He watched as a thin line gathered ahead of the archers, carrying short lances over their shoulders. Somerset nodded in irritation as he understood the smoking fuses. Hand-gunners. It seemed he would have to stand straight through a swarm of bees that day. He did not intend to show any fear, or anything at all. He did not like his men to see him flinch, in case they thought he was afraid. Richard of Gloucester would have to attack, in the end. Somerset clenched a gauntlet in prospect. His men would have the chance then to take back any drop of blood they had lost. He wished only to have the chance to face the younger son of York himself. Under his breath, he began to murmur silent prayers.
‘Almighty God, an it pleaseth you, remember well my brother and my father. Welcome them into your embrace and peace. I pray today, only to find Richard of Gloucester within my arm’s reach. I ask for nothing more, Lord, but that small kindness. If I am to live, I ask for the will to see this through. If I am to die, I ask only to see my kin again.’
Richard of Gloucester looked left and right, pleased with the array of silent ranks. They still stood below the rise of the land, but the mist had withered away and the sun was rising warm. There was a reason why battles were fought in spring and they felt it then, with blood running hot in their veins. Somerset had chosen his high ground and stood still for all of their approach. His archers would have an advantage of range, but there was no help for that. Richard halted his men at four hundred yards from Lancaster, a dark line running across the ridge ahead. A challenge lay in those still ranks. It was one they wanted to answer, as stags will answer, smashing together in a great crunch of bone, antler against antler.
Richard filled his chest, sitting tall with one hand on his sword hilt, still undrawn.
‘Ready, archers! Ready, cannon. Slow advance into range!’
It was the moment all men hated, when they would approach in line, staring across a field, waiting for the air to spring dark with thousands of shafts, for gunpowder to billow its white smoke across from them as they marched in.
Somerset gave no order and Richard swallowed nervously. He knew he made a fine target in his black armour. It was hard to force his mount forward with the men, but he was certain he would not die. Other men would, without a doubt. Yet Richard was touched and blessed, he could feel it. Death would not come for him, no matter how he called for it.
His archers bent their bows as they walked, knowing his next order. It came as Somerset roared and the air blackened with whining shafts.
‘Halt! Archers, nock and draw! Release!’ Richard’s orders were taken up by the captains, each tending to men he knew well. The hand-gunners knelt to fire ahead of his archers and for the first time, Richard saw men fall in the lines above them, when their smoke cleared. Still, he did not like to be blinded as arrows dropped down at him. The range was short and brutal and he held no shield, relying instead on his armour. He knew it would take the most perfect of shots to pierce his carapace, but still it was hard not to flinch away from arrows falling. Only his horse seemed unaffected, or unaware, standing calm as shafts thumped and cracked into the ground all around them.
It showed then, what he had done. With his brother’s blessing, Richard had concentrated all his fire on Somerset’s own position. Arrow, ball and shot had torn into a narrow strip around Somerset’s banners, killing dozens of men who had found themselves in a hail of steel points and lead balls, while cannon shot ripped through a standing line, taking down two or three at a time. One of Somerset’s banners wavered and fell and of course the York army cheered the sight, delighted by the first fruits of success.
Somerset’s archers had aimed their shafts all along the advancing York line, where men waited with shields and the best armour. There had been injuries. Men in mail or plate lay perfectly still amidst their fellows, almost as if they were asleep. They were not too many.
Richard raised and dropped his hand and by then his cannon teams had reloaded. There was a visible flinch in the lines around Somerset. They had seen they were the target and not one of them wanted to stand close to Somerset himself.
Edmund Beaufort sat his mount, apparently untouched. His horse wore an armoured headpiece set with a spike for close combat against foot soldiers. It pawed the ground as his banner-bearers edged back. The duke sensed their movement and turned his head to snap an order at them.
Down below, Richard of Gloucester saw the movement and smiled to himself.
