Queen Margaret: The Misunderstood Mastermind Of The Wars Of The Roses | War Of The Roses | Chronicle

In May 1455, in the town of St Albans, the armies of the Houses of York and Lancaster met in battle for the first time. The plotting and intriguing which had been rife among the English nobility were replaced by the new currency of the sword, the axe and the arrow. The Yorkists won the battle decisively, and the Duke of Somerset, the champion of the Lancastrian cause who had supposedly dreamed that he would die within sight of a castle, had been hacked to death beneath the sign of the Castle Inn. The weak and ineffective King Henry VI was now a prisoner of Richard, Duke of York, the man who he had dismissed as protector and defender of the realm in December 1454. The Wars of the Roses had begun. After the Battle of St Albans, in some ways, things were remarkably stable. The really important thing, as far as the Yorkists were concerned, was to reiterate their position of standing for the good of the political community at large. There were two very different reactions amongst the nobility after St Albans. For the majority, what they simply wanted was peace. They wanted to create an atmosphere of unity and loyalty around the King, and they would work with York to achieve that. But for a minority, for the sons of those who'd been killed at St Albans, for them, a vendetta was underway. They wanted revenge, and although at the moment they didn't have the power to achieve that, they, in the future, would be determined to achieve their revenge. As the tense and uncertain year of 1455 wore on, the Duke of York and his supporters, the Neville family, maintained a precarious hold on power. They had gone to inordinate lengths to secure a parliamentary pardon for the bloodshed at St Albans, and York knew that the only route to at least some security was to once again win recognition as protector of the realm. The Lords were hardly falling over themselves to grant his wish, but worrying news of a private war in the southwest of the country seems to have persuaded them to agree. William Burley, representing the Commons, championed the Duke of York's cause, warning that... Unless the Duke of York is made protector and defender, and unless these disorders and riots are firmly dealt with, the land will be lost, and that if the land be lost, it might be the cause of the subversion of the whole realm. The war in the southwest was actually quite a serious business, in fact. Exeter was occupied for seven weeks by the Earl of Devon and his family, for example, and there was also notorious murder of an elderly lawyer called Nicholas Radford, who was dragged out of his house and stabbed to death. And news of these terrible events was brought actually to Parliament and announced to the Commons, and this provided a strong motivation for MPs to petition for action to be taken, and in the light of the King's inadequacies, really, and in the absence of any other strong figure, somebody like the Duke of York, who had been protector before, who had ruled with the Lords of the Council, was the obvious person to approach to take over again as protector, to carry out the King's duties of maintaining justice and order throughout the realm. On the 19th of November, 1455, the Duke of York was once again appointed as protector, and the troubles in the southwest, a long-running dispute between the Courtney and Bonneville families, were ended. In reality, it had been a minor distraction, the importance of which had been overstated to suit the Duke of York's ambitions. The Duke's other big problem was that of Calais, and this was more pressing and certainly more difficult to resolve. The financial state of the English Crown was in a total mess, really, in the 1450s. It was finding it very difficult to produce money to pay for any of the standing charges of defence, and that meant that the Calais garrison was unpaid for long periods of time, and therefore inclined to steal wool, for example, as it passed through Calais, and hang on to it in order to obtain payment. The Duke of Somerset, York's great enemy, had also been lieutenant of Calais for most of the first half of the 1450s, and he had built up lots of contacts and networks within the Calais garrison, so it was very difficult for the Yorkists to take over Calais. In the Second Protectorate, Warwick, the rising star in the Yorkist faction, if you like, was the key candidate for lieutenant of Calais, and they opened negotiations immediately with the merchants of the Staple, who controlled the wool trade passing through Calais, who were quite keen to lend money if that meant that the garrison would be paid off and the wool trade would be protected, and that was the solution that emerged in 1456, enabling Warwick to obtain the captaincy and actually enter Calais in the summer of that year. For York, the tide had turned, and there was now to be a decline in his fortunes. His second spell as protector lasted only three months, as King Henry returned to something approaching full health, and again relieved him of the position. The greatest threat