The forgotten female blacksmith at the Tower of London: Katherine le Fevre

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In 1346, as English armies in France enjoyed a brief glimmer of glory in a conflict that would eventually drag on for almost a century – ultimately ending in ignominy and economic collapse – a woman called Katherine le Fevre was working inside the Tower of London.

You might be surprised to learn what she was doing…

Because Katherine did not enter the fortress seeking refuge from the wars. Nor was she one of the many London silkworkers or embroiderers connected to the royal court. Instead, for the respectable sum of eight pence a day, Katherine was tending the Tower forge.

Holkham Bible Picture Book (British Library): https://www.bl.uk/learning/images/medieval/year/large2163.html

There, Katherine oversaw the production of all sorts of ironwork, including door hinges, window casements and bars, iron screens and tools. The Tower, famously, was not only a royal fortress but also a prison.

King Jean le Bon, Tower prisoner

Everyone from foreign princes to lowly coin-clippers could be found locked within its walls. Over a decade later, having been captured in the wars, the French King Jean le Bon moved into the White Tower at the heart of the Tower complex with a royal entourage including his court fool, astrologer, 26 archers and an organist.

The gateways and bolts that held these captives were forged at Katherine’s command. Less famously, the Tower was also a royal mint and menagerie, and it is feasible that Katherine also oversaw the production of the iron cages that contained the Tower lions and the barred windows behind which the mint workers tapped out silver coinage. Even minor repairs to military equipment and the great cases in which it was transported overseas may have fallen within Katherine’s purview.

So how did this woman working in a male-dominated industry disappear from our historical memory? And how did she reappear again?

The discovery of Katherine le Fevre – woman blacksmith – was a complete fluke. I’m not sure I’m supposed to admit that, as a historian with a lifelong interest in women’s history, but I should probably be honest.

I stumbled across a fleeting reference to her whilst researching my next book, a biography of Margaret Beaufort. (Another extraordinary woman who overcame the odds to succeed in a man’s world, born a century after Katherine was working at the Tower.)

Whilst reading a multi-volume tome about the royal palaces during my research, I found a brief section discussing the Tower of London’s forge. This mentioned that during the Hundred Years War, the blacksmith’s widow tended the king’s forge while their son was abroad serving the King. That’s right. A woman was working as a blacksmith – during a war – at one of the most significant fortresses in the realm.

Even though it was completely irrelevant to my ‘real’ research, I couldn’t stop myself investigating further. I followed a footnote to the Calendar of Patent Rolls, which confirmed the story and named the widow:

‘Katharine late the wife of Master Walter le Fevre.’

On 28 June 1346, the king granted that since her husband was dead and her son about to depart ‘beyond the seas’, Katherine herself ‘shall keep up the king’s forge within the Tower and carry on the work of the forge, receiving the wages pertaining to the office.’

This last promise, that Katherine should receive the same wages as her husband and son, proved false. The patent roll promises her eight pence – her male counterparts were paid a shilling (twelve pence), meaning Katherine earned a third less than the men. Even in the Middle Ages, the wage gap was real.

Was Katherine an anomaly? Her appointment coincides with a period of history in which artisanal trades and industry grew more heavily regulated. The ‘indenture’ of apprentices (i.e. the terms under which a master took them on) and the enrolment of new traders and artisans was increasingly well-documented and preserved, especially in cities. A network of guilds mushroomed into existence to support these industries, and religious organisations too – an early form of social welfare support, which again left its inkblot mark on history.

Part of this written regulation, however, erased evidence for women’s involvement in family business. We know that women and girls took on ad hoc work for their families, but as written records prioritised the activities of the (usually male) head of the household, it can be challenging to trace exactly what that involvement entailed. Pioneering work in this field by generations of (particularly women) historians has revealed how many medieval widows ‘inherited’ their husband’s trade in a more or less explicit manner – at its subtlest level, they might carry their husband’s business contacts and even materials into a second marriage, giving their new spouse a leg-up in the trade. More explicitly, they might inherit a husband’s apprentices and oversee the remainder of their training.

In So Great a Prince: England and the Accession of Henry VIII I wrote about Thomasine Bonaventure, a much-married Cornish woman who rose from domestic service to extreme wealth and standing in London’s mercantile circles by marrying shrewdly and ensuring the continuation of each husband’s trade passed in some way to her next spouse. By the time of her death in 1512 she was maintaining three apprentices, several  servants and even half a dozen poor children who she hoped would go on to be apprenticed in trade. She was probably not unusual, but again the legal systems of her time mean many of her contemporaries did not leave the same historical trail. Single and married women were legally ‘covered’ (we might even say owned) by their fathers / brothers / husbands / sons. There was little point in them writing their wills since virtually everything in their possession was legally a man’s. Thus, the surviving wills we have for women in this period prioritise widows’ experience.

(Incidentally, Fifteenth Century badass Margaret Beaufort joined a rising tide of late medieval women who took on the status of ‘femme sole’ or ‘vowess’, establishing their own independent legal identity from their male relatives with a special ceremony and standing enshrined in law. In Margaret’s case, she did so whilst her husband was still alive. This was unique, and only possible because of her unassailable political position as mother of the king at the time. So ironically – but not unusually – she had legal freedom from one man only because of her influence with another.)

