Battle Royal

by Hugh Bicheno

  The heads of the fallen lords were taken to York and mounted on spikes on the Micklegate Bar. Richard of York’s head was adorned with a paper crown and mocking placards were hung below the grisly trophies. We should not make too much of this. It was traditional for traitors’ heads to be displayed on Tower Bridge, but since it was in the possession of Warwick, Micklegate would have to do for the time being.

  When Marguerite and young Edward arrived at York, it must have been exhilarating to have hundreds of fierce warriors wearing the Prince of Wales’s livery kneel before them, with their enemies’ heads grimacing down on them. Free at last from the constraint of trying to work through her dithering husband, Marguerite could work with men as determined as she was herself. The northern lords were delighted by the truce she had obtained at Lincluden, which permitted them to summon their whole strength.

  All the Lancastrian lords wrote a joint letter to Charles VII endorsing the agreement. They would not have done so had it contained any suggestion that Berwick, the gateway to the North, might be ceded to the Scots. There is also no evidence there were any Scots in their army. It was never likely that English Marchers would put aside a hatred nurtured by centuries of raid and counter-raid to conduct a joint chevauchée deep into England with their ancestral enemies. Yet both of these allegations were made in Yorkist pronouncements.

  The primary sources for the climax of the first phase of the Wars of the Roses must be treated with caution. All of them were written under Edward IV, when to record anything other than the ‘party line’ might have had severe consequences for the author. If we add that the most generally trusted source for the period 1459–61 is the Registra of John Whethamstede, Abbot of St Albans, a subtle apologia for the Duke of York written to curry favour with his son, it is not at all remarkable that the black legend of Marguerite put down deep roots.

  The Lancastrians’ strategic objective was to recover the king, and the operational design was a fluid concept, regularly reviewed by assemblies of the most experienced officers. Prince Edward was the nominal commander-in-chief, which finessed any issue of precedence that might have caused friction between the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset. And if the prince was present at the councils of war, then so was Marguerite. Her mother, who herself once led an army in an attempt to liberate her own ineffectual husband, would have been proud of her.

  *1 ‘From John Watts’ brilliant essay in Kekewich et al., The Politics of Fifteenth-Century England.

  XXIV

  * * *

  Edward of March

  While York, Rutland and Salisbury made for the North, 18-year-old Edward, Earl of March set out, separately, to affirm the new regime’s authority in the South West and to counter the threat posed by Lancastrian Wales under the leadership of Jasper Tudor. With him went the Marcher retainers who had accompanied York to London, at whose urging he had tried to claim the throne even though the popular acclaim promised by Warwick had failed to materialize. Thus during Edward’s first independent command he was surrounded by men who would have been outspokenly scornful of Warwick’s duplicity.

  Edward was seen as ‘one of their own’ by the Marcher retainers in a way his father had never been. We know nothing of his childhood and very little about his adolescence – apart from the very salient fact that he spent his teens at Ludlow and the other Yorkist Marcher manors. From a joint letter sent by Edward and his brother Edmund to their father complaining about being bullied by the somewhat older Croft brothers, it is clear they were brought up with the sons of York’s retainers rather than, as customary, in a noble house. The reason is evident: by the time they were old enough to leave their mother’s household their father was locked in a power struggle with the court, and there was no senior peer to whom he could entrust them.

  The result was more practical training in military matters than Edward would have received in a court-oriented household, where the emphasis would have been on tournament skills. As the acting lord of Ludlow Edward would have received guidance from York’s steward, the elder Walter Devereux, and would certainly have spent time at York’s other manors in the March. He could not have prayed for a better place to exercise his first independent command, or for more militarily experienced and dependable advisers and nominal subordinates.

