Battle Royal

by Hugh Bicheno

  Gairdner, James (ed.), The Paston Letters, 1422−1509 (1904).

  Giles, John (ed.), The Chronicles of the White Rose of York (1845) (includes ‘Hearne’s Fragment’, the ‘Warkworth Chronicle’ (q.v.) and the ‘Historie of the Arrivall’ (q.v.).

  Given-Wilson, Chris (ed.), Parliament Rolls of Medieval England 1275−1504, vols. 10−16 (Woodbridge, 2005).

  ‘Gregory’s Chronicle’ – see Gairdner, James (ed.), The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London.

  Haliwell, James (ed.), Warkworth’s Chronicle (1839).

  ‘Hearne’s Fragment’ – see Giles, John (ed.), The Chronicles of the White Rose of York.

  Hinds, Allen (ed.), Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts in the Archives and Collections of Milan − 1385−1618 (1912).

  ‘Historie of the Arrivall’ – see Giles, John (ed.), The Chronicles of the White Rose of York.

  Kingsford, Charles (ed.), Chronicles of London (Oxford, 1905).

  Knowles, R., ‘The Battle of Wakefield: the Topography’, The Ricardian (June 1992).

  Michael Drayton, ‘The Miseries of Queen Margaret’ in Samuel Johnson (ed. Alexander Chalmers) The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper (1810).

  New Advent, The Catholic Encyclopedia (1917).

  Nichols, John (ed.), Chronicle of the Rebellion of Lincolnshire 1470 (1847).

  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004−).

  Pollard, A., ‘Percies, Nevilles and the Wars of the Roses’, History Today (1993).

  Power, Eileen, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (1941).

  Richmond, C., ‘Propaganda in the Wars of the Roses’, History Today (1992).

  Riley, Henry (ed.), Registra quorundam abbatum monasterii S. Albani, 2 vols. (1872−3).

  Rosenthal, Joel, ‘Other victims: peeresses as war widows, 1450−1500’, History, 72 (1987).

  Rous, John, The Warwick Roll (1483).

  Site of the Battle of Northampton, 1460: Conservation Management Plan (Northampton, 2013).

  Stevenson, Joseph (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of Henry the Sixth (1861) (contains William Worcester’s ‘Annales Rerum Anglicarum’).

  Sutherland, Tim, ‘Killing time: challenging the common perceptions of three medieval conflicts – Ferrybridge, Dintingdale and Towton’, Journal of Conflict Archaeology, 5:1 (2010).

  Thomson, Thomas (ed.), The Auchinleck Chronicle: Ane Schort Memoriale of the Scottis Corniklis for Addicioun (1819).

  The Towton Battlefield Archaeological Survey Project, Unknown soldiers: the discovery of war graves from the battle of Towton.

  UK Battlefields Resource Centre.

  Vergil, Polydore (ed. Dana Sutton), Anglica Historia (1555) (critical edition, 2005).

  Vigiles du roi Charles VII (1487) – illustrations only.

  Walker, John, Fourmilab Calendar Converter (2009).

  ‘Warkworth Chronicle’ – see Giles, John (ed.), The Chronicles of the White Rose of York.

  Wavrin, Jehan de (trans. William and Edward Hardy), Collection of the chronicles and ancient histories of Great Britain (1864).

  Worcester, William, ‘Annales Rerum Anglicarum’ – see Stevenson, Joseph (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the reign of Henry the Sixth.

  PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES

  ‘Benet’s Chronicle’ – see Harriss, G. and M. (eds.), John Benet’s Chronicle for the Years 1400 to 1462.

  ‘Crowland Chronicle Continuations’ – see Pronay, Nicholas and John Cox (eds.), The Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459−86.

  Dockray, Keith, Henry VI, Margaret of Anjou and the Wars of the Roses: a Source Book (Stroud, 2000).

  Fiorato, Veronica, Anthea Boylston and Christopher Knüsel (eds.), Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton (Oxford, 2000).

  Hallam, Elizabeth (ed.), The Wars of the Roses: From Richard II to Bosworth Field as seen through the eyes of contemporaries (1998).

  Harriss, G. and M. (eds.), John Benet’s Chronicle for the Years 1400 to 1462, Camden Miscellany, Vol. XXIV, 4:9 (1972).

  Myers, Alec (ed.), English Historical Documents: Volume 4, 1327−1485 (1995).

  Pisan, Christine de (trans. Sarah Lawson), The Treasure of the City of Ladies, or, The Book of the Three Virtues (2003).

  Pius II, Pope (ed. and trans. Margaret Meserve and Macello Simonetta), Commentaries (2003).

