In those days the appearance of so unusual a phenomenon in the sky, as a parhelion, or mock sun, was considered a strange and unheard-of prodigy, which had its weight with ignorant men, as an omen of good or bad fortune, exciting within them either hopes or fears. The rare phenomenon, of the appearance of three suns in the sky, presented itself to view, on the morning of the battle; and, after showing themselves for some time, they suddenly joined and seemed to form one sun.
“Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
Not separated by the racking clouds,
But sever’d in a pale clear shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow’d some league inviolable:
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.”Shakespeare’s Henry VI., part iii. act 2, scene 1.
(Near Mortimer’s Cross.)
Edward had the sagacity to affect to believe, or really did believe, that this natural phenomenon [73a] was an omen of his success. He afterwards, in commemoration of it, assumed the sun in its splendour, as his device or badge. [73b]
Edward with his forces courageously attacked [73c] the forces of the Earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire, and after a severe battle, completely defeated them; and about 3800 of the Lancastrians were slain. The Earls of Pembroke and of Wiltshire escaped by flight; Sir Owen Tudor, [73d] father of the Earl of Pembroke, and second husband of Queen Katherine, the widow of Henry V., and the mother of Henry VI., was taken prisoner, beheaded at Hereford, and was buried in a chapel of the Grey Friars Church; [73e] and Sir John Scudamore and his two sons, David Lloyd, Morgan ap Reuther, Thomas Griffith, John Throckmorton, Thomas Fitzhenry, and other gentlemen of consideration, were also taken and beheaded there: a fearful retaliation for the murder of the young Earl of Rutland, and the execution in cold blood, by the Lancastrians, of some of the prisoners, who had been taken at the battle of Wakefield. [74a]
The victorious Edward then proceeded with his army to join the King-making Earl of Warwick, who had recently been defeated by the Lancastrians at the second battle of St. Alban’s. They effected a junction at Chipping Norton, near Cotswold, and, with their united armies, marched towards London, where Edward was proclaimed King by his partisans shortly after his arrival.
The field of the battle of Mortimer’s Cross is in the parish of Kingsland, five mile north-west by west from Leominster, close to the fifth milestone of the turnpike road, leading from Leominster to Wigmore and Knighton, at the place where a byroad joins the turnpike road, and where a stone pedestal or monument, which will be more particularly mentioned afterwards, stands at the point of junction of those two roads, which was erected to commemorate the battle. [74b] Mortimer’s Cross is nearly a mile and a quarter further on the turnpike road, leading towards Wigmore.
It may perhaps be taken for granted, that the old historical accounts are correct in stating, that previous to the battle, Edward had marched as far as Shrewsbury, had returned to meet the Earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire, and that the two earls had raised a large portion of their forces in Wales; and if so, it is tolerably certain that the Lancastrians advanced from Wales into Herefordshire, towards the Earl of March’s possessions [75a] at Wigmore and on the borders of Wales; consequently the vicinity of Mortimer’s Cross was a very natural spot for the hostile armies to meet. There is a gentle ascent in the road from Mortimer’s Cross to the field of battle, and to the spot where the pedestal stands, consequently the Yorkists had a slight advantage of ground; and they were drawn up facing the westward, whilst the Lancastrian army faced the eastward.
Mortimer’s Cross is not a village, but merely consists of a respectable but small country inn, called the Mortimer’s Cross Inn, and one or two other houses, at a junction of four roads; where in former times a cross is said to have been erected by one of the Mortimers; but it has long been removed, and I could not learn, upon inquiry, that it had been there within the memory of man.
Relics of the conflict have been occasionally dug up in the fields in front (to the westward) of the pedestal, and of the point of junction of the two roads. When I first visited the field of battle, on the 16th of May, 1854, I met with a husbandman at work there, who had lived near it many years, and who informed me, that some years ago, in ploughing in the next fields immediately to the right and left of the turnpike road, after leaving the pedestal and the place of junction of the two roads, he had not unfrequently discovered remains of bridle-bits, stirrups, fragments of iron, and, amongst others, long pieces of iron, which, from their shape and size, he concluded had been sword-blades, besides other indications of the battle.
Within the recollection of the Rev. R. D. Evans, rector of Kingsland, some arms, swords, and spear-heads, were found on the field of battle, and were presented to the Museum at Hereford. [76a] He also showed me, when I visited the field of battle in 1856, a large buckle, perfectly plain, conjectured to have formed part of the trappings of a horse; a small buckle, rather ornamented, probably intended for a sword-belt, both of iron or steel; and a small silver coin, seemingly a groat, all found upon the field of battle in 1854. [76b] I have also been informed by him, that there was within his recollection, in a close near the field of battle, a mound said to have been a place of burial of those slain in the battle, but that it is now quite ploughed down, and no vestige of it remains. Although the field of battle is now entirely enclosed, there were old persons living, when I visited it in 1855 and 1856, who recollected large parts of it, when the thorn fences of its enclosures were small, and not much grown, from having been recently planted, and even when a portion of the land near the pedestal was open and unenclosed.