to the Duke's overall aspirations, however, came not through the king, but in the shape of the formidable Queen Margaret, who had developed a hatred for York and the Neville's that would fuel her burning desire to secure the succession to the throne of her son, Prince Edward. To achieve this ambition, she was determined that no man would stand in her way, least of all the Duke of York, who had already managed to diminish considerably the power of the court during his two protectorships. It's difficult to give an impartial assessment of Margaret of Anjou. She was a woman, she was a foreigner, she took power at a time when it was not appropriate for a woman, much less a foreigner, to take it. She has had a very bad write-up by her contemporaries. Margaret is presented by contemporaries as a virago, that is, a woman who behaves like a man, and in medieval thinking that was profoundly unnatural. It makes it very hard now to get a clear impression of Margaret herself, because contemporary accounts instinctively conform to that stereotype of a woman who is improperly behaving as a man. And whether Margaret was genuinely as abrasive a character as that suggests, we may never know. The Queen was determined to get the King away from London and remove him from the Duke of York's sphere of influence. After visiting a number of Lancastrian castles in the Midlands of England during the summer of 1456, she persuaded Henry to join her at Kenilworth. It was from here that she was able to oversee appointments that were very much of her choosing. These were the first steps in her campaign to destroy the Duke of York and put an end to his claim to the throne. The reason that Queen Margaret was so opposed to York is, I think, quite complex. You have to remember her background in France, where there had been extremely disruptive nobles, indeed so disruptive that it had made possible Henry V's conquest of France. So I think she had a gut feeling that any noble like York was a serious danger to the throne. And then on top of it, of course, once her son was born, there was this tigerish sense that she was going to defend his inheritance at all costs. And it's quite probable that she had decided that York was claiming the throne long before York decided that perhaps the best way was to claim the throne. To Margaret, he seemed a real threat in every sense. Despite the Queen's machinations, there was a genuine desire among all concerned not to see a repeat of the dreadful violence of St. Albans. The Duke of York and the Neville's even eventually agreed to pay compensation to the Lancastrian Percy and Clifford families. History Hit is an award-winning streaming platform built by history fans for history fans. Enjoy our rich library of documentaries covering key events and locations of the medieval period. History Hit's medieval offering features leading historians such as Dan Jones, Eleanor Janega and Kat Jarman. Not only that, but we have a rich library of audio documentaries covering every period of history through our network of podcasts. Sign up now for a free trial and Chronicle fans get 50% off their first three months. Just be sure to use the code CHRONICLE at checkout. On the 24th of March 1458, in a further display of public reconciliation, King Henry staged a special mass of atonement along with a celebratory pageant which was called the Love Day. This grand occasion brought together the feuding factions of the two rival houses with a procession to St. Paul's in London that saw the hostile parties walking arm in arm. Despite this very public exhibition of unity and friendship with its pomp and ceremony and the grand tournaments that followed, tensions remained high. In and around the city, thousands of men at arms from both sides watched ominously from the sidelines. The situation of the later 1450s is a very difficult one. The king's incapacity has been more or less demonstrated now although the lords are quite keen to gather around him and although by and large they are quite keen to try and find unity among themselves and build a solution to the problem of governing England that works, there are also lots of forces working for division. One is the queen and her concerns. She is quite keen to push for the interests of her son and indeed even to work in the interests of division against these Yorkists if need be. Another interest is the Yorkists themselves who have risen up against the government, of course, in the Battle of St Albans who are therefore made rather vulnerable, who may well be quite keen to work with everybody else but know that to some extent they're marked men. And then a third important group are the heirs of the men who were murdered at St Albans who seem to be out for vengeance. And the main body of the lords, as it were, are trying to pull these disparate groups together but the situation is very volatile and the country's government is gradually unravelling so there's a kind of anarchy. The uneasy peace lasted only six more months. It was then that the queen goaded the Duke of York's great supporter, the Earl of Warwick, into a show of open