Battle of Wakefield
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| Battle of Wakefield | |||||||
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| Part of the Wars of the Roses | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 House of Lancaster |
 House of York |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Earl of Northumberland, Duke of Somerset, Lord Clifford et al. |
Duke of York† Earl of Salisbury† Edmund, Earl of Rutland† |
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| Strength | |||||||
| possibly up to 18,000 | "a few hundred" to 9,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| perhaps 200 | 700 - 2,500 | ||||||
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The Battle of Wakefield took place at Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, on 30 December 1460. It was one of the major battles of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing factions were a Lancastrian army, loyal to the captive King Henry VI, his Queen, Margaret of Anjou, and their infant son Edward, Prince of Wales on the one side, and the army of Richard, Duke of York, the rival claimant to the throne, on the other. York's army was destroyed and he himself was killed in the battle.
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[edit] Background
The House of Lancaster was established on the throne of England in 1399, when Henry Bolingbroke deposed his cousin, the unpopular King Richard II, and was crowned Henry IV.
Bolingbroke's grandson, Henry VI, became King in 1422 when only nine months old. He grew up to be an ineffective King, and prone to spells of mental illness. There were increasingly bitter divisions among the Regents and councillors who governed in Henry's name. Richard, the Duke of York, who was the most powerful magnate in the land,[1] became a prominent opponent of Henry's councillors, in particular of the Duke of Somerset, during the late 1440s. Although many peers were jealous of York's wealth, he was respected as an administrator and had the support of the merchants, who believed that the country was being misruled by Henry's court.
The House of Lancaster's claim to the crown descended from John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward III of England. Richard of York was descended through his mother from Edward III's second son, Lionel of Antwerp, and through his attainted father from Edward's fourth son, Edmund of Langley. These seemingly distant claims to the throne became important by 1450 as Henry was childless after several years of marriage, and had no close surviving relatives. Richard of York sought to become heir apparent, to succeed Henry if he died without issue. Richard's rival, Somerset, belonged to the Beaufort family, who were distant relatives of Henry and also had a claim to the throne, increasing the enmity between them.
In 1452, York marched on London to demand a reform of Henry's government, but after an armed standoff at Blackheath, he was forced to submit and take an oath not to take arms against the King. However, Henry suffered a mental breakdown in 1453, during which York governed as Lord Protector. He imprisoned Somerset, but Henry recovered his sanity the next year, dismissed York from the office of Protector and restored Somerset to liberty and to his offices. During Henry's madness, his Queen, Margaret of Anjou, had given birth to a son, which dashed York's hopes of becoming King on Henry's death. York feared that his opponents at Henry's court would seek his execution for treason, and resorted to armed force in 1455. At the First Battle of St Albans, many of York's rivals and personal enemies were killed, including Somerset, the 2nd Earl of Northumberland, and 8th Lord Clifford. King Henry, although present, took no part in the battle, and was found abandoned in a house in the town.
York reaffirmed his loyalty to King Henry, and was reappointed Lord Protector and Lieutenant of Ireland. Queen Margaret suspected York of wishing to supplant her infant son Edward as Henry's successor, and the heirs of the Lancastrian nobles who were killed at St Albans remained at deadly feud with York.
[edit] Events of the year preceding Wakefield
After an uneasy peace during which the Lancastrians tried to reduce York's authority, hostilities broke out again in 1459. After the Battle of Ludford, York and his most prominent allies, the Nevilles (York's brother in law, the Earl of Salisbury and his son, the Earl of Warwick, later known as the "Kingmaker") were forced to flee the country. York fled to Ireland where he had support from the Irish Parliament, while Salisbury, Warwick and York's eldest son Edward, Earl of March made their way via the West Country to Calais, where Warwick was Constable. Lancastrian attempts to reassert their authority over Ireland and Calais failed, but all the Yorkist leaders were declared traitors and attainted. Only a successful invasion would restore their titles and property.
The country remained in disorder, increased by piratical raids launched by the Nevilles from Calais. In 1460, the Nevilles invaded England and rapidly secured London and the South of England, before advancing north to engage Henry and Margaret's army in the Midlands. At the Battle of Northampton, part of the Lancastrian army defected and the rest were decisively defeated. For the second time, Henry was captured on the battlefield. He was taken to London, and confined in the Bishop of London's palace.[2]
York landed in North Wales and made his way to London with much pomp. Entering Parliament, he attempted to claim the throne, but was met with stunned silence. Even his close allies were not prepared to support such a drastic step. Instead, after the House of Lords had considered his claim, they passed the Act of Accord, by which Henry would remain King, but York would govern the country as Lord Protector. Henry's son was disinherited, and York or his heirs would become King on Henry's death.[3] The powerless and frightened Henry was forced to assent.
[edit] Lancastrian moves
In the aftermath of the Battle of Northampton, Queen Margaret and her seven-year-old son Edward had fled with many adventures with brigands and outlaws[4] into Cheshire and subsequently to Harlech Castle in North Wales, where she joined Lancastrian nobles (including Jasper Tudor and the Duke of Exeter) who were recruiting armies in Wales and the West Country. She subsequently proceeded by ship to Scotland, where she gained troops and other aid for the Lancastrian cause from the Queen, Mary of Guelders, in return for the surrender of the town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed.[5]
At the same time, other Lancastrians were rallying in the North of England. Those whose estates were there (the 3rd Earl of Northumberland, the 9th Lord Clifford, Baron Ros and John Neville of Raby, who represented a northern branch of the Neville family who had been eclipsed by the southern branch headed by the Earl of Salisbury), were joined by the 3rd Duke of Somerset (the son of Richard's dead rival) and the Earl of Devon from the West Country. Their forces first mustered near Kingston upon Hull, and were said (in Gregory's Chronicle, a near-contemporary account) to number 15,000. A substantial part of these forces encamped at Pontefract and began pillaging York's and Salisbury's estates nearby.