The Luttrell Psalter, British Library

Reliance on the same male-dominated documentary sources has given way in the past century to deeper research within the archives to uncover wider stories and contexts to our History. This has not only entailed discovering new evidence, but also approaching the myriad sources of History in new ways, overturning many accepted historical narratives in the process. To take another example from the Tower’s past: the story of the peasants’ revolt. This was the only time in the Tower’s history that it was overrun by an enemy force. Often, this force has somewhat unthinkingly been labelled as male – the rebel workers (who weren’t really peasants, but that’s another story) are defined as ‘he’. But court documents show that there was in fact a sizable female element to the force, including one woman cited in legal records as acting as ‘chief perpetrator and leader of a great society of rebellious evildoers from Kent.’ The historian Sylvia Federico wrote a fantastic article about these women, which completely transforms the traditional notion of the rebels as a pack of pitchfork-wielding men led by other men.

So perhaps we should not be surprised to find a woman acting as blacksmith at the Tower of London in the Middle Ages. There are probably many other examples of extraordinary – and yet, really, very ordinary – women who overturn our idea of historical women. Nestled cosily in archives, rolled up in parchment scrolls, just awaiting the moment a researcher rediscovers across them and writes their story anew into the history books.

TO READ MORE ABOUT MEDIEVAL WOMEN BLACKSMITHS CHECK OUT MY ARTICLE FOR HISTORY TODAY!

TRAILBLAZERS: Women at the Tower of London

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What links:

A medieval blacksmith, Tudor pirate, moorish bedchamber attendant, suffragette and an African-American Georgian poet?

All spent time at the Tower of London.

And all were women.

You can also meet all of them if you visit the Tower this Summer Holiday (22 July-3 September 2023), because they appear in a trailblazing, interactive live event running daily. I researched, wrote and directed the event for HistoryRiot, in collaboration with Historic Royal Palaces, fulfilling a long-held ambition to tell these oft-neglected stories of historical women at one of our most important national heritage sites.

One of these women is an absolute trailblazer, in that as far as I’m aware she has never been interpreted at the Tower – or, indeed, anywhere else – ever before. You can read more about how I discovered her story here.

Intrigued? To learn more about these fascinating, but unduly forgotten, women read on!

Who are the Trailblazers?

Phyllis Wheatley: The first published African-American author of a poetry book.

Phyllis travelled the furthest to reach the Tower, and yet in many ways hers is the most representative experience of being a Tower visitor, because she came to the fortress as a tourist – just as generations of other domestic and international visitors have done, and continue to do today.

Born in West Africa c. 1753, as a child ‘Phyllis’ was kidnapped, enslaved and transported to America. There, she was renamed for the ship which carried her to Boston by the Wheatley family who purchased and educated her.

An intellectual prodigy, by adolescence Phyllis understood Greek and Latin and was already a published writer. According to her entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, she was only fourteen years old when she ‘became the first published woman of sub-Saharan African descent,’ as a Rhode Island newspaper printed one of her poems.

She used her literary outpourings to chronicle her own life story and to champion the cause of freedom, emphasizing that personal experience of enslavement made her a better witness to its inherent immorality. In one truly moving poem, she wrote:

‘I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must molest,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?’

In 1773, Phyllis travelled to England to promote and publish her book of poetry, which had a very Eighteenth-Century title: Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. During her six-week stay in London she visited the Tower as a tourist and wrote a letter describing her experience.

As a condition of her return to America, Phyllis was manumitted by the Wheatley family and in 1778 she married a free black grocer called John Peters in Boston. But despite her formidable talents, Phyllis fell into poverty and died in 1784.

Katherine le Fevre: Woman blacksmith during the Hundred Years War

In 1346-7 (and possibly beyond), Katherine le Fevre served as Tower blacksmith – filling the role on the death of the previous smith, her husband Walter, whilst their son Andrew was serving with the English army in France. She was paid a third less than her male counterparts. She made (or oversaw the production of) ironwork, door hinges, window casements and bars, iron screens and tools, and possibly also military equipment.

Read more about Katherine here.

Catalina of Motril: Moorish bedchamber attendant who knew the secrets of the Tudor royal bed.

A Granadan bedchamber attendant (and probably close contemporary in age) of Katherine of Aragon, much of Catalina’s life is enigmatic – even her name. She was born in Muslim Granada and probably enslaved by Katherine’s family during the Christian Reconquista of 1492. Likely pressed into Christianity, Catalina may have been given a new name to match her new identity: ‘Catalina’ was one of the most common names for enslaved women in Spain, and could also have been chosen as it was Katherine of Aragon’s birth name.