rebellion. Warwick is set upon in London in 1458 by the men of the court in what seems to be an attempt to assassinate him. He fights his way through to his barge and manages to escape back to the sea and I think that's the last straw as far as he and his allies are concerned. Queen Margaret, sensing that her moment had arrived, seized her opportunity with both hands. She summoned the nobles to a great council at Leicester. She was also gathering military forces and the Yorkers, not unreasonably, decided that to go to this council at Leicester would be very unwise and nasty things might happen to them there. They were, it was said, indicted for not turning up at the council. So at this point both sides began to get their forces together and I think this is what you can say really is the beginning of the Wars of the Races. The bitter prospect of civil war loomed over England as once again the Yorkists turned to military action to enforce their claims. After a summer spent assembling their armies, the two sides finally met in battle at Bloor Heath, which lay between Market Drayton and Newcastle on 23rd September 1459. What seems to have happened in September is that the Yorkists planned to converge on Ludlow where the Duke of York has a huge castle and where they could set up a base of operations I suppose and Warwick arrived in Ludlow safely. Salisbury, Warwick's father, coming down from the north had to pass through the Lancastrian lines in order to get to Ludlow and was unlucky enough to run into a detachment of Lancastrian soldiers headed by Lords Audley and Dudley at Bloor Heath and in a skirmish, about which we know very little, he was victorious. The battle was won. The Lancastrian commander, Lord Audley, amongst those cut down by Salisbury's troops. However, the strategic position after the battle was, to say the least, precarious. Furthermore, the crucial support he had been promised by the powerful Stanley family did not materialise before, during or after the battle. After considering his options, Salisbury eventually decided to make his way to Ludlow to join forces with the Duke of York. On the 12th of October, there came news to make Yorkist hearts sink. A Lancastrian army was approaching Ludlow from the south. Taking a position at Ludford Bridge to meet his enemy, the Duke of York surveyed his outnumbered troops and watched in despair as Andrew Trollope and the Calais veterans, his only experienced troops, swapped sides. Concluding no doubt that discretion was the better part of valour, York slipped away from Ludford Bridge in the night, abandoning not only his troops, but also his wife and two youngest sons. York and his son Edmund found their way to the safety of Ireland, while the Earl of March, York's eldest son, escaped to Calais with Warwick and Salisbury. The Yorkist army crumbled away and the victorious Lancastrian troops pillaged, looted and raped in Ludlow, which, in truth, did little for the popularity of Henry's cause throughout the country. That tireless champion of that cause was Margaret of Anjou, who was now ruler of England in all but name, and she moved quickly to consolidate the Lancastrian position. With her main enemies in enforced exile, the Queen called a Parliament at Coventry in November 1459. This Parliament of Devils, as it came to be known, passed a Bill of Attainder that not only declared York and his main supporters guilty of treason, but also confiscated their titles and estates. Fortunately, we don't have Acts of Attainder very often these days, but in the 15th century it was the worst possible punishment for a nobleman. It meant not only that he was convicted of treason and that he would be executed, but that he lost his lands, his title and his whole family was disinherited. It meant oblivion for that family. And so the Yorkists were convicted of treason, and Margaret probably thought that she'd won. But all she'd really succeeded in doing was turning a conflict, which so far had been about who had control of the king, into a conflict for the crown itself. All Henry's incompetence had never put his hold on the throne in peril, but now Margaret's vindictive pursuit of the Yorkists was the fastest route to the deposition of her husband. If the Queen believed that the Yorkists had been beaten, she was to be sorely mistaken. It was not long before they began to strike back. In early 1460, the Neville's began to organise highly successful raids on the Kent coast from Calais, capturing eminent Lancastrians and precious Lancastrian ships. In June of that year, a major push under the command of the loyal John Dinnam saw Yorkist troops land at Sandwich, but this time they had come to stay. Joined by the earls of Warwick, Salisbury and March, they advanced on London via Canterbury, gathering support as they went, until they eventually entered the capital unopposed with the support of several thousand men. On 4th July 1460, leaving Salisbury behind to hold London, Warwick and the Earl of March began to move north, advancing on the king's troops. They finally met in battle six days later at Northampton. It was a battle that