[edit] Yorkist moves
Faced with these challenges to his authority as Protector, York despatched his eldest son Edward to the Welsh Marches to contain the Lancastrians in Wales and, leaving Warwick in charge in London, he himself marched north on 9 December. His force was said by some to number 8,000 to 9,000 men, but by others to be only a few hundred strong, as York intended to recruit local forces with a Commission of Array. He was accompanied by his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and the Earl of Salisbury.
York had almost certainly underestimated the numbers of the Lancastrian army in the north, which was still being reinforced. On 16 December, York's vanguard clashed near Worksop in Nottinghamshire with a contingent from the West Country moving north to join the Lancastrian army, and was defeated.[6]
[edit] Battle
On 21 December, York reached his immediate destination, his own fortress of Sandal Castle near Wakefield. He sent probes towards the Lancastrian camp at Pontefract 9 miles (14 km) to the east, but these were repulsed. York sent for help to the Earl of March, but before any reinforcements could arrive, he sortied from the castle on 30 December.
It is not known for certain why York did so. It was later recounted in Edward Hall's chronicle, written a few decades after the event but partly at least from first-hand sources, and the contemporary Burgundian Jean de Waurin's chronicle, that in a stratagem possibly devised by the experienced captain Andrew Trollope, half the Lancastrian army under Somerset and Clifford advanced openly towards Sandal Castle, over the open space known as "Wakefield Green" between the castle and the River Calder, while the remainder under Ros and the Earl of Wiltshire were concealed in the woods surrounding the area.[7] York may have been short of provisions in the castle and eagerly seized the opportunity to engage the enemy, who apparently were no stronger than his own army, in the open rather than withstand a siege while waiting for reinforcements.[8]
Other sources suggest that York was deceived by some of Somerset's forces displaying false colours into thinking that reinforcements under Warwick had arrived, or that York and his opponents had agreed a day for battle after a Christmas truce and when York moved into the open the Lancastrians treacherously attacked earlier than had been agreed, catching York at a disadvantage while many of his men were absent foraging for supplies, or simply that York acted rashly.
The main gate of Sandal Castle was on the south side. To engage Lancastrians to the north, York's men had to march around the western circuit of the castle. It is generally accepted that, as York engaged the Lancastrians to his front, others attacked him from the flank and rear, cutting him off from the castle. The Yorkist army was surrounded and destroyed. One source (Gregory's Chronicle) claimed that 2,500 Yorkists and 200 Lancastrians were killed, but other sources give wildly differing figures, from 2,200 to only 700 Yorkist dead.
The Duke of York himself was killed in the fighting. Rutland attempted to escape over Wakefield Bridge, but was overtaken and killed, quite possibly by Clifford himself, in revenge for his own father's death at St Albans. Salisbury's second son, Sir Thomas Neville, and his son in law William, Lord Harrington, also died in the battle. Salisbury himself escaped but was captured during the night, and taken to the Lancastrian camp and beheaded.
[edit] Aftermath
After the battle the heads of York, Rutland and Salisbury were stuck on poles and displayed over Micklegate Bar, the western gate through the York city walls, the Duke wearing a paper crown and a sign saying "Let York overlook the town of York".
The death of York did not end the wars, or the House of York's claim to the throne. After defeating the Welsh Lancastrians at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross, Richard of York's eldest son Edward, Earl of March was proclaimed King Edward IV of England. The northern Lancastrian army marched south and recaptured the feeble Henry, who had been abandoned on the field (for the third time) after Warwick's army was defeated at the Second Battle of St Albans, but failed to occupy London and later were decisively defeated by Edward and Warwick at the Battle of Towton.
A monument erected on the spot where the Duke of York is supposed to have perished is positioned slightly south of the more likely spot where an older monument once stood, but which was destroyed during the English Civil War.
[edit] The battle in literature and folklore
Many people are familiar with William Shakespeare's melodramatic version of events in Henry VI, Part 3, notably the murder of Edmund of Rutland, although Edmund is depicted as a small child, and following his unnecessary slaughter by Clifford, Margaret torments his father, York, before murdering him also. In fact, York was killed during the battle, and Rutland, at seventeen, was more than old enough to be an active participant in the fighting. Margaret also was almost certainly still in Scotland at the time.
The battle is said by some to be the source for the mocking nursery rhyme, The Grand Old Duke of York although it much more likely refers to the eighteenth century duke, son of George III , and the mnemonic for remembering the traditional colours of the rainbow, Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Rowse, p.109
- ^ Rowse, p.141
- ^ Rowse, p.142
- ^ Rowse, p.143
- ^ Rowse, p.144
- ^ Warner, p.49
- ^ Dockray, Keith. "Richard III.net" (PDF). 9-10. http://www.richardiii.net/PDFS/Battle%20of%20Wakefield.pdf. Retrieved on 30/06/09.
- ^ Warner, p.50
[edit] References
- Rowse, A.L. (1966). Bosworth Field & the Wars of the Roses. Wordsworth Military Library. ISBN 1-85326-691-4.
- Warner, Philip (1972). British Battlefields: The North. Osprey. ISBN 0-00-633823-2.
- Haigh, Philip A. Military campaigns of the Wars of the Roses. Far Thrupp, Stroud, Gloucestershire: A. Sutton, 1995.
[edit] External links
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Coordinates: 53°40′48.5″N 1°29′32″W / 53.680139°N 1.49222°W