‘Archers! Again. At Somerset!’ They were more accurate than his cannon teams and far more frightening. Some stood in lines like foot soldiers, while others jerked forward in stabbing thrusts, giving themselves a few more yards of range as they loosed and darted back to their friends. They called out, judging each other’s shots all the time, hooting when a bow snapped or a man slipped and sent his arrow plunging into the ground ahead of him. They were merciless in their mockery of poor skill, as it was all they had and all they valued.
Richard wished he’d brought more of them, that his brother had waited for another thousand bowmen. They would have torn Somerset’s wing to pieces. He found his mind fastening on small details as his archers hammered the wing. Somerset still lived. His banner had been raised up once again and the man carrying it had lasted just a moment before he too fell, pierced by shafts. Somerset roared a challenge, but they poured fire up at him still, cannon and ball and arrow. The smoke of the guns went some way to make them all blind. The archers kept casting poisonous glances at the teams ruining their perfect aim, but the combination had torn great gaps in the Lancaster lines, while the rest lay untouched. No one there understood why Gloucester was driving his entire store of missiles against one man, except Richard himself and Edward in the centre. For an hour, he made that spot a hell and Somerset knew it was all at him. His armour was smacked and rocked a dozen times, so that he could taste blood on his lips. He had accepted a shield and drawn a studded mace. The solid heft of the weapon felt good in his hand. He felt anger rising like steam in him and then something snapped his head back so that his helmet rang. He called a messenger to him and the young man came cringing, so that Somerset scorned his cowardice as he spoke.
‘Enough of this. Inform Lord Wenlock that I will charge. He must support me. I cannot sit under this fire any longer. That is my order. Support the wing. Attack when I move.’
The messenger raced off, desperately relieved to be able to get away from air that seemed to whine like hornets and terror. Somerset turned back to the beetle ranks he saw below. They had crept forward of course, in their ill discipline. He judged them and he was not completely lost in a red haze of anger, though he felt it tugging at him. Richard of Gloucester in all his youth and arrogance, who understood nothing. That family, who had stolen Somerset’s beloved brother and his father! Who had taken so many good men and women and torn the country to pieces – and still, there they were in all their arrogance and spite, pouring in fire on his position like a storm wave breaking over him. It was too much.
Edward raised his head from his study of his saddle pommel, where it branched out and held his thighs so that he could use both hands for weapons. Some knights carried a shield, but he was big enough to bear the weight of thick plates and he preferred a sword and a long-hammer. The head of it looked small for a man of his size, barely larger than his hand. Yet he could swing it with crushing power and the iron shaft would block most sword blows.
He had been considering his weapons for an age as his brother sent massed fire against Somerset’s wing and ignored the rest. Edward felt dizzied by the conflicting needs within him. He wanted to push forward up that rise and into the ranks gesturing for him to come on. They were brave enough at two hundred yards. Most men were. He wanted to see how they fared when he was there amongst them. Yet he had promised his brother and he forced himself to wait, light-headed with the blood pounding through him, standing still while his breath went out in great bursts, like a wolf bunching to leap.
When he looked up, it was in response to a roar as
Somerset’s battered wing came howling down the rise at Gloucester’s men. Edward’s eyes widened. It was perfect and he blessed his brother’s clear sight.
‘Advance the centre!’ he bellowed, his voice carrying right across the field. ‘Centre companies, advance!’ They lurched off as he called, having watched Somerset lose his calm with rapt attention.
Ahead, the strongest part of Margaret’s army came barrelling down the hill that had been their one advantage. Gloucester’s companies met them head on and Edward of York crashed into them on the other flank, pikes and spearmen driving into them. The men in ranks coming down could not defend against that assault from the side. The spears plunged in, coming back red and pulling shrieks out as men fell and were trampled.
Somerset’s red rage intensified as he looked back and saw Lord Wenlock had not moved. Was the old man asleep? Wenlock and the prince still stood in peaceful ranks while their best men and their only chance was being torn apart. Somerset could not allow the sons of York to bring all their force on to each piece of his army. That way lay disaster and death. Somerset was barely off the rise when he saw how badly his force was being mauled. He gestured for Wenlock, but the arrogant old bastard made no move at all to support him.