the Lancastrians should have won. They were, after all, in a superb defensive position and with superior artillery. That they did not was down to two main reasons. The weather, and that recurring factor during the Wars of the Roses, treachery. The very heavy rain that occurred in that July meant that the guns wouldn't actually fire on the day. So the Lancastrian artillery was really no use to them. And their defences behind these ramparts were also breached because Lord Grey of Riffin, who was in the Lancastrian army, had for some reason decided to betray them and allow the Yorkists directly into the centre of the Lancastrian camp, creating mayhem and chaos. The Yorkists wiped out a number of their major opponents and enemies and they captured the king. Now, in many ways, capturing the king topped off the incredible series of successes that they'd enjoyed in June and July 1460. They now had established themselves as the king's true subjects and servants. They had driven out his evil advisers, or many of them. The queen had lost quite a lot of legitimacy by being separated from the king. On the other hand, capturing the king may, ironically, have thwarted the Yorkist plans. They may have expected the king to be killed in the battle, which would have smoothed the way to a Yorkist succession to the throne. Now that they had the king, it would obviously be an act of treason, indeed treachery, to depose him and replace him with the Yorkists. With King Henry held prisoner in London, the Earl of Warwick took control of the government of the country, and he wasted no time appointing his family and friends to the great offices of state. However, the burning question remained, what would the next move of the Duke of York be? The Yorkists on this occasion have done exactly what they did in 1455 at St Albans. They capture the king, so now they have to make good their claims of working together under him as his true lords. And we've already seen, actually, how you couldn't rule effectively through the king. Really, the only solution to England's problems is actually to get rid of Henry. But they made no immediate move to depose Henry. They dismissed his household staff and they took control, because if they were going to rule through Henry, then they had to control access to him. It didn't look as if Henry was to be deposed, but then York returned from Ireland and claimed the crown. In the early days of September 1460, the Duke landed near Chester and made his way on a triumphal march towards London to claim the throne. He arrived at Westminster on 10th October, but his reception was not quite as he had hoped. York arrived in London in full royal splendour, his sword borne upright before him, the royal banner displayed. And when he arrived at the Palace of Westminster, he stalked up to the royal throne and put his hand on the cushion. He waited for acclamation, for cries of, Long live King Richard! And there was silence. Then the voice broke the silence that belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who asked quietly, Did you want to see King Henry, my lord? York stormed off and there was the sound of crashing doors, but he didn't back down. York had created a dilemma for the nobility. Who should they choose, Henry or York? If they chose Henry, then York would fight. But if they chose York, then Margaret of Anjou would be certain to fight in defence of not only her husband, but her son, Prince Edward. It was an impossible situation. Despite the uncertainty, a solution to the problem had to be reached, for there was no doubting the validity and law of York's claim to the throne. Eventually a compromise was reached, which was the very model of political expediency. On 24th October, an Act of Accord was passed, proclaiming York as the heir to the throne and establishing him as protector, but which saw Henry remain king. This, of course, meant that the king's own son, the Prince of Wales, was disinherited. Reactions to the Act of Accord are quite hard to judge. In some ways, it seems like a sensible compromise for the people in the South East. On the other hand, it's clear that the Queen and the Prince and their supporters are not going to accept it, because the Queen's whole power base rests on the interests of the Prince, and the Act of Accord writes him out of the story in exactly the same way as the Treaty of Troyes of 1420 had written the French claimant to the throne out of the story. It's a very parallel document, in fact. So the Act of Accord is a basis for unity in the South, and it means that the Yorkists haven't betrayed their promises in 1460, but it isn't going to solve the problems in England. There is going to have to be a showdown between the Yorkists in the South and the Queen and her supporters in the North. Despite her seemingly impossible position, Queen Margaret's reaction to the Accord was typical and forthright. Tapping into a groundswell of support, she rallied the Lancastrian army, assembling troops in Wales under Jasper Tudor, in the south-west under the Dukes of Somerset and Devon, and in the north under the Earl of Northumberland. In