had loosed
all their own arrows by now) to retrieve some of the enemy shafts in the turf before
them, while leaving some as obstacles for the oncoming Lancastrians.
Weight of numbers pushed the Yorkists
back initially, but the Earl of Warwick and
Edward both fought in the front ranks to encourage their men.The fighting was long
and bloody and became so intense that the front lines were frequently forced to
stop and remove the bodies to be able to get at each other. As the hours passed
the Yorkists found themselves giving more and more ground until they came close
to Castle wood. From here two hundred spearmen launched a surprise attack on
the Yorkist left flank. Hundreds of men fled and Edward was forced to use his whole
reserve to stop his army from breaking up.
In the middle of the afternoon, John Howard
arrived with several thousand fresh
men, having finally been able to cross over the repaired bridge at Ferrybridge. The
old and ailing John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, had stayed at Pontefract Castle and
given over command of his forces to his cousin Howard. The Yorkists fought on with
new determination for about an hour, when very suddenly the Lancastrian line broke
and thousands of men fled the field.