‘Fall back in good order!’ Somerset roared to his captains. A great groan went up from battered men who had endured the barrage and then trusted him enough to follow. They were being asked to retreat up a slope, with a delighted enemy pressing against them and swinging iron. It was a hard thing, but the alternative was to have York and Gloucester whittle them away to dust, so they halted and did their best to hold Gloucester’s baying ranks away with outstretched weapons. There were a few spears and they made the first steps well enough before Gloucester saw their intention with astonished disbelief – and ordered his entire wing into a charge.
Somerset turned his horse to ride up the hill, knowing he could hardly back the animal up a slope. As he turned, he saw a pack of spearmen come racing out of woodland on his left, with their long weapons held down and ready to attack. He could not think of an order to answer them in that moment, except to call a warning. Spears were used in defence, or as a knight’s lance. He could only blink at the sight of men running to attack with them.
‘ ’Ware left. Beware spears to the left!’ he called, but his men were pressed from the front and the flank, where more spearmen pressed and heaved. They had but one flank free and all they could do was back away as two hundred of the enemy crashed into them, the spears punching right through the first rank so that the bloody heads came out to foul those pressing behind. It broke the last will to fight in Somerset’s men, as if they’d been caught in a boar trap with spikes driven right through them. They tried to scatter but the slaughter went on and no quarter was given.
Somerset dug in his heels and felt his horse stagger as something ripped through it. He did not know what wound the animal had taken, but he could feel its strength begin to fail. The horse struggled up the rise, blowing and snorting blood. Somerset forced it on without expression, digging in his spurs again and again. He knew Gloucester and York would be pushing up the slope behind him and he had no care for that. Instead he trotted his dying horse right up to the terrified ranks of men in the centre square, who had stood and watched while their own people were cut down.
Baron Wenlock was there on his horse in the third rank, surrounded by messengers and heralds. Edward, Prince of Wales, sat a mount at Wenlock’s side. The young man paled visibly as he caught sight of Somerset. The battered duke had blood splashed across his helmet and his horse dribbled bright red at its nostrils.
‘Why didn’t you support me, my lord?’ Somerset snarled at Wenlock. ‘I sent an order. Where were you?’
Wenlock bristled, his hair very white against his darkening flush.
‘How dare you impugn my honour? You pup! I will not …’
Somerset hit him with the mace he held in his right hand, one great blow that silenced the old man. Blood poured down Wenlock’s forehead and his mouth worked in astonishment as Somerset hit him again and then watched, panting, as the lord slipped from his horse and fell to the ground.
‘By Christ!’ Edward of Wales said, his eyes widening. He was not looking at Wenlock, but behind, to where the forces of York were charging. Somerset turned, and they were engulfed.
Edward looked down at the silver knuckles of his gauntlets. They were reddened, though he could not recall punching a man in his battle madness. He had come roaring up the hill as Somerset’s wing collapsed, choosing the moment to make his charge into the forces on the rise. He’d seen Somerset arguing and a young man in the royal livery of Lancaster, hardly able to defend himself. Edward looked again at his gauntlet. There had been so much blood in his life. He had not asked for any of it. He knew there was at least one woman who would weep that day when she heard. All Margaret of Anjou’s hopes were made ash, her son pale and still with all the rest.
He found himself weeping and grew angry even as he wiped tears. Other men looked away, having seen much stranger things. Some were sick on to the grass after a battle. Others fell into a deep sleep if they could, as if they were drunk. Still more would laugh or weep, all unnoticed as they walked the field and understood that they had survived. All the things they had forgotten in the heat and swing of murder came back in flashes and they would stop and rub their eyes and breathe deeply before going on.