  Pronay, Nicholas and John Cox (eds.), The Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459−86 (1986) (though there is a nineteenth-century version online, this one is superior).

  ‘Somnium Vigilantis’ – see article in Historical Research by Margaret Kekewich.

  ‘The Stow Relation’ – see Kekewich et al., John Vale’s Book.

  Sutherland, Tim and Simon Richardson, ‘Arrows point to mass graves: finding the dead from the Battle of Towton’, in Scott, Babits and Haeker (eds.), Fields of Conflict: Battlefield Archaeology from the Roman Empire to the Korean War (2007).

  SECONDARY SOURCES

  BOOKS

  Adams, Max, The King in the North (2013).

  Allmand, Christopher, Lancastrian Normandy, 1415–1450 (Oxford, 1983).

  Ambühl, Rémy, Prisoners of War in the Hundred Years War: Ransom Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2013).

  Archer, Rowena and Simon Walker (eds.), Rulers and ruled in late medieval England (1995).

  Baldwin, David, Elizabeth Woodville (Stroud, 2012).

  Barber, Richard (ed.), The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses (Woodbridge, 1993).

  Barker, Juliet, Conquest: The English Kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War (2009).

  Bean, John, The Estates of the Percy Family (Oxford, 1958).

  Bell, Adrian, Anne Curry, Andy King and David Simpkin (eds.), The Soldier in Later Medieval England (Oxford, 2013).

  Bicheno, Hugh, Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance (2007).

  Boardman, Andrew, The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1998).

  Boardman, Andrew, The Battle of Towton (Stroud, 2000).

  Boardman, Andrew, The First Battle of St Albans (Stroud, 2006).

  Bramley, Peter, A Companion & Guide to the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 2011).

  Brenan, Gerald, A History of the House of Percy, Vol. I (1902).

  Carpenter, Christine, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution of England, 1437−1509 (Cambridge, 1997).

  Cheetham, Anthony, The Wars of the Roses (2000).

  Chrimes, Stanley, Charles Ross and Ralph Griffiths (eds.), Fifteenth-century England, 1399−1509: Studies in Politics and Society (Manchester, 1972).

  Clark, Linda and Christine Carpenter (eds.), Political Culture in Late Medieval Britain (Woodbridge, 2004).

  Contamine, Philippe (trans. Michael Jones), War in the Middle Ages (1984).

  Cox, Helen, The Battle of Wakefield Revisited (York, 2010).

  Dockray, Keith, William Shakespeare: The Wars of the Roses and the Historians (Stroud, 2002).

  Duggan, Anne (ed.), Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1997).

  Evans, Howell, Wales and the Wars of the Roses (1995).

  Goodman, Anthony, The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English Society (Stroud, 2004).

  Goodman, Anthony, The Wars of the Roses: the Soldiers’ Experience (Stroud, 2005).

  Goodwin, George, Fatal Colours: Towton 1461 (2011).

  Gregory, Philippa, David Baldwin and Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins’ War (2013).

  Griffith, Paddy (ed.), The Battle of Blore Heath, 1459 (Nuneaton, 1995).

  Griffiths, Ralph (ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces (Gloucester, 1981).

  Griffiths, Ralph, King and Country: England and Wales in the Fifteenth Century (1991).

  Griffiths, Ralph, The Reign of King Henry VI (Stroud, 1998).

  Haigh, Philip, The Battle of Wakefield (Stroud, 1996).

/>   Harriss, Gerald, Cardinal Beaufort (Oxford, 1988).

  Harriss, Gerald, Shaping the Nation: England 1360−1461 (Oxford, 2005).

  Harvey, Isobel, Jack Cade’s rebellion of 1450 (Oxford, 1991).

  Hicks, Michael, Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford, 1998).

  Hicks, Michael, The Wars of the Roses (2010).

  Hilton, Lisa, Queen’s Consort: England’s Medieval Queens (2008).

  Hodges, Geoffrey, Ludford Bridge & Mortimer’s Cross: the Wars of the Roses in Herefordshire and the Welsh Marches (Little Logaston, 2001).

  Johnson, P. A., Duke Richard of York, 1411−1460 (1988).

  Karsten, Peter, The Military-State-Society Symbiosis (1999).

  Kendall, Paul, Warwick the Kingmaker (2002).

  Lander, Jack, Conflict and Stability in Fifteenth-Century England (1969).

  Lander, Jack, Crown and Nobility 1450−1509 (Montreal, 1976).

  Lander, Jack, The Limitations of English Monarchy in the Later Middle Ages (Toronto, 1989).

