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| The Battle of Towton Richard Caton Woodville |
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| The Field of Battle, Towton Source |
It was a battle, for the most part, with Englishman pitted against Englishman, and they didst slaughter each other in great numbers from what I've read.
Whereas Hogday offered up this link (Wikipedia), I found another, this one, which I found to be much better written (it's from The Daily Mail). (To be honest, I find many of the offerings in Wikipedia to be written by academics, which tends to make them pretty dry reading. The chap who wrote the article in The Daily Mail writes of battle, bloody battle. No dry reading in that article.)
I speak of course of the Battle of Towton which was fought between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians on the 29th of March in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Four Hundred Sixty One, as in 31 years prior to Columbus sailing the ocean blue. Yup, a long time ago.
Of course by now you're asking just who were the Yorkists and their foes the Lancastrians. These folks were noble families who were striving for the throne of England.
During the reign of the relatively weak Henry VI, civil war broke out between rival claimants to the throne, dating back to the sons of Edward III. The Lancastrian dynasty descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III, whose son Henry deposed the unpopular Richard II.
Yorkist claimants such as the Duke of York asserted their legitimate claim to the throne through Edward III's second surviving son, but through a female line. The Wars of the Roses therefore tested whether the succession should keep to the male line or could pass through females. (Source)
This conflict has come down to us by the name "The War of the Roses" as apparently the emblems of the two houses were a red rose (Lancaster) and a white rose (York). They didn't call it that back then, it was simply referred to as the Civil Wars (of which England has apparently suffered seven, over the course of six centuries (1135 to 1746). You can read a synopsis of those here.
Anyhoo, the account of the battle appealed to me because it was fought in very cold weather, driving snow at times, and the chap who considered himself King of England (the Duke of York, or King Edward IV, if you will) was actually on scene, fighting with sword and shield. Whereas the reigning King of England, Henry IV, was sitting in comfort some distance away from the field in the town of York, with his wife.
To say that many considered Henry a weak king is something of an understatement.
The Daily Mail article tells the story of the battle very well and also bemoans the fact that not all that many people in England (yes, England, not the UK, just England) aren't all that familiar with the battle. Which may have cost upwards of 20,000 lives, many (if not most) of whom were buried on the spot. A number of bodies have been unearthed in succeeding years, many of which show horrendous wounds. Medieval battles were brutal affairs.
Now you might be thinking that late March couldn't be that cold, I mean it's the first week of spring, right? Well, it was much colder back then due to Europe being in the grip of a mini Ice Age which lasted roughly from 1300 to 1850. Did you know that the Thames used to freeze over in winter? So yeah, it was brutally cold that day.
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| Another View of the Field That lone tree to the right is also in the first photo, on the horizon Source |
A slaughter in the snow, fleeing combatants being cut to red ruin and drowning in a creek as they fled. The Cock Beck doesn't look like much in the photo below, but there had been a lot of rain and snow before the battle and the creek was more of a fast flowing river spreading out over the fields when the defeated tried to cross it!
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| The Cock Beck¹ Source |
Part 1 -
Part 2 -
Two other references on the battle:
So there you have it, another battle which you've probably never heard of, but was of great importance, especially to England!
Thanks for the inspiration, Hogday!
¹ A beck is a common name for a brook in northern England.
It looks like war has always been here.
ReplyDeleteUntil the Second Coming it always will be, I fear.
DeleteExcellent post, sir. That Daily Mail piece is almost as well written as your historic fiction. Lovely read. But what really caught my attention in it was " fighting an uphill battle to get it past the teaching Unions who have reduced History to a sub-branch of Marxist sociology." Strangely familiar, eh?
ReplyDeleteThat piece is excellent on many different levels.
DeleteThat injury vid was eye opening, football is a pale imitation of what happened on that snowy field back then. Well presented post Sarge.
ReplyDeleteSOme of those injuries men sustained from previous battles would sideline anyone, yet they came back for more.
DeleteA friend asked me to talk to her CubScout Pack about knives, the safety, care and feeding, etc. I brought various things including bayonet, a war hammer, a flanged mace, a few other toys. Did my 20 minutes to the kids, then spent some time talking to the parents. One, when looking at a British WWI bayonet, said, "Wow, you could really hurt someone with these!" I DIDN'T say "No stuff, Sherlock!" I just quietly keep hi from skewering someone, and said, "Our ancestors were not nice people. No different than we are."