response, the Duke of York's own 18-year-old son Edward, Earl of March, known as the Rose of Rouen, went at the head of an army into Wales. Meanwhile, York and Salisbury marched north to tackle the Lancastrian forces there. Warwick remained in London to keep command of the city. On 21st December 1460, York and Salisbury arrived at Sandal Castle near Wakefield. They remained there during the Christmas festival, but by the end of the month the castle was under siege by Lancastrian troops from the north under the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter. The Yorkists were clearly outnumbered by the Lancastrian force, which made the Duke of York's fateful decision to leave the relative security of Sandal Castle and give battle in the open at Wakefield all the more baffling. It's likely that York and Salisbury made their fatal mistake in sullying out of Sandal Castle because they were short of supplies. With their enemy controlling the countryside around, they were desperately short of food and drink, and that was no way to spend New Year. But around the story of Wakefield, there are all kinds of rumours of trickery. The most notable is that York was tricked to come out because Sir Andrew Trollope had dressed his men up in Neville livery, and York came out thinking that his own men had arrived, only to find himself at the wrong end of Trollope's spears. Fought on the 13th of December, the Battle of Wakefield was a disaster for the Yorkist cause. More than 2,000 Yorkist troops met their death, ten times the number of Lancastrian dead. Amongst the fallen was the Duke of York himself, along with his second son, the Earl of Rutland. Richard Neville, the Earl of Salisbury, was captured. His bitter rivals, the Percy family, took the opportunity to settle old scores, and the 60-year-old Earl was dragged off and beheaded. The heads of the two dead Yorkist leaders were placed on stakes and displayed over the gates of the city of York itself. In a final, obscene gesture of mockery, a paper crown was placed on the Duke's decapitated head. After Wakefield, the Lancastrian troops, who had not been paid by the crown, went on the rampage, sacking and looting the towns of Grantham, Stamford and Northampton. Lurid rumours of Lancastrian atrocities were rife. The Croyland Chronicle gives a chilling account of events. The Duke being thus removed from this world, the Northmen swept onwards like a whirlwind from the north, and in the impulse of their fury attempted to overrun the whole of England. At this period too, paupers and beggars flocked forth from those quarters in infinite numbers, just like so many mice rushing forth from their holes, and universally devoted themselves to spoil and rapine without regard for place or person. For besides the vast quantities of property which they collected outside, they also irreverently rushed, in their unbridled and frantic rage, into churches and other sanctuaries of God, and most nefariously plundered them of their chalices, books and vestments. An unutterable crime, broke open the pixes in which were kept the body of Christ, and shook out the sacred elements therefrom. When the priests, and other faithful of Christ in any way, offered to make resistance, like so many abandoned wretches as they were, they cruelly slaughtered them in the very churches or churchyards. Thus did they proceed with impunity, spreading in vast multitudes over a space of 30 miles in breadth, and covering the whole surface of the earth just like so many locusts, made their way almost to the very walls of London. It's quite difficult to assess who really was in command of the Lancastrian forces as they came south, because most of the accounts of this were of course written in the period of the Yorkist kings, and therefore are extremely hostile to Margaret. It was assumed that she was in command, that it was on her initiative that these troops did come south, looting as they came, and it was of course the worst possible thing that could happen in the Civil War, but it was the first time that that kind of behaviour really had been seen on a large scale. From the point of view of winning the hearts and minds of the country at large, back to Henry VI, it was obviously a very stupid thing to do. You didn't actually do that sort of thing inside England, that you could do it to the Scots, to the Welsh, to the Irish and the French, but it was not supposed to happen in England. It wasn't anything particularly outside the border regions that people in England were in any way used to, and therefore seemed exceptionally shocking. Although the defeated Wakefield was a terrible blow to the Yorkists, all was not lost. The Earl of Warwick was still in control of London, and Edward, Earl of March, now the principal Yorkist claimant, was still with his army at Gloucester. Once again, Queen Margaret rallied her troops, riding south with them in order to attack Warwick. Within the Lancastrian army were the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland, and the Lords Clifford and Wells, all men who, having lost their fathers in the fighting at St