Battle of Towton - Background

Background

– Battle of Towton; – other battles; – other places

In 1461, England was in the sixth year of the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster over the English throne. The Lancastrians backed the reigning King of England, Henry VI, an indecisive man who suffered bouts of madness. The leader of the Yorkists was initially Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, who believed Henry was leading the country to ruin by overly favouring incompetent Lancastrian members of the court. Fuelled by rivalries between influential supporters of both houses, York's attempts to remove the favoured Lancastrian courtiers from power escalated into a full-blown conflict. After capturing Henry at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, the duke, who was of royal blood, issued his own claim to the throne. Even York's closest supporters among the nobility were reluctant to usurp an established royal lineage; instead, the nobles passed by a majority vote the Act of Accord, which ruled that the duke and his heirs would succeed the throne on Henry's death.

The Queen of England, Margaret of Anjou, refused to accept an arrangement that deprived her son—Edward of Westminster—of his birthright. She had fled to Scotland after the Yorkist victory at Northampton; there she began raising an army, promising her followers the freedom to plunder on the march south through England. Her Lancastrian supporters also mustered in the north of England, preparing for her arrival. York marched with his army to meet this threat, but he was lured into a trap at Wakefield and killed. The duke and his second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were decapitated by the Lancastrians and their heads were impaled on spikes atop the Micklegate Bar, a gatehouse of the city of York. The leadership of the House of York passed onto the duke's heir, Edward.

The victors of Wakefield were joined by Margaret's army and they marched south, plundering settlements in their wake. They liberated Henry after defeating the Yorkist army of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, in the Second Battle of St Albans, and continued pillaging on their way to London. As a result, the city of London refused to open its gates to Henry and Margaret for fear of being looted. The Lancastrian army was short on supplies and had no adequate means to replenish them. When Margaret learned that Richard of York's eldest son Edward, Earl of March and his army had won the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire and were marching towards London, she withdrew the Lancastrians to the city of York. Warwick and the remnants of his army marched from St Albans to join Edward's men and the Yorkists were welcomed into London. Having lost custody of Henry, the Yorkists needed a justification to continue taking up arms against the king and his Lancastrian followers. On 4 March, Warwick proclaimed the young Yorkist leader as King Edward IV. The proclamation gained greater acceptance than Richard of York's earlier claim, as several nobles previously opposed to letting Edward's father ascend the throne viewed the Lancastrian actions as a betrayal of the legally established Accord.

The country now had two kings—a situation that could not be allowed to persist, especially if Edward was to be formally crowned. Edward offered amnesty to any Lancastrian supporter who renounced Henry. The move was intended to win over the commoners; his offer did not extend to wealthy Lancastrians (mostly the nobles). The young king summoned and ordered his followers to march towards York to take back his family's city and to formally depose Henry through force of arms. The Yorkist army moved along three routes. Warwick's uncle, Lord Fauconberg, led a group to clear the way to York for the main body, which was led by Edward. John de Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was sent east to raise forces and rejoin Edward before the battle. Warwick's group moved to the west of the main body, through the English Midlands, gathering men as they went. On 28 March, the leading elements of the Yorkist army came upon the remains of the crossing in Ferrybridge that spanned the River Aire. They were rebuilding the bridge when they were attacked and routed by a small band of Lancastrians, consisting of approximately 500 men led by John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford.

Learning of the encounter, Edward led the Yorkist main army to the bridge and was forced into a gruelling battle; although the Yorkists were superior in numbers, the narrow bridge was a bottleneck, forcing them to confront Clifford's men on equal terms. Edward sent Fauconberg and his horsemen to ford the river at another point and attack the Lancastrians from the side. The Lancastrians retreated but were chased to Dinting Dale and were all killed there; Clifford was slain by an arrow to his throat. Having cleared the vicinity of enemy forces, the Yorkists repaired the bridge and pressed onwards to camp overnight at Sherburn-in-Elmet. The Lancastrian army marched to Tadcaster, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Towton, and made camp there. As dawn broke on the next day, the two rival armies packed up their camps under dark skies and in strong winds. Although it was Palm Sunday, a day of holy significance to Christians, the forces prepared for the battle ahead. As a result of this, a few documents named the engagement as the Battle of Palme Sonday Felde, but the name did not gain wide acceptance. Popular opinion favoured naming the battle after the village of Towton because of the battlefield's proximity to the settlement, which was the most prominent in the area at that time.