DeleteWar brings out, ahem, strong emotions.
DeleteIt's almost like the weapons used were designed to cause damage. Gee, whodathunk?
DeletePoleaxes, war hammers and crow's beaks were designed to penetrate plate or at least transmit force through armor into the body. Swords were great to whack 'common' soldiers and horses, or knock people off their mounts.
As brutal as the weapons were, the 'first aid' available at the time was even more brutal. Setting bones without anesthetic is horribly painful. Belly wounds that punctured the intestines were a wonderfully slow and agonizing way to die, and it was expected that your friends would put you out of misery if said perforation occurred.
Yay...
One of the best things coming out of the Napoleonic Wars was the concept of Triage. Set the easily survivable wounds to the side to get to after the 'need to treat now' people and hide the 'gonna die' away from everyone else.
I was hoping you'd chime in, you are our resident "medievalist." (And a learned one at that!)
Delete"Poleaxes, war hammers and crow's beaks were designed to penetrate plate or at least transmit force through armor into the body. "
DeleteBasic weapon classes in the pre-gunpowder era:
Bashy
Slashy
Pokey
Bashy-slashy
Bashy-pokey
Axes, even though they have an edge, are basically a bashy.
Axes are popular because they use less metal than swords, and concentrate the force/energy equations on a smaller point. In other words, Physics is literally a beyotch.
DeleteMost medieval arming swords are of the bashy-pokey against armored opponents. Later medieval period, 1200 on, the knights tended to have both arming swords for anti-armor purposes and then swords for use against the men-at-arms, where the bashy-slashy-pokey comes into play.
“Poleaxed” an expression still part of the vernacular over here in Blighty. (Hogday)
DeleteJoe - Indeed.
DeleteBeans - Physics, like the enemy, always gets a vote. A weighted vote, if I may.
DeleteHD - I've used that expression before, drew bewildered looks from those less well-read.
Delete(Bookmarks for later...)
ReplyDeleteHah! Finally a battle and period I actually know about! Yay useless historical facts coming to fruition after years of laying dormant!
There is so much great history "just lying around" that every time I find something else, I am like "I need to read up on that too!". Sadly, I have more need of money for living than time for reading, although it feels like a close run to me...
The history lying around thing, yes, that, exactly that!
DeleteYes, indeed!
DeleteJB
We're of like minds.
DeleteThat was a great article Sarge! I wish more history was presented like this.
DeleteIt was very well done.
DeleteFascinating insights into the mind of man. Not good. BUT! I am not a "just can't we get along" kind of guy.
ReplyDeleteThere are issues worth shedding blood over. I thought mine was, but I've changed my mind. ;-). D4
Wars and rumors of wars, such is our fate in this life.
DeleteRichard, brother of Edward, yes, that Richard, you know, soon to be Richard III, spent time before the battle trying to stop people from deserting the Yorkish side and trying to sway the less-committed Lancastrian-supporters. And he was reasonably successful. He also fought ferociously from horseback. Which is an amazing thing because of his sever scoliosis.
ReplyDeleteResearcher, after Richard's corpse was found, were wondering how Richard could fight with such a 'handicap.' So they found a young adult male with roughly the same scoliosis, had him train with Rose reenactors, and found that, on horseback, the armor was held up by the saddle and allowed the pseudo-Richard to actually fight rather well. On foot, on the other hand, the armor tended to restrict the ability to breathe. There was a NOVA production about the whole thing. Fascinating to watch.
I'm reading more on this period in English history, fascinating, though rather brutal, times.
DeleteI really think that a LOT of the past was (often enough) a rather brutal time.
DeleteWe've been lucky..
As Hobbes remarked, life could be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" in days of old.
DeleteBrutal but not brutal, it was what war was like at the time. And surprisingly more civil than when Henry Tudor landed with French troops and ended up killing Richard and many of Richard's supporters rather than taking capture for ransom or giving parole. Henry basically worked for years to eliminate any supporter of either the Lancastrians or Yorks.
DeleteFriggin Tudors. Hwack Ptoooiee! The end of that line didn't happen quick enough.