Albans in 1455, had the additional motive of revenge. The following months brought several more bitter skirmishes. In the west, the Earl of March received the news of death of his father, followed by ominous reports that the Lancastrian earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire had landed in Wales with a supporting army of French, Breton and Irish troops. Faced with this new threat, Edward joined up with the armed forces of William Hastings, who had narrowly escaped from the disaster at Ludlow. Together, Edward and Hastings marched to meet the Welsh Lancastrians and their men. It was Jasper Tudor, who was Henry VI's half-brother. His father, Owen Tudor, had married Catherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V, that would face Edward on the field of battle. While Tudor was a brave enough soldier, he was no match for Edward. The two armies met at Mortimer's Cross, between Leamingster and Hereford, on 2 February 1461. It was Candlemas Day, a holy festival, and it is said that while the Yorkist camp was holding mass before the battle, three blazing suns appeared in the sky. Believing this to be a divine omen, Edward drove his army in hard against the Lancastrians, winning a decisive victory. To mark the triumph, Edward later incorporated a golden sunburst into his coat of arms. There was another act of celebration in Hereford, where the captured Owen Tudor, father of Jasper, was executed. The Yorkist success at Mortimer's Cross was welcome, of course, but it paled into insignificance when compared to the disaster that befell them at the Second Battle of St Albans in February 1461. It was to that unfortunate town, the scene of the first Yorkist victory some six years previously, that the Earl of Warwick had marched an enormous army, with his prisoner, the unhappy King Henry, in tow, to meet the threat posed by the advancing Lancastrians. The Second Battle of St Albans all went horribly wrong for the Yorkists. It seems that a small part of the Yorkist vanguard was attacked by a much larger Lancastrian army, and the rest of the Yorkist army, headed by Warwick, failed then to engage the Lancastrians successfully, and indeed the army melted away in the face of the Lancastrian victory over the vanguard. And in the course of the rout of the Yorkist army, the King was recaptured by the Lancastrians. So it really did look for a moment as if the game was now completely up for the Yorkists. Sir Andrew Trollope was knighted. He'd killed 15 men. But in a remarkable display of mock modesty, Trollope said, I only killed 15 men. I was wounded early in the battle and I couldn't move. I had to wait for them to come to me. And here you can imagine him gesturing to the piles of bodies surrounding him as he finished off. They had to come to me, but here they lie still. Queen Margaret was now very much in control. Rumours circulated that during the Second Battle of St Albans, where he was rescued by the Lancastrians, King Henry had stood in the midst of the fighting, raving, laughing and singing madly. Certainly, the King's state of mind was very frail, giving Margaret free reign to oversee the events which followed the great Lancastrian victory. Giving the power of legal judgement to her seven-year-old son, the Prince of Wales, Margaret staged the trial of several captured Yorkists. The infant prince sentenced them all to death. After the flight of Warwick, the road to London was clear for the King and Queen. But news of the carnage that had occurred after Ludford Bridge and Wakefield had travelled fast. Even though the Queen sent her troops to Dunstable, far away from London, the royal couple and their retinue were refused entry through the gates of the city. The Lancastrian troops retreated to York, while Edward, Earl of March and the Earl of Warwick rode into London to an enthusiastic welcome. For Edward the time had come. Yorkist fortunes had fluctuated wildly, but fate had conspired to place him in the perfect position to seize the throne of England. So it was that on the 1st of March 1461, the Bishop of Salisbury, Warwick's brother, announced that Edward would replace Henry as monarch and three days later he was proclaimed King Edward IV in St Paul's Cathedral. Edward was greeted as a saviour in London, desperate to avoid looting by Margaret's troops. The city government had grown increasingly disenchanted with the Lancastrian regime during the 1450s, so really they had few qualms in accepting Edward as King, unlike the nobility, who still, on the whole, favoured Henry VI. The claim to the throne turned what was a civil disturbance in the reign of Henry VI into the dynastic conflict that we know as the Wars of the Roses. It was the only way for the Yorkists, out of their predicament, and whether Edward IV went for the throne with a heavy heart or with a glad heart and a sense of right, we can't know, but I think he must have known what battles would lie ahead. Buoyed by financial support from the city aldermen, Edward set out to seal his accession and by crushing his Lancastrian enemies in a final, climactic battle. The Lancastrian troops