the army. Warwick was already on his way to reinforce them with the 'main
battle', but this now broke up as the fugitives streamed past, joining in
the general flight. Warwick rode off to bring up his 'vaward battle', but
on reaching it he found that Lovelace's detachment had deserted to the
enemy and the remainder was badly shaken. Somehow Warwick managed to form a
new line and held off further Lancastrian attacks until dark, when he
managed to extricate about 4,000 of his men and march westwards to join
Edward.
Margaret waited nine days at St. Albans while negotiating the surrender
of London, only 20 miles away. London, panic-stricken by the behavior of
the queen's army, which looted St. Albans after the battle, refused to open
its gates to the queen and her king. The borderers began to desert in
droves; and with Edward and Warwick united and advancing rapidly from the
west, Margaret finally abandoned her attempt on the capital and withdrew to
York with the king. Twelve days after second St. Albans the united forces
of Edward and Warwick entered London: on 4 March Edward was proclaimed king
by the Yorkist peers and by the merchants and commons of London.
Edward set off in pursuit of Margaret and Henry on 19 March, but his
advance guard was defeated by a Lancastrian delaying force at Ferrybridge
on the River Aire on the 27th. At dawn on the 28th the Yorkists forced
their way over the bridge and all that day fought to push back the
Lancastrian rearguard towards Towton, reaching the village of Saxton by
nightfall. The next morning the queen's army, commanded by Somerset, was
seen drawn up less than a mile away (see map).
At 9am on 29 March 1461, with heavy snow falling, the two armies
advanced towards each other. When they were about 300 yards apart the
Yorkists halted to discharge one volley of heavy armour-piercing arrows
which, aided by a following wind, hit the Lancastrian line and caused some
casualties. The Yorkist archers then fell back a short distance. The
Lancastrians responded with several volleys, using the lighter flight
arrows not normally used at all except short range. Impeded by the wind,
these arrows fell short by some 50 yards, but the Lancastrians continued to
discharge their arrows until their quivers were empty. The Yorkist archers
then advanced again and poured a barrage of arrows into the Lancastrian
ranks. Unable to respond, the Lancastrians moved forward to contact as
quickly as possible.
The battle raged all day, but at about 3pm Lord Dacres, one of the
senior Lancastrian commanders, was killed, and at the same time the Duke of
Norfolk's force of several thousand men arrived to reinforce the Yorkist
right flank. The Lancastrians began to ease off, the slackening of pressure
increased to a withdrawal, and suddenly their whole line collapsed. About
12,000 Yorkists were killed or died of wounds and exposure, while some
20,000 Lancastrians were killed, making Towton the bloodiest battle ever
fought on English soil. It was also the most decisive battle of the wars,
in the very heart of Lancastrian country, and firmly established Edward IV
on the throne. The queen, Henry, and their son Prince Edward fled to
Scotland.
The first years of Edward's reign were pro-occupied with stamping out
all remaining Lancastrian opposition. Pembroke and Exeter remained at large
in Wales, but the Earl of Oxford was executed in 1462 for an attempted
landing on the cast coast. The bulk of the surviving Lancastrians retired
to the Scots border with Margaret and Henry, seeking support from Scotland
and holding the powerful border castles.
In April 1464 a Yorkist force under Lord Montagu, Warwick's younger
brother and Edward's lieutenant in the north, clashed with a Lancastrian
force under the Duke of Somerset at Hedgeley Moor. The two Lancastrian
wings, commanded by Lords Hungerford and Roos, promptly fled, but the men
under Sir Ralph Percy stood fast and were annihilated. Montagu was unable
to pursue, as he was escorting a Scottish delegation to York to discuss a
peace. Somerset led his forces to Hexham and made camp two miles south of
that town. As soon as Montagu had carried out his mission, he moved
southwards to confront the Lancastrians again.
Early on the morning of 15 May 1464 Montagu attacked the Lancastrian
camp, smashing through Somerset's center with a rapid downhill charge. Once
again the two wings broke and fled. Somerset was captured and executed,
along with Hungerford and Roos, among others. These executions almost
completed the extinction of the old Lancastrian faction, and virtually
ended Lancastrian resistance; and even the queen gave up, and fled to
Anjou.
1469-1471
Barnet and Tewkesbury.
The great northern strongholds of the Lancastrians – Ainwick, Norham,
Bamburgh and Dunstanburgh fell soon after the battle of Hexham, and within
a year Henry VI, who had been hiding in a monastery, was betrayed and
placed in the Tower. Apart from Harlech Castle and Berwick-on-Tweed, Edward
was now truly king of all England.