A good book on Richard is "Daughter of Time." It's a detective novel that touches Richard and all the lies about him, like the two princes. It's an easy read and makes you think about the subject, especially when several of the truths get dropped, hard, on the fantasy that most people 'know' about Richard III.
Small hint. Richard III, far from being the evil humpback in Shakespeare, was a kind, loving and forgiving man. Almost too kind and forgiving.
On the other hand, unhorsed, he nearly cut his ay through Henry Tudor's protectors while lacking in air (see above about Richard's scoliosis) and freaked Henry and his supporters out so bad they basically hacked him past death.
Richard was a serious bad-ass on the battlefield. A much better warrior than his brother. And it was one of those 'it's the quiet introspective guys that go ape-shit in battle' thingy. Without the scoliosis, he'd easily fit in with the SAS or US SEALS.
Beans - The order, on both sides, at Towton was "no quarter, asked or given." Brutality occurs when passions run high.
DeleteIf you're interested in following up on the battlefield casualties side of Towton, I can highly recommend:
ReplyDelete'Blood Red Roses: The Archeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton AD141, Fiorato, V; Boylson, A and Knusel, C (Eds). Oxbow Books, UK, 2000. ISBN 1 84217 025 2.
Not a popular account, but very detailed, covering the grave, the remains and the weapons and armour.
DJBH
The archeology of the grave that was found is fascinating. I note on the cover there is a reconstruction of the face of the body known as "16." There are a couple of very good documentaries covering that grave and what they found.
DeleteGruesome, to say the least!
There are similar treatises on the Battle of Visby in Gotland in 1361. So many casualties that bodies were buried in their armor and with their weapons. Which is a nearly unheard of thing back then as metal weapons and armor were expensive and often reused or resmelted and made into other things. The 'Coat of Plates,' a leather or cloth armor with plates riveted to it, kind of a poor man's brigandine, was reconstructed from archeological finds from Visby. An easy to make armor that looks good and works well against bludgeoning and hacking/slashing blows. The classic skull find is the skull still in it's maille cover with an axe-blow that cleaves from top of head to about the bottom of the nose. Serious ouchy.
DeleteBurying armor? I wonder why, some haste required, or so many dead it would be a bother. I'll have to read up more on that one, I've heard of it, so I've got that going for me.
DeleteNo mention at all of the influence of the War of Roses on the Game of Thrones? Lancasters became Lannisters, and Yorks Starks.
ReplyDeleteTrue Pawel, and the Lankies and Yorkies are still at it today😂
DeletePaweł - This is an account of an historical action and I also doubt that Martin thought things through that far. He might have, but I doubt it. I also don't really see the correlation.
DeleteHD - How so?
DeleteThanks for the honourable mention Sarge. For any history buffs wanting more on the more academic side (I agree re my first link - your Daily Wail article was indeed a belter) I commend this book if you can get it at a reasonable price: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Blood_Red_Roses.html?id=2WVnAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y
ReplyDeleteI used to work for the Royal Armouries in Leeds and it was around the same time that “Blood Red Roses” was published - by Pen and Sword. The foreword is by the late Robert Hardy, actor and history enthusiast ( and a black powder chap). At the time I joined the Royal Armouries (I’d been appointed head of the National Firearms Centre in 2006) another discovery of skeletons from the battle had just been discovered under the floor of a house in the town. My old school friend and Armouries Director of Academic studies,Graeme Rimer (a well known name in the sphere of Arms and Armour as well as being a top historian) had negotiated with the owners for permission to excavate their sitting room floor, remove the skeletons and cover the costs of restoration. He took me on a tour of the battlefield, remarkable as the terrain is almost unchanged, it being excellent agricultural land that has remained so since those dark days of yore. Well worth a visit for anyone with an interest in the subject. Other discoveries included spherical stones that experts are still scientifically mulling over, the growing opinion being that they were likely to have been projected by gunpowder, which based on the date of the battle could result in a reappraisal of the introduction of the firearm in our history.
Kindest regards,
Hogday
I note that Robert Hardy was mentioned in the Daily Mail article on Towton. The terrain is remarkably unchanged. I guess even real estate developers understand that food has to be grown somewhere.
DeleteCooeeee! Note to self; ‘ log tf in first’
ReplyDeleteHeh. Been there, done that.
Delete