  Laslett, Peter, Karla Oosterveen and Richard Smith (eds.), Bastardy and its Comparative History (1980).

  Loades, Mike, The Longbow (Oxford, 2013).

  MacFarlane, Alan, The Origins of English Individualism (Oxford, 1978).

  McFarlane, Kenneth, England in the Fifteenth Century (1981).

  Maurer, Helen, Margaret of Anjou (Woodbridge, 2003).

  Nicholson, Ranald, Scotland: the Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1974).

  Payling, Simon, Political Society in Lancastrian England: The Greater Gentry of Nottinghamshire (Oxford, 1991) – see list of articles by author.

  Pollard, Anthony, North-eastern England during the Wars of the Roses (Oxford, 1990).

  Pollard, Anthony (ed.), The Wars of the Roses (Basingstoke, 1995).

  Pollard, Anthony, Warwick the Kingmaker (2007).

  Rawcliffe, Carol, The Staffords, 1394−1512 (Cambridge, 1978).

  Reid, Peter, A Brief History of Medieval Warfare: The Rise and Fall of English Supremacy at Arms: 1344−1485 (2008).

  Rodger, Nicholas, The Safeguard of the Sea: A Naval History of Britain, 660−1640 (1997).

  Rose, Susan, Calais: An English Town in France, 1347−1558 (Woodbridge, 2008).

  Rosenthal, Joel and Colin Richmond (eds.), People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages (Gloucester, 1987).

  Ross, Charles, The Wars of the Roses (1976).

  Ross, Charles (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1979).

  Sadler, John, Towton: the Battle of Palm Sunday Field 1461 (Barnsley, 2011).

  Santiuste, David, Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses (Barnsley, 2013).

  Scofield, Cora, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, Vol. I (New York, 1967).

  Starkey, David, Crown and Country: a History of England through the Monarchy (2011).

  Storey, R. L., The End of the House of Lancaster (Gloucester, 1999).

  Spufford, Peter and Wendy Wilkinson, Handbook of Medieval Exchange (1986).

  Tuck, Anthony, Crown and Nobility: England 1272−1461 (Oxford, 1999).

  Vale, Malcolm, Charles VII (1974).

  Vale, Malcolm, War and Chivalry: Warfare and Aristocratic Culture in England, France and Burgundy at the End of the Middle Ages (1981).

  Wagner, John, Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses (Santa Barbara, 2011).

  Watts, John, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996).

  Weir, Alison, Lancaster and York (1995).

  Wolffe, Bertram, Henry VI (Yale, 2001).

  ARTICLES

  (alphabetical by journal and chronological)

  Archaeologia

  Madden, F., ‘Political poems of the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV’, 29 (1842).

  Archivum Historiae Pontificiae

  Head, C., ‘Pius II and the Wars of the Roses’, 8 (1970).

  Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research

  McFarlane, K., ‘Bastard feudalism’, 20 (1943−45).

  Armstrong, C., ‘Politics and the Battle of St Albans, 1455’, 33 (1960).

  Hicks, M., ‘Descent, partition and extinction: the Warwick inheritance’, 52 (1979)

  Hicks, M., ‘The Beauchamp Trust, 1439−87’, 54 (1981).

  Kekewich, M., ‘The attainder of the Yorkists in 1459: two contemporary accounts’, 55 (1982).

  Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

  Myers, A. (ed.), ‘The household of Queen Margaret of Anjou, 1452−3’, 50 (1957−8).

  Virgoe, R., ‘The death of William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk’, 47 (1964−5).

  Virgoe, R., ‘William Tailboys and Lord Cromwell: crime and politics in Lancastrian England’, 55 (1972−3).

  English Historical Review

  Ransome, C., ‘The Battle of Towton’, 4 (1889). Gilson, J., ‘A Defence of the proscription of the Yorkists in 1459’, 26 (1911).

  Baskerville, G., ‘A London chronicle of 1460’, 28 (1913).

  Kingsford, C., ‘An historical collection of the fifteenth century’, 29 (1914).

  Kingsford, C., ‘The Earl of Warwick at Calais in 1460’, 37 (1922).

  Gray, H., ‘Incomes from land in England in 1436’, 49 (1934).

  Storey, R., ‘The wardens of the marches of England towards Scotland 1377−1489’, 72 (1957).

  Harriss, G., ‘The struggle for Calais: an aspect of the rivalry between Lancaster and York’, 75 (1960).

  Jones, M., ‘Somerset, York and the Wars of the Roses’, 104 (1989).

  Historical Research

  Kekewich, M. ‘The Attainder of the Yorkists in 1459: Two Contemporary Accounts’, 55 (1982) – contains text of Somnium Vigilantis.

