Battles of English History

by H. B. George

The Wars of the Roses were in more ways than one the outcome of the great French war. Formally they were an appeal to arms to decide a disputed succession to the crown: substantially they were a revolt against a weak and discredited government, of whose incompetence the unsuccessful conduct of the war in France had been the most conspicuous evidence. Henry VI., or those who bore rule in his name, had neither the sagacity to make peace and save some portion of the French territory at the price of abandoning claim to the whole, nor the energy to carry on the conflict vigorously. The absurdly scanty numbers of the English troops in France during the last fifteen or twenty years of the war testify alike to the feebleness of the government at home, and to the respect which English military skill and prowess inspired abroad. The marriage of Henry VI. was arranged in the hope of propping up his failing cause in France. And the personality of Margaret of Anjou is on the whole the most important in the Wars of the Roses. On the one hand her energy and daring alone sustained the cause of Lancaster, which without her would have collapsed; on the other hand her extreme unpopularity helped the cause of York. The accident that she was eight years a wife before becoming a mother contributed to the same end. The duke of York had so long been in the position of next in succession to the crown,[40] that when a direct heir was born to Henry VI. the disappointed partisans of York began to say that in strict hereditary right he ought to take precedence of the boy. They could not bear to see the predominance of the hated French queen assured, and her offspring barring for ever the hopes of their leader and themselves. This was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but it does not therefore follow that the claim of York was sound. Those disaffected to an actual king naturally look for a rival claimant, the support of whom may serve to disguise rebellion. There can be no doubt that, on the principles of succession now legally established, the next heir to Richard II. was the young earl of March, or that his claim passed eventually to the duke of York. On the other hand it is equally certain that in the fifteenth century there was no established law of succession, and that the substitution of Henry of Lancaster for his cousin was in accordance with the traditional rule of election. If Henry V. had lived to old age, nothing would ever have been heard of the pretensions of the house of York. Those pretensions were in accordance with the legitimist ideas which were then gaining ground elsewhere, as the natural corollary of absolutism, but which have never been really accepted in England except by Jacobite fanatics.

When the war at length broke out, ample material for the armies was supplied by the soldiers whose occupation in France was gone, by the overplus of a population not industrially prospering, and most of all by the personal following of the nobles. Though on the whole the cause of York was favoured by the towns, by the merchants, by the most prosperous and civilised elements of the nation, while the backward regions of the north and west supported Lancaster, yet the differences were not deep enough to affect the conduct of the war. Both sides were equipped and fought after the same fashion; both used cannon more or less; both knew the deadly effect of the cloth-yard arrow, and therefore sought to come to close quarters; both fought with the obstinacy of their race, and often with the special fury which civil war is apt to engender. Hence there is much similarity between the battles, and not much interest, in spite of the remarkable vicissitudes of fortune, except in the three great battles won by Edward IV. in person. To what extent Edward deserves the credit of Towton, the first and greatest of them, cannot be determined; he had the co-operation of the earl of Warwick, and he was still very young. Barnet and Tewkesbury were clearly his own.

Late in 1460, as the result of a Yorkist victory at Northampton, a compromise was arranged by which Henry VI. was to retain the crown for his life, and Richard duke of York was recognised as his successor. Queen Margaret, however, would not surrender the rights of her son without a struggle: the nobles of the north rose in arms again, and the duke of York was obliged to march against them. On December 30 he was defeated and slain at Wakefield; his second son, and his brother-in-law the earl of Salisbury, Warwick's father, perished with him. The victory cost the Lancastrians dear: the barbarity of decapitating York's dead body, and placing the head, crowned in mockery with a paper diadem, over the gate of York, strengthened the feeling of hatred and contempt for the north-countrymen, as little better than savages, already growing in the south. Moreover, York, who had displayed no particular capacity, was replaced by his son Edward, who, with all his faults, proved the best soldier of the war. Warwick also, who was an abler man than his father, and who already held the great inheritance of the Beauchamps through marriage with the heiress, succeeded to his father's wide domains, and so concentrated in his own hands by far the greatest independent power ever possessed by an English subject. Margaret advanced southwards, won a battle at St. Albans, but found London unassailable, and was obliged to return to Yorkshire, her soldiers plundering and destroying on the way in a manner ruinous to her cause. Meanwhile the young duke of York, after crushing the Lancastrians of the Welsh border at Mortimer's Cross, had reached London, and had been proclaimed king as Edward IV. Without delay he and Warwick marched northwards to bring the contest to a decisive issue, and fought on Palm Sunday 1461 the greatest battle, in respect of the numbers engaged, ever fought on English soil.[41]

