Battle of Towton (1461): The Bloodiest Battle on English Soil

The Battle of Towton was fought on 29 March 1461, Palm Sunday, near the village of Towton in Yorkshire during the Wars of the Roses. In a snowstorm, the Yorkist army of the newly proclaimed Edward IV defeated the main Lancastrian army of Henry VI after hours of fierce fighting. Often called the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, it secured Edward’s throne.

Background

By early 1461 the struggle between the houses of Lancaster and York had reached a crisis. Richard, Duke of York, who had been recognised as heir to Henry VI in 1460, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460. His eldest son, Edward, Earl of March, aged 18, avenged him by defeating a Lancastrian army at Mortimer’s Cross in early February 1461.

The Lancastrians, led in practice by Queen Margaret of Anjou, then beat the Earl of Warwick at the Second Battle of St Albans on 17 February and recovered the king. However, London closed its gates to them, and the Lancastrian army withdrew north. Edward entered London and was proclaimed King Edward IV on 4 March 1461.

To make his title secure, Edward had to destroy the Lancastrian army, which had gathered in Yorkshire around Henry VI and Margaret at York. He marched north with Warwick and Warwick’s uncle, William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, an experienced soldier.

Ferrybridge and the approach

On 28 March a Lancastrian force under John, Lord Clifford, attacked the Yorkist troops holding the crossing of the River Aire at Ferrybridge. The Yorkists recovered the crossing after heavy fighting, and Clifford was killed as he retreated at Dintingdale. Lord Fitzwalter, on the Yorkist side, was also killed. A well-known later story says Warwick killed his horse before his men to show he would not flee, but this comes from later chroniclers and cannot be confirmed.

The Lancastrian commander, Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, drew up his army on a plateau between the villages of Towton and Saxton, with the steep valley of the Cock Beck on his right flank. Henry VI stayed at York.

The battle

The two armies faced each other across a shallow dip on the morning of 29 March. Snow was falling, and the wind blew from the south into the faces of the Lancastrians.

Fauconberg is said to have ordered his archers to shoot one volley and then step back. Lancastrian archers, half-blinded by snow, replied, but their arrows fell short of the Yorkist lines. The Yorkists then gathered the spent arrows and shot them back. Under this bombardment, the Lancastrians abandoned their position and advanced to fight hand to hand.

A long and brutal mêlée followed. Accounts describe hours of fighting, with men pushing and hacking at each other across heaps of the fallen. A Lancastrian ambush from woodland on the Yorkist left may have threatened Edward’s line, which was pushed back. Edward himself fought on foot and is said to have encouraged his men in person.

The arrival of the Duke of Norfolk’s contingent, which had marched separately, on the Yorkist right later in the day is traditionally regarded as decisive, although its timing is debated. The Lancastrian line eventually broke.

The rout

The retreat became a slaughter. Fleeing Lancastrians were trapped against the Cock Beck, swollen by melting snow, and many drowned or were cut down. Later tradition holds that the bodies formed a bridge across the stream, and a field on the slope is still known as the Bloody Meadow. Others were killed on the road to Tadcaster and York.

Among the Lancastrian dead were Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Lord Dacre and the veteran captain Sir Andrew Trollope. Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, was captured and executed at York, and the Earl of Wiltshire was caught and beheaded weeks later. Somerset escaped.

Numbers and the death toll

The figure of 28,000 dead appears in letters written soon after the battle, including one from Edward IV’s circle reporting the count of the heralds. Many historians believe the true number was lower, since medieval chroniclers often inflated casualties. Even so, the losses were enormous for a single day and probably exceeded those of any other battle in England.

Archaeology

In 1996 building work at Towton Hall uncovered a mass grave. Archaeologists from the University of Bradford studied the remains of at least 37 men, published in the book Blood Red Roses in 2000. Many skulls bore multiple wounds from bladed and blunt weapons, some inflicted after the victims had fallen, which suggests the killing of fleeing or wounded men.

The skeletons also showed signs of earlier healed injuries and of strenuous activity, including arm bones consistent with archery practice. Later fieldwork on the battlefield recovered arrowheads, fragments of armour and some of the earliest known handgun fragments from a battle in England.

Key people

• Edward IV (1442–1483), the 18-year-old Yorkist king who led his army in person and fought on foot.
• Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (1428–1471), Edward’s most powerful ally, wounded at Ferrybridge the day before the battle.
• William Neville, Lord Fauconberg (c. 1405–1463), the veteran commander credited with the Yorkist archery tactics in the snow.
• Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (1436–1464), the young Lancastrian commander, who escaped the rout.
• Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland (1421–1461), one of the leading Lancastrian lords killed in the battle.

Consequences

Towton gave Edward IV control of England. Henry VI, Margaret and their son fled to Scotland, and Edward was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 28 June 1461. Lancastrian resistance continued in Northumberland until 1464, but the main Lancastrian army had been destroyed.

The victory did not end the wars. Edward’s quarrel with Warwick led to renewed fighting in 1469–1471, and the Yorkist dynasty eventually fell to Henry Tudor at Bosworth in 1485. Yet Towton established the House of York on the throne for most of the next 24 years.

The battle was remembered locally for centuries. Lord Dacre was buried in the churchyard at Saxton, where his tomb can still be seen, and a memorial chapel was begun on the battlefield in the 1480s with the support of Richard III, although it does not survive. A stone cross, known as Lord Dacre’s Cross, stands beside the road near the battlefield today, and the Towton Battlefield Society holds a commemoration each year around Palm Sunday.

Timeline

• 1460, 30 December: Richard, Duke of York, is killed at Wakefield.
• 1461, early February: Edward wins the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross.
• 1461, 17 February: Lancastrian victory at the Second Battle of St Albans.
• 1461, 4 March: Edward is proclaimed King Edward IV in London.
• 1461, 28 March: Fighting at Ferrybridge; Lord Clifford is killed.
• 1461, 29 March: Yorkist victory at Towton.
• 1461, 28 June: Edward IV is crowned at Westminster.
• 1996: A mass grave from the battle is discovered at Towton Hall.

Why it matters

Towton decided the first phase of the Wars of the Roses and made Edward IV king. Its scale and ferocity make it a byword for the violence of medieval warfare, and the Towton mass grave has given historians unusually direct evidence of what battle did to the men who fought it.