were still in the north of the country, desperate for food after a hard winter of foraging. The supplies taken after St Albans were now all but gone. The Yorkists, by contrast, were in a far better position after receiving supplies from the capital, and they now prepared to pursue the Lancastrians and to bring them to battle. Edward raised troops from East Anglia through his supporter there, the Duke of Norfolk, and from the Midlands through the Earl of Warwick. Warwick's uncle, Lord Falkenberg, placed himself at the head of troops gathered from Kent and Wales, marching from London on 11th March. Edward himself followed on 13th, arriving at Pontefract on 28th March. He was now the commander of a huge Yorkist army. The scene was now set for one of England's bloodiest battles, the Battle of Toughton Field. This was the first deposition in post-Conquest English history where there actually had to be a battle in which one side had to defeat the other, and by this time it really was Yorkists, those on Edward's side against Lancastrians, so the rump of the realm that was still prepared to fight for Henry VI and Margaret. But the sheer size of the battle and the fact the battle had to be fought indicates that Edward had got quite a long way to go before he could make himself effective King of England. The Battle of Toughton was one of the most major, if not the most major, battle of the whole Wars of the Roses. Huge Lancastrian army, huge Yorkist army, and a strong sense on the part of both armies that this was really the final showdown. On Saturday 28th March, a bitterly cold winter's day, the fighting began. A Lancastrian force had been sent to hold the crossing over the River Eyre, which lay on the road between York and Pontefract. It was only after the most savage combat which claimed the lives of many men on both sides that the Lancastrians were forced to retire across the river. Both armies spent an uncomfortable night sleeping in the open at the mercy of the elements. On 29th March, Palm Sunday, the Yorkist forces came face to face with the main Lancastrian army. Some 80,000 men were about to meet in mortal combat. The weather was atrocious, with snow and hail and a biting, howling wind that blew straight towards the Lancastrian lines. This unrelenting gale was to have a huge bearing on the outcome of the battle. What we think happened at the Battle of Touter was that the wind blew the Lancastrian arrows back onto their own side, and so although there were some significant Lancastrian successes in the course of the battle, a tremendous cavalry charge, a major part of their tactics, I suppose, were turned against them. The field of Touter typified the savagery of medieval battle. Men hacked desperately at one another with no call to ask or give in. A decisive moment came when Yorkist reinforcements, under the command of the Duke of Norfolk, arrived, which turned the tide of battle in the Yorkists' favour. The fighting raged well into the night, until the Lancastrians finally broke and ran, fleeing across the freezing waters of the nearby Cock Peck. The Yorkists gave chase, cutting men off and slaughtering them as they ran for safety. It is said that the Cock became choked with bodies, and that the water ran red with blood for more than three miles downstream. Perhaps 20,000 men died during the Battle of Touton. No-one knows the full extent of the carnage. A calamity had befallen the Lancastrians. Among the dead were the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Egremont and Lord Clifford. The great soldier Sir Andrew Trollope also perished, along with more than 40 other knights, while the losses among the Yorkist nobility were light. After the Battle of Touton, there is, in a sense, no Lancastrian army. There is a king, there is the queen, there is a prince, there are a handful of Lancastrian magnates, and the few men who are willing still to follow these men. The Yorkist victory at Touton was fundamental. Really, this was the last battle of Henry VI's reign. In many ways, this is the end of Henry VI's reign. Henry VI is nothing more, really, than a pretender to the throne. The Lancastrian danger is, for the time being, wiped out, but most of all, Lancastrian legitimacy is wiped out. It's now the Lancastrians who are the renegades, and the House of York which is the legitimate and convincing claimant to the throne of England. So it's really the end of Henry VI's reign, the beginning of Edward IV's, but it's just a milestone in the ongoing conflict that is the Wars of the Roses. When news of the disastrous defeat at Touton came through, Henry VI, Queen Margaret and the Prince of Wales all fled to the safety of Scotland, soon to be joined by the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset. Edward's victory was complete. England was his, and the Rose of Rouen was officially crowned Edward IV in Westminster Abbey on the 29th of June, 1461. The House of York had the throne at last. But it owed everything to the support of the Earl of Warwick, a man Edward could not afford to alienate, and a man the people were now calling the Kingmaker.