  The principal Yorkist Marchers were Herbert of Raglan, steward of York’s manors of Caerleon and Usk (also Warwick’s Sheriff of Glamorgan), the younger Walter Devereux (de jure Lord Ferrers) of Weobley, who had succeeded his father at Ludlow, and Roger Vaughan of Tretower and Crickhowell in the Usk valley. Other Vaughans were Thomas of Bredwardine in the Wye valley and his uncle Thomas of Hergest and Kington in the Arrow valley. The older Thomas and Philip Vaughan were also stewards of the Buckingham manors of Huntington (between Hergest and Kington) and Hay, respectively. With them was Reginald, Lord Grey of Wilton in south Herefordshire.

  Making his first appearance in our narrative is William Hastings, who had been at Ludford Bridge and was among those who stayed and obtained a royal pardon. Like his father, he was a Yorkist retainer with lands in Leicestershire and Warwickshire, who became involved in the Marches as ranger of York’s vast Wyre forest and chase in Shropshire. As such he would have played host to young Edward on several occasions. Hastings was twelve years older, but the cascade of honours bestowed on him as soon as Edward became king argues that they had formed a very close friendship before the events of 1461.

  As they had during the Ludlow campaign, Warwick’s Abergavenny and Glamorgan retainers stayed at home to guard his estates. The only notables with Edward who were not his father’s retainers were Lord Audley and Humphrey Stafford of Hooke, who had defected to him in Calais, and John Wenlock, whose loyalty Warwick had bought in 1459. Wenlock may have acted as Warwick’s eyes and ears, but it is remarkable he did not also send a member of his own Marcher affinity to represent his considerable interest in the area.

  Edward moved first to Gloucester, to control the Severn valley and to discourage the West Country from sending any more support to the queen’s army, although most would already have joined the march north by Somerset, Devon and Exeter. The town was in the midst of many Buckingham, Wiltshire and Talbot manors, but with their lords either recently killed or absent, they would have been easily overawed. Gloucester was also a good base from which to counter an advance through south Wales by Jasper Tudor, on whose doings the Yorkists were kept informed by the Dwnns of Kidwelly.

  Thanks to Jasper’s good lordship and close alliance with Thomas and Owain, the heirs of Gruffudd ap Nicholas and stewards of the absentee Bishop of St David’s, he had a firm hold on south-west Wales. Before departing for Scotland Marguerite had also made him her son’s deputy for the Principality, but required him to wait for the arrival of Wiltshire/Ormonde, who was supposed to be recruiting an army with funds provided by the Duke of Brittany. If instead she had authorized him to march north at the same time as Somerset, Exeter and Devon, Jasper would have been able to fall on York’s Marcher domain while he and his principal retainers were away in London.

  Now, his situation was unenviable. The Skydmores of Holme Lacy and Kentchurch in Herefordshire should have been able to keep him informed about Edward’s strength and movements, but do not appear to have done so. Perhaps, menaced by their Yorkist neighbours, they had already fled to join Jasper in Pembroke. It was mid-winter, so although there were more men available for war, provisioning was meagre everywhere in Wales, and any march through the barren interior was out of the question. Jasper’s options, once Wiltshire arrived, were either to march up the coast through the miserably poor Principality into Cheshire, or along the south coast into the rich heart of the Yorkist Marches.

  Time was not on his side, but Wiltshire was delayed. When he finally arrived, late in January 1461, he brought with him a force of Irish mercenaries and, perhaps, some Breton men-at-arms as well. These were troops who had to be employed as soon as possible, before supplies ran out and they began to plunder indiscriminately. The Roman
road from Carmarthen through south Wales offered the fastest route, but Glamorgan and southern Monmouth were solidly Yorkist, and the Lancastrians would have had to fight their way through, dissipating their strength before they encountered Edward’s main force.

  Accordingly they had to march north of the Brecon Beacons through Llandovery, after which they could either continue north through Builth Wells, or east through Brecon. There really was no choice. The Builth route would take them through two high mountain passes that might be choked with snow, along a route studded with Yorkist manors. At Brecon they could obtain supplies and possibly also recruits from Buckingham’s bereft retainers, after which the first Yorkist manor they would encounter was Weobley. Both routes met at the bridge over the River Lugg at Mortimer’s Cross where, unless they could achieve operational surprise, they were certain to encounter Edward’s army.

