[4f] Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury, vol. i. p. 185.
[5a] Hall, Grafton.
[5b] “A portion of the suburbs of Shrewsbury was intentionally burnt; that measure being considered requisite for the safety of the town, in consequence of the approach of Hotspur’s army.—Rot. Parl. 9 Henry IV., vol. iii. fo. 619.”
[5c] Stow’s Annals, Speed’s History. It is stated in Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury, although their authority for it does not seem altogether satisfactory, that Percy retired to a place called Bull Field, a short distance from Shrewsbury, an extensive common, which stretched from Upper Berwick to the east, and to have encamped there during the night of the 19th, and to have marched the next day by Harlescot and Abright Hussee, to Hateley Field, where he made a stand at the spot now called Battlefield.—See Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury, vol. i. p. 186, 187.
[7] Hall, Holinshed, Walsingham, Speed, Stow, Grafton, Sandford, p. 265; Dugdale’s Monasticon, vol. vi. part 3, p. 1426.
It is remarkable, that although in Dugdale’s Baronage, vol. i. p. 280, it is stated that the battle was fought on the eve of St. Mary Magdalen (21st of July, 1403;) yet on p. 168 he states that it was fought on St. Mary Magdalen’s day (22nd of July). See also Rymer’s Fædera, tome viii fo. 320.
It is stated in Owen and Blakeway’s History of Shrewsbury, vol. i. p. 187, 188, for which Otterburne is cited as their authority, that a portion of Percy’s forces was posted behind a field of peas, which would naturally form some obstacle to the attack of the royal army—“Oportebat regis exercitum, si pugnare vellet, accedere super aream satam pisis adultis; quas pisas ita nexuerant et tricaverant ut impedimento forent accedentibus prætensi laquei eorundem.”
[8a] To save repetition, it is well to mention, that this account of the battle has been collected from Hall, Holinshed, Walsingham, Grafton, Speed, Stow, and Monstrelet, c. 7.
[8b] Edmund Stafford, Earl of Stafford, was the third son of Hugh Earl of Stafford, and his wife Philippa, daughter of Thomas Beauchamp, the elder Earl of Warwick, and the heir of his brothers Thomas and William, and was after their deaths without issue, the fifth Earl of Stafford and Lord of Tunbridge. He married Anne, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, sixth son of Edward III. He was the father of Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham, slain at the battle of Northampton fighting for the Lancastrian party in 1459. The strange and mournful fatality which attended the principal members of this powerful and celebrated family, will be noticed in treating upon the latter battle, in Chap. III.
[8c] Lelandi Collectanea, vol. ii. p. 389 [313].