Battle of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, defeat of Lancastrian army, Henry VI’s son Edward killed in battle, Henry VI dies soon after.

Illustration: The Battle of Tewkesbury from a Ghent manuscript

Tags: Battles, Edward IV, Henry VI

Battle of Hedgeley Moor, Northumberland.  The Yorkist forces were led by John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu (brother of Richard Neville ‘The Kingmaker’), the Lancastrians by the Duke of Somerset, supported by Sir Ralph Percy, Lords Roos and Hungerford, and Sir Ralph Grey.  The Lancastrian force soon gave way and fled, except for Sir Ralph Percy, who died in the battle.

Tags: Battles, Northumberland

Battle of Barnet, Hertfordshire, defeat of Warwick and his brother Montagu, who both fell in the battle.  Richard is said to have been in command of the vanguard.

Read more about a possible different location for the battle here.

Tags: Barnet, Battles, Edward IV, Hertfordshire, Richard III

Towton Cross

Battle of Towton – the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil

The Battle of Towton , regarded as  “the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil”, was fought in a snow storm on Palm Sunday, 29 March 1461, between the Lancastrian forces of King Henry VI and the Yorkist forces led by Edward, Earl of March.  It has been said that 28,000 men died that day, out of 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers.  The result was a Yorkist victory and Edward became king as Edward IV.

In 1996 a mass grave of fallen soldiers was found at Towton Hall.  Their remains have been studied by the University of Bradford.

Edward IV had planned to build a memorial chapel at Towton, but it was Richard III, who put this plan into action.  The chapel was nearly finished, when he was killed at Bosworth, and the chapel had been lost.  Or so it was thought.  In October 2013 it was revealed that scientists had found strong evidence of remains of the chapel.

In 2010 fragments of hand held guns and lead shot were found at the battle site, the earliest ever to be found.

References:

James Clark, ‘The Medieval Somme: forgotten battle that was the bloodiest fought on British soil’, The Conversation (13 July 2016).  URL:  https://theconversation.com/the-medieval-somme-forgotten-battle-that-was-the-bloodiest-fought-on-british-soil-62129 [last accessed 2 March 2020]

Helen Cox, ‘The Battle of Towton is alive and well in Yorkshire’, Herstory Writing & Interpretation..  Link “Towton” on URL:  http://helencox-herstorywriting.co.uk/articles/4539783477  [last accessed 2 March 2020]

T. Sutherland & A. Schmidt,’The Towton Battlefield Archaeological Survey Project:  An Integrated Approach to Battlefield Archaeology’, Landscapes, Vol.4, Issue 2 (October 2003), pp.15-25.  Available at URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238691750_The_Towton_Battlefield_Archaeological_Survey_Project_An_Integrated_Approach_to_Battlefield_Archaeology [last accessed 2 March 2020]

‘Richard III Towton chapel remains are ‘found’’, BBC News York & North Yorkshire (7 Oct 2013).  URL:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-24434795  [last accessed 2 March 2020]

A short description of the various battles of the Wars of the Roses can be found on the website of the Richard III Society.

Dorothea Preis

Tags: Battles, Edward IV, Richard III, Towton, Wars of the Roses, Yorkshire

Skirmish at Ferrybridge

On 28 March 1461, a skirmish at Ferrybridge, West Yorkshire, was fought in the lead-up to the Battle of Towton.  Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (‘The Kingmaker”), received an arrow wound to the leg.  John, Lord Clifford, (believed to be responsible for the death of Edward IV’s brother Edmund, Earl of Rutland) fell on the Lancastrian side.

Traditionally the skirmishes at Ferrybridge and Dintingdale (also on 28 March 1461) and the battle of Towton were seen as three separate battles, both in space and time.  However, Tim Sutherland argues, that these were rather three interconnected conflicts. He bases his analysis on archaeological finds and a new interpretation of the sources.

Reference:

Tim Sutherland, ‘Killing Time:  Challenging the common perceptions of three medieval conflicts – Ferrybridge, Dintingdale and Towton  — ”The Largest Battle on British Soil”’, Journal of Conflict Archaeology, Vol.5 No.1 (2010). Available from URL:  http://www.towton.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/killing-time_tim_sutherland.pdf  [last accessed 2 March 2020]

A short description of the various battles of the Wars of the Roses can be found on the website of the Richard III Society.