  The element of surprise was denied to them. Jasper ranked the Dwnns among his most damaging enemies, acknowledging the crucial role played by the information they provided on his movements. By this time both sides had learned of York’s defeat and death at Wakefield, and Jasper may have believed that Herbert and the other Yorkist Marchers had gone north with him to destruction. He may also have discounted Edward’s ability to rally and lead what he hoped was the remnant of the Yorkist affinity, as otherwise he would not have attacked a larger army, deployed in an immensely strong position.

  In fact, nothing could have united the Marchers more than an incursion by ‘deep’ Welshmen, and Edward’s appeal to turn out against the men of Pembroke coming to ravage the Yorkist estates ensured that every able-bodied flocked to his banner. At dawn on the bitter cold battle day a phenomenon occurred that Edward made his own. Three suns appeared to be rising together, the effect of light refraction through atmospheric ice crystals known as a parhelion, or ‘sundogs’. Although he does not even mention the ensuing battle, Shakespeare described the apparition superbly in Part III of Henry the Sixth:

  Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;

  Not separated with 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.

  In this the heaven figures some event.*1

  Noting uneasiness among his men, Edward rode among them to pronounce it a favourable omen, claiming that the phenomenon was symbolic of his rise to glory, flanked by his two younger brothers. Another account has him saying it was a divine blessing and symbolized the Trinity, but the first version must get the nod, as Edward thereafter adopted a sunburst as his personal badge. It was his command moment, and he seized it with both hands.

  It is fortunate the terrain at Mortimer’s Cross is so eloquent, because our only source of tactical information is two stanzas from Michael Drayton’s epic poem The Miseries of Queen Margaret, published in 1627, which is scraping the bottom of the military-historical barrel. For dramatic effect Drayton described Jasper as ‘young Tudor’, although he was 30 years old. Wiltshire was ten years older and Jasper’s father Owen, commanding the third Lancastrian battle, was at least 60.

  The Earl of Ormond, an associate then

  With this young Tudor, for the king that stood,

  Came in the vanguard with his Irish men,

  With darts and skains; those of the British [Welsh] blood

  With shafts and gleaves them seconding again,

  And as they fall, still make their places good:

  That it amaz’d the Marchers, to behold

  Men so ill-armed upon their bows so bold.

  Now the Welch and the Irish so their weapons wield,

  As tho’ themselves the conq’rors meant to call;

  Then are the Marchers masters of the field,

  With their brown bills the Welchmen so they maul;

  Now th’ one, now th’other, likely were to yield;

  These like to fly, then those were like to fall:

  Until at length (as Fortune pleas’d to guide)

  The conquest turned upon the Yorkists’ side.

  The ‘darts’ were throwing spears and the ‘skains’ (actually scians) were long dirks, the characteristic secondary armament of the Irish gallowglasses (gallóglaigh). They were mercenary heavy infantry who wore mail coats over padded jackets and fought with two-handed axes or the huge swords known as claymores. Although they also used bows, they were not longbows. Each of them had a boy to carry whatever weapons they were not using at a given moment and their battle tactic was to fire their arrows first, then close in to hurl their spears before charging to close quarters, where they were terrify​ingly effective. The scians were for use in the crush, when there was no room to swing the heavier weapons.

  If Drayton’s description is accurate, Ormonde’s gallowglasses were the Lancastrian shock troops, backed by Pembroke’s Welsh billmen, none of them wearing adequate harness. They would have been hopelessly outranged and decimated by the Marcher bowmen, and any who managed to come through the arrow storm would have been rapidly dispatched. It is possible Herbert positioned a group of mounted men in a re-entrant on the wooded hill crowned by Mortimer’s Rock, to charge into the rear of the Lancastrian left wing once it approached the Yorkist line. If so, it was the icing on the cake of an already lopsided battle.