Perhaps it was age, Edward thought ruefully. He began to chuckle at the vision of a weeping king, the ridiculousness of it. He could see his brother Richard congratulating the men, exactly as he himself should have been doing. His throat was dry and he grabbed a passing boy with a skin over his shoulder, upending it. He’d expected water, but it was foaming ale, thick and bitter. He gulped and gulped, like a child at a tit, breaking the seal only when he needed to breathe.
‘By God, I am dry,’ he murmured. He saw Richard approaching him and he laughed at his brother’s stricken expression.
‘Well, my oath is fulfilled, Brother,’ Edward said irritably. ‘And I find I am dry.’
‘I know, Edward, it is not that. I heard there are some knights of Lancaster claiming sanctuary in the abbey, by the town.’
‘Any names?’ Edward said. A flush had come to his cheeks at the ale in him. He seemed less weighed down, brighter and more cheerful.
‘I don’t know,’ Richard answered. ‘The monks will not let our men enter to see.’
‘Oh, will they not?’ Edward asked. He tossed the aleskin to the waiting boy and whistled for his horse. Lord Rivers brought it up to him. Edward’s personal guard formed up, all bare-headed and savage men.
‘Come with me,’ Edward said to his brother. Richard mounted once again and followed.
The abbey at Tewkesbury was not far behind the last lines of the dead, as they had been driven away from where they first stood. Edward’s expression darkened at the sight of monks in black robes standing across the great Norman arch and door. He brought his horse into a canter then. Rivers and his guards surged forward with him, knowing there were few more frightening sights in the world than warhorses coming in iron and anger.
Edward reined in by the door, sending his horse into a skidding turn. The watching monks flinched, but did not stand back.
‘I gave an order to seek out my enemies, wherever they might hide,’ Edward called over their heads. He knew he could be heard within the walls and he made his voice loud.
The abbot stepped out of the huge doorway in response.
‘My lord York,’ he began.
‘Address me as king,’ Edward snapped at him.
‘Your Highness, if it please you, this is consecrated ground. It is sanctuary. I cannot let your men go in.’
Edward turned to the knights with him.
‘I was driven out of my own land, my wife and children forced into hiding. When I returned, I said I would make an ending. I gave no quarter. I have taken no ransoms. I consider this the battlefield still. I would take it
kindly if you would enter and put an end to anyone left alive.’
Two of the knights walked their mounts towards the door. The monks cried out in outrage and horror, raising their hands as if they might hold them off. Instead, the knights brought blades down in sharp, chopping blows, sending blood splashing on to the stones. The abbot tried to get back inside to lock the doors, but the horsemen forced them open and rode into the abbey beyond. A great cry of fear went up from those who had gone inside as their last hope, wounded and afraid. The knights went into the gloom, and for a time, there were other shrieks and cries of pain and outrage.
Edward glanced over to his brothers. Clarence looked ill, as if he might vomit. Richard watched him, his expression almost curious. Edward shrugged. He had seen too much of death and killing. It did not seem such a great step to him.
They found Margaret the following day. She had heard the awful news and her guards had vanished, leaving her to run alone to a convent a mile or so away. The nuns there had certainly heard the fate of those who had stood against Edward. Though they cried out in protest, they did not resist the rough soldiers who came into their corridors to drag Margaret out.
Margaret went meekly enough, lost in her grief. The captain who put her on a horse and held her reins took pity enough to let her see the body of her son, laid out in Tewkesbury Abbey. He was beautiful in his youth and Margaret stroked his cheek and held his hand for a time then, emptied and dulled by all she had suffered.
Despite her pleas, they left Edward of Lancaster behind with hundreds of others when the army of York packed up and took the road back to London. The abbey nave was splashed with red that no one seemed to know how to wash away.
Margaret had expected at first to be brought before King Edward, to be forced to endure his acid triumph. Yet he was not his father and he did not call for her. His men treated her with some courtesy on the road, but no special interest. It seemed the house of York no longer cared what became of her.
Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors Page 29