Tags: Battles, Lancastrians, Wars of the Roses, Yorkists, Yorkshire

Charles the Bold, by Rogier van der Weyden

Death of Charles the Bold

On 5 January 1477, Charles the Bold of Burgundy died at a battle while laying siege to Nancy in Lorraine.  His heiress was his daughter Mary from his second marriage to Isabella of Bourbon.  After her death in 1465, he married on 3 July 1468  Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV and Richard III. Margaret would after his death become Mary’s most constant advisor.

More on Charles the Bold on Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Tags: Battles, Margaret of Burgundy

Santa comes a few days late to Ricardians in Australia, but next Sunday, 28 December 2015, SBS 1 will broadcast the program Richard III:  The New Evidence, first broadcast in the UK on 17 August 2014, at the end of the Bosworth weekend.  The program features Dominic Smee, who has the same degree of scoliosis as Richard did and can be regarded as his body double. Definitely a program not to be missed, even if you have already watched it on YouTube.

Tags: Battles, Bosworth, Leicester Greyfriars Dig, Medical Knowledge, Richard III

A new research paper has been published in The Lancet on ‘“Perimortem trauma in King Richard III: a skeletal analysis’ by Jo Appleby and others, describing the wounds Richard received which led to his death.

You can find the original paper here, but Mike Pitts has helped us with a “handy summary”. The links to the article in The Lancet in his blog unfortunately did not work for me that’s why a different link is included here.  Mike Pitts’ summary is highly recommended.

A short visual summary has also been posted by The Lancet on YouTube:  ‘Richard III: how was the king killed?‘.

Tags: Battles, Leicester Greyfriars Dig, Richard III

Book Review:  The King’s Dogge

The following review is by Rob Smith of the New Zealand Branch and was first published in the August 2014 Ricardian Recorder. We thank Rob for his permission to post it here.

Nigel Green, The King’s Dogge: The Story of Francis Lovell, Troubador Publishing Ltd (2014) ISBN 9781783068425

This novel, written in the first person, portrays the life of the King’s Dogge, Francis Lovell up to Bosworth. A sequel is promised. A mixture of known historical facts and events coupled with the author’s vivid imagination results in, to my mind, a rather laborious narrative.

Lovell’s progression from his early days, to his service with Montague and Warwick and thence to their demise at Barnet is informative enough as is his consequent meeting with the Yorkist hierarchy and his entry into Richard’s service. Lovell’s service to Richard in Carlisle and the Border encounters with outlaws and the Scots are laid out but possibly over-emphasised. What I was to find throughout is the author’s tendency to concentrate on the minutia of lesser happenings while allowing other more significant events to be passed over lightly or ignored completely, perhaps relying on the reader’s knowledge to fill in the gaps. However, to be fair, this is a story about Lovell and if he was not involved in these events the author may consider it inappropriate to dwell on them.

What is interesting is Green’s portrayal of the various characters, not least Richard. The author’s Richard is a loyal brother but a vacillating, indecisive king and a pawn in the hands of a scheming Anne Neville who is determined to bring down the Woodville faction for what they did to her father, Warwick. She is shown as the power behind the throne. As Lovell rises to the top in Richard’s service he starts to question and has doubts about his King but remains steadfastly loyal to the end.

Buckingham, Hastings, the Stanleys, etc. are as we know them; Ratcliffe comes out OK but Catesby is shown as a fat, scheming, lawyer, self- serving from the outset as he climbs the ladder of influence, culminating in his engineering of the murder of the Princes (with Richard’s acceptance ), and his ultimate betrayal at Bosworth, being in league with the Stanleys and Northumberland conspiring beforehand in their treachery.

Incidentally, Tudor takes no part in the battle having been hidden away for his safety with decoys taking his place. Did Shakespeare get it right? …. “ I think there must be six Richmonds in the field/Five have I slain today instead of him” (Richard III Act V, Scene iv).

The King’s Dogge is an interesting portrayal of an important figure in Richard’s life but it lacks bite and requires patience and determination to reach the conclusion.

Tags: Anne Neville, Battles, Books, Francis Lovell, Nevilles, Richard III