  Rawcliffe, C., ‘Richard, Duke of York, the king’s “Obesiant Leigeman”: a new source for the protectorates of 1454 and 1455’, 60 (1987).

  Pugh, T., ‘Richard, Duke of York, and the rebellion of Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, in May 1454’, 63 (1990).

  Journal of Medieval History

  Cron, B., ‘The Duke of Suffolk, the Angevin marriage, and the ceding of Maine, 1445’, 20 (1994).

  Medieval History

  Hicks, M., ‘Warwick: the reluctant Kingmaker’, 1:2 (1991).

  Medieval Warfare

  Ingram, M., ‘War in Writing’, 5:3 (June 2015).

  Northern History

  Hicks, M., ‘The Duke of Somerset and Lancastrian localism in the North’, 20 (1986).

  Nottingham Medieval Studies

  Richmond, C., ‘The nobility and the Wars of the Roses 1459−61’, 21 (1977).

  Royal Historical Society Studies in History

  Pollard, A., ‘John Talbot and the War in France, 1427–1453’, 35 (1983).

  Speculum

  Bennett, J., ‘The Medieval Loveday’, 33 (1958).

  Griffiths, R., ‘Local rivalries and national politics: the Percies, the Nevilles, and the Duke of Exeter’, 43 (1968).

  The Ricardian (not all are online)

  Cron, B., ‘Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian march on London’(December 1999).

  Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

  Armstrong, C., ‘The inauguration ceremonies of the Yorkist kings, and their title to the throne’, 4:30 (1948).

  University of Birmingham Historical Journal

  Kenecht, R., ‘The Episcopate and the Wars of the Roses’, 6 (1957).

  Yorkshire Archaeological Society

  Leadman, A., ‘The Battle of Towton’, 10 (1889).

  Markham, C., ‘The Battle of Towton’, 10 (1889).

  ARTICLES BY SIMON PAYLING

  ‘The Ampthill dispute: a study in aristocratic lawlesness and the breakdown of Lancastrian Government’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989).

  ‘Social mobility, demographic change, and landed society in late-medieval England’, Economic History Review, 45 (1992).

  ‘A Disputed Mortgage: Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Sir John Gra. and the Manor of Multon Hall’, in R. Archer and S. Walker (eds.), Rulers and Ruled in late Medieval England: Essay
s Presented to Gerald Harriss (1995).

  ‘The Politics of Family: Late Medieval Marriage Contracts’, in R.H. Britnell and A.J. Pollard (eds.), The McFarlane Legacy (Stroud, 1995).

  ‘The Later Middle Ages’, in R. Smith and J.S. Moore (eds.), The House of Commons (1996).

  ‘Murder, motive and punishment in fifteenth-century England: two gentry case-studies’, English Historical Review, 113 (1998).

  ‘County parliamentary elections in fifteenth-century England’, Parliamentary History, 17 (1999).

  ‘The economics of marriage in late medieval England: The marriage of heiresses’, Economic History Review, 54 (2001).

  ‘The Rise of Lawyers in the Lower House, 1395−1536’, in L. Clark (ed.), Parchment and People: Parliament in the Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 2004).

  ‘Identifiable Motives for Election to Parliament in the Reign of Henry VI: the Operation of Public and Private Factors’, in L. Clark (ed.), The Fifteenth Century, VI: Identity and Insurgency in the Late Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2006).

  ‘War and Peace: Military and Administrative Service amongst the English Gentry in the Reign of Henry VI’, in P. Coss and C. Tyerman (eds.), Soldiers, Nobles and Gentlemen: Essays in Honour of Maurice Keen (Woodbridge, 2009).

  ‘The House of Commons, 1307−1529’, in C. Jones (ed.), A Short History of Parliament (Woodbridge, 2009).

  Acknowledgements

  * * *

  To George R. R. Martin for the inspiration and for creating a compelling parallel world.

  In particular I want to thank:

  Ian Drury, agent extraordinaire, who encouraged me to develop the idea of writing ‘The Real Game of Thrones’;

  Dr Tobias Capwell FSA, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection, for sharing his unique expertise on medieval warfare;

  My sister Lyn McMeekin for patiently beta-reading the manuscript;

  Richard Milbank, non-fiction publisher at Head of Zeus, for comprehensive editing;

  Annabel Warren of Whitefox, only the second copy editor ever to add value to my books.

  Many others – you know who you are – have helped me in many ways and I thank you all.

  Image Credits

  * * *

  FIRST PLATE SECTION

  Catherine de Valois (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)