  If even the Welsh bards barely refer to it, we may be sure the battle saw no feats of derring-do. No notable Yorkist was killed, as there certainly would have been if the gallowglasses had managed to get to hand strokes. Battlefield archaeology may eventually reveal more, but it seems likely the Lancastrian left wing crumbled first, possibly precipitated by the flight of Wiltshire/Ormonde. If the monument at the entrance to Kingsland along the modern A4110 does indeed mark a place of special interest, it may be where the right-hand battle commanded by Owen Tudor made a last stand, covering the retreat of his son’s battle along the Leominster road.

  In the pursuit following the battle no mercy was shown to the defeated Lancastrians, in revenge for the slaughter at Wakefield and Pontefract. Owen Tudor and other captured Lancastrian knights were summarily beheaded in Hereford marketplace. The lists of men killed in the battle or executed are undependable, but the definitely dead included Marguerite’s steward of Harlech, two of John Skydmore’s sons and his brother William of Kentchurch, and Thomas ap Gruffudd ap Nicholas.

  Edward’s forces did not, however, pursue Jasper Tudor and his Pembrokemen, who retreated in good order. Most of them made it home and were to turn out for their lord again and again in the years to come. Instead, the victorious army returned to Gloucester, and stayed there while events in England unfolded. It is not clear whether Wenlock was at Mortimer’s Cross, and it could be he is first recorded with Edward now, at Gloucester, because Warwick sent him. The message he brought was that Marguerite and the main Lancastrian army was marching south, and that Edward should join him as soon as possible. Warwick may have worded his request as an order to a man who was now a duke and outranked him.

  Edward had left London with commissions of array for Somerset and Gloucestershire as well as Hereford and Shropshire, but with a war chest of only 650 marks [£275,600]. This was enough to keep his modest army of volunteers supplied for about a month, but a larger force for a longer period required more. The attraction of Gloucester was that all five of the major monastic orders had large abbeys there, making it a pot of gold for anyone who held the city. No threats were necessary, because the oppressively taxed people of Gloucester were violently Lollard and the abbots, who never ventured out without a strong bodyguard, were highly motivated to ingratiate themselves with the civil power.

  It was not, therefore, lack of men or money that kept Edward from marching to join his mentor. He bided his time, and in the end Warwick was forced to come to him. It must have come as a nasty shock to discover that the young man was coldly willing to put the entire Yorkist enterprise at r
isk in order to assert his own leadership so soon after the death of his father.

  Edward’s rise in the English political firmament was as sudden as a shooting star. There had been no previous indication that he was anything other than a loyal lieutenant to Warwick, even siding with him against his own father. But therein, I believe, lies the key. York quite clearly favoured his second son Edmund over Edward. Even if Salisbury and Warwick did not know that Edward was the product of their, respectively, sister and aunt’s adultery, he was of their blood and they gave him the adult male approval denied him by his coldly distant father.

  More than his victory at Mortimer’s Cross, therefore, the death at Wakefield of his father and his favoured younger sibling would have had a galvanically liberating effect on Edward. There is little indication he mourned their loss. He perfunctorily reunited their heads with their bodies at Pontefract, but did not rebury them in the family vault at Fotheringhay until 1476, and even then the leading role was played by Richard, his youngest brother, who also commissioned the construction of their tomb monuments. In an era when the aristocracy practised thinly disguised ancestor worship, Edward could not have made it plainer that he felt no debt of filial gratitude to the man who was not, in fact, his blood father.

  If this interpretation is correct, Edward would have been transformed to learn of York’s death, to win his first independent battle, and to see his surrogate father Warwick come to him with his tail between his legs, all in a period of little more than a month. In a wider sense, despite his youth Edward now assumed the stature of the king English society needed to enforce the law, without which there could be, in Thomas Hobbes’s famous phrase, ‘no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.