In November 1464 Edward secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, without
the consent and against the wishes of Warwick (who was engaged at the time
in trying to arrange a French marriage for the king). Warwick, trying to
assume dictatorial powers over the new king, fell from favor, and
Elizabeth's numerous relatives rose swiftly in rank and office as Edward
formed his own Yorkist party: his father-in-law became Earl Rivers, his
brother-in-law Lord Scales, Elizabeth's son by her first marriage became
Earl of Dorset, while old supporters were also advanced – William Herbert
was made Earl of Pembroke, Humphrey Stafford Earl of Devon, and the Percies
were recruited in alignment against the Nevilles by restoring to them the
earldom of Northumberland. In 1467 Edward openly broke with Warwick by
repudiating a treaty with France and an alliance with Burgundy which
Warwick had just negotiated. Enraged and humiliated, Warwick enlisted the
aid of Edward's brother, George of Clarence, and from the security of
Calais declared against Edward because of his oppressions.
At about this time Warwick engineered a Neville rising in the north,
which began with the so-called rebellion of Robin of Redesdale. When the
rising was well under way Warwick landed in Kent with a force from Calais
but, before he could reach the scene of operations, the royal army was
defeated at Edgecotc in Northamptonshire (6 July 1469). Edward was captured
and handed over to Warwick, who executed many of Edward's leading
supporters, including Queen Elizabeth's father, her brother John, and the
newly created Earls of Pembroke and Devon.
Edward was confined for some weeks in Middleham Castle, but was released
when he agreed to accept new ministers nominated by Warwick. But at the
first opportunity Edward took his revenge. In March 1470 a Lancastrian
uprising occurred in Lincolnshire. Edward gathered a force to suppress the
rising, carefully calling to his standard all those peers with grudges
against Warwick or who were not tied to him by family alliances. Edward
defeated the rebels at the battle of Lose-Coat Field and the rebels'
leader, Sir Robert Welles, confessed the rising was part of a plot by
Warwick to make Clarence king. Unable to oppose Edward's army, Warwick and
Clarence fled to France, where they allied themselves with Margaret and the
Lancastrian cause.
In September Warwick arranged a rising in Yorkshire and, as soon as
Edward moved north, landed with Clarence and a small force at Dartmouth.
Devon rose to support them, Kent followed suit, and London opened its
gates.
Edward, returning south in a hurry, found himself caught between
Warwick's growing army in the south and the rising in the north. His army
began to melt away, and Edward was forced to take ship at Lynn and flee to
the Netherlands.
Henry VI was released and restored to the throne, but Margaret did not
trust her old enemy Warwick, and refused to leave France: Prince Edward
remained with her.
Meanwhile, Clarence began to seek reconciliation with Edward; and on 15
March 1471, with a body of some 1,500 German and Flemish mercenaries lent
to him by the Duke of Burgundy, Edward landed at Ravenspur in the Humber
estuary. Marching swiftly southwards, Edward evaded an army under the Duke
of Northumberland and reached Nottingham, where he learned that Warwick was
gathering an army at Coventry. The Earl of Oxford was at Newark with
another army, but Edward managed to slip between them, gathering adherents
to his cause all the way to the capital. The most important of these was
Clarence, who joined him with a force originally raised for the Lancastrian
cause.
Edward reached London on 11 April, closely followed by the now united
armies of Oxford, Northumberland and Warwick, and on 14 April 1471 was
fought the battle of Barnet (see map).
The battle began at dawn in a heavy fog, with the right wing of each
army overlapping the left wing of the other. Both the Yorkist and
Lancastrian left wings were defeated. Consequently both armies swung to a
new position, almost at right angles to their original lines, and in the
fog the Lancastrian right under Oxford blundered into the rear of his own
center, causing some casualties. Cries of treason rang out, and many of
Oxford's men now quit the field, followed by some of those from Somerset's
'main battle'. At this moment Edward charged between Somerset and Warwick
with about a 100 horsemen of his reserve. Warwick's men slowly gave way,
eventually breaking and fleeing, and a general Lancastrian rout then
ensued. Warwick, on foot, was cut down and killed. With him died his
brother Montagu.
On the same day Queen Margaret and Prince Edward landed at Weymouth.
Learning of the battle, the queen marched through the West Country,
