[43a] Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the eldest son of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (slain at the first battle of St. Alban’s on the 22nd of May, [43g] 1455), by Eleanor his wife (daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick), had a military command and served in the wars in France. He fought at the battle of Towton, in 1461, on the side of the Lancastrians, and after the defeat there, escaped with Henry VI. into Scotland, was afterwards pardoned by Edward IV., but, having revolted, was taken at the battle of Hexham, and beheaded in 1463. After his death, his brother Edmund (the second son) was also Duke of Somerset, and was beheaded after the battle of Tewkesbury, in 1471, in which battle John (the third son) was slain.
[43b] Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was the son and heir of Edmund Stafford, Earl of Stafford, by Anne Plantagenet, daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, sixth son of Edward III., and was created first Duke of Buckingham, of that family, in 1443, and declared to take precedence of all other dukes in England. He married Anne, daughter of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmoreland.
The strange and mournful fatality which attended the principal members of fire generations of this nobleman’s powerful and eminent family, will be mentioned afterwards in this chapter.
[43c] Stow’s Annals, fo. 409.
[43d] Holinshed’s Chronicles, vol. i. fo. 654
[43e] The Bishop of Hereford also encouraged the King’s adherents to fight, for which he was, after the battle, imprisoned in Warwick Castle, and remained a long time a prisoner.—Stow’s Annals, fo. 409.
[43f] Stow’s Annals, fo. 409.
[43g] The 22nd of May according to Dugdale, in his Baronage, vol. i. pp. 166 and 342; and Sandford, p. 321; but the 23rd of May according to Hall, Holinshed, and Grafton.
[44a] “She caused her army to issue out of the towne and to passe the ryver of Nene; and there in the newe felde, betweene Harsyngton [Hardingstone] and Sandifford, the capitaynes strongely emparked themselfes with high bankes and depe trenches.”—Hall’s Chronicles, fo. 176. See a similar account in Holinshed’s Chronicles, fo. 654. The meadows and Delapré Abbey are in the pariah of Hardingstone. I have not been able to learn that there is any place or ford there, called Sandiford. It probably was a ford of the river Nen, the name and situation of which are now forgotten.
[44b] Fabyan Hall, Holinshed, Grafton, Speed, and Dugdale, vol. i. p. 305, and vol. ii. p. 161. It is remarkable that Dugdale, in different parts of his Baronage, does not always give the date consistently. He calls it the 9th of July, in vol. i. p. 305, and vol. ii. p. 161; the 27th of July, in vol. i. p. 166; the 10th of July, in vol. i. p. 331 (where he professes to give a copy of the epitaph of the Earl of Shrewsbury, slain in the battle of Northampton); and the 10th of July, in vol. ii. p. 54; and Ralph Brooke, p. 197, and Stow, p. 409, also call it the 10th of July.