The great north road, dating back to Roman times, crosses the river Aire at Ferrybridge, and the Wharfe at Tadcaster, twelve or thirteen miles further north, and nine miles from York. The Lancastrians intended to defend the passage of the Aire, and encamped near Towton, between the two rivers, but fully nine miles from the Aire. They were apparently in complete ignorance of the rapid advance of the Yorkists, who seized the important bridge unopposed. Somerset, who commanded the Lancastrian army, if any one can be said to have had supreme command, sent forward Lord Clifford to attempt to regain Ferrybridge. The Yorkists still more inexcusably were in their turn surprised and cut to pieces. Again Somerset blundered, and left Clifford unsupported. The Yorkist vanguard, under Lord Falconbridge, was sent up the Aire, and crossed it unopposed by the ford, difficult and dangerous in spring when the rivers are full, three miles up at Castleford. Clifford, in danger of being cut off, retreated on the main army, the enemy making no attempt to pursue him: but within little more than a mile of the camp his force was surprised and annihilated by Falconbridge. When we remember that English armies had been fighting in France down to 1453, under conditions which ought to have developed the utmost care in never neglecting a precaution or an opportunity, and that they had been fighting at home almost ever since, it seems scarcely credible that such a series of astonishing blunders should have been committed by both sides.

The Yorkists, marching by the two roads from Ferrybridge and Castleford, which unite at the village of Towton, halted on the evening of Saturday March 28, a couple of miles from the Lancastrian position. The one thing which every Englishman who pretended to be a general in that age understood, was how to take up a position tactically strong for standing on the defensive. Somerset's army was however far too large for his capacity: he drew up his 60,000 men on a front of a mile, thereby throwing away his advantage in numbers. For a third of his force, awaiting an attack from a fairly equal enemy, the position would have been excellently chosen, assuming that he was not going to be forced to retreat. The Lancastrian army was posted facing south on a plateau, their right resting on a little stream, the Cock, which in summer is a mere thread of water, but was at that season in flood, and quite impassable. In rear of their left was Towton village, to which the great road ran at the bottom of a tolerably steep slope of from 50 to 80 feet from the edge of the plateau: the slope down to the Cock on the other flank was impracticably steep. In front was a slight depression known as Towton Dale, from which the ground rose again on the south to a similar plateau. Thus the right was perfectly secure; if the enemy attempted to turn the left they would have to attack up a steep ascent: even in front they would have the ground against them. Somerset had only to place some of the useless thousands that overcrowded his line of battle in observation on the plain east of the high-road, ready to strike at the enemy's flank, and he could hardly have been assailed successfully. The weak point of the position was that the Cock bends round the rear of it, a serious obstacle in its flooded state to retreat in case of need, the more so as the old road from Towton descended very steeply to the only bridge. The country being at that date all open, retreat was possible north-eastwards, in rear of the left, without crossing the Cock, more or less in the direction of the modern road, which only crosses the Cock close to its junction with the Wharfe, very near Tadcaster. Obviously, however, should the enemy turn or defeat the left of the army, this resource would be cut off, and defeat would mean destruction.

Warwick and Edward advanced at dawn on the Sunday morning, though their rearguard, under the duke of Norfolk, delayed by the crossing of the Aire, was still some miles off. Their numbers, though far inferior to those of the enemy,[42] were amply sufficient for covering a front of a mile.