Catalina was one of two enslaved young women serving in Katherine’s entourage when she travelled to England in 1501 to marry the Tudor heir, Arthur Prince of Wales. When Arthur died only months later, Katherine and Catalina were stuck in limbo in England until Katherine finally married Arthur’s younger brother (and new heir apparent) King Henry VIII in 1509. Contemporary sources recorded that as a bedchamber attendant, Catalina was unusually well-informed about what had happened during both Katherine’s wedding nights – a personal matter that gained profound political importance when Henry sought to divorce Katherine on the grounds she had consummated her earlier union with Arthur.

Meanwhile, Catalina had been free from the moment she arrived in England in 1501 and she chose to leave her mistress and return to Spain, marrying a crossbow-maker named Oveido and having daughters in her native Motril by 1527. When the question of Katherine’s marital relations became internationally significant, Spanish authorities sought out Catalina to reveal what she knew. No record has yet been unearthed to suggest Catalina spilled the secrets of the royal bedchamber.

Read more about Catalina here or here.

Leonora Cohen: ‘Tower suffragette’ who attacked the Crown Jewels

Leonora and her brothers were raised by their widowed mother in Yorkshire. The experience of watching her mother struggling to single-handedly support their family as a low-paid seamstress had a profound effect on Leonora. She championed the rights of workers and women for the whole of her 105 years.

Leonora is best remembered for her actions as suffragette during the increasingly militant campaigns of 1913, when the Women’s Social and Political Union grew frustrated with endless prevarication and broken promises from the government. In February 1913, Leonora smashed the case holding the crown jewels at the Tower of London with an iron bar containing her political statement in support of ‘votes for women’. She defended herself in court and escaped criminal charges, but was marked as an agitator and later imprisoned (and mistreated) for other alleged activities.

Less famously, Leonora was also a committed environmentalist and vegetarian, and with her family she set up a veggie café and boarding house near Skegness. She was one of – if not the very – first women to serve as president of the Leeds Trade and Labour Council, Yorkshire Federation of Trades Councils, city councillor, local justice of the peace, member of Leeds licensing bench… In short, Leonora he was an advocate and trailblazer for equal rights in many forms and did not retire until she was 93.

Listen to Leonora herself discussing her actions in 1913.

Alice Wolf: Tudor ‘pirate’ escapee

In summer 1533 Alice and her husband/ accomplice John Wolf murdered and robbed two foreign merchants on the River Thames. As the crime was committed on water, it was legally considered piracy and Alice was condemned to execution, being shackled to the walls of Coldharbour Cell in the Tower while she awaited her end.

But Alice was sufficiently charming that with the (sometimes unwitting) help of accomplices among the Tower’s residents, she managed to escape over the rooftops disguised as a man in March 1534. Unfortunately, she was captured just outside the walls and died a pirate’s death at the ‘Turning Tree’ on the Thames.

Read more about Alice and other women prisoners of King Henry VIII.

MORE IMAGES FROM ‘TRAILBLAZERS: WOMEN AT THE TOWER OF LONDON’ (HistoryRiot/ Historic Royal Palaces) here

Meet the Trailblazers, Tower of London, daily 10.30am-4pm: 22 July-3 September 2023

Jack Cade’s Revolt, 3/3: An Extract from ‘Shadow King’

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In the last of these extracts from SHADOW KING: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF HENRY VI, Cade’s Rebellion nears its bloody conclusion.

On Monday 6 July 1450, Cade’s Revolt finally faced some concerted resistance. Not from King Henry VI (who had fled the city) or Queen Margaret of Anjou (who was trying to negotiate a peace), but from the citizens of London themselves…

London Bridge (Agas Map)

By Sunday 5 July, the Londoners had had enough. Their city had been pillaged, their aldermen robbed, and twenty men condemned as traitors or extortioners at the sham trial in Guildhall. A host of leading citizens joined forces with Lord Scales, whom Henry had appointed to defend the Tower, and the veteran captain Matthew Gough, who happened to be in the city at the time. At nightfall, Gough and Scales led the citizens of London against the rebels in a ferocious battle across London Bridge. Driving back a number of Cade’s men posted on the bridge, the gate was bolted against the rebels and a great chain drawn across. Cade called his men to arms and, to swell their numbers, threw open the south-bank prisons of Marshalsea and King’s Bench to free those within. The battle that ensued was bloody and long, lasting throughout the night until morning. In the course of it, Cade set fire to the drawbridge, sending many of the soldiers plunging into the river ‘harness, body and all’.[i]

Monday 6 July dawned to a scene of devastation. The bridge smouldered, smeared with blood. Bodies studded with arrows and lacerated with sword wounds were scattered across the street and bridgeworks, or bobbed in the river below. The Londoners won the battle, but in the course of it forty citizens were killed, as well as their commander, Matthew Gough. It was a cruel irony that the captain who had so persistently resisted the French by both military and diplomatic means should have met his end at the hands of his own countrymen. The London-based cleric who wrote John Benet’s Chronicle placed the rebel dead at two hundred.[1]

Capitalising on Cade’s defeat, Margaret and Archbishops Stafford and Kempe hurried to announce a general pardon, restoring peace to the beleaguered city. The rebels steadily dispersed.[ii] Although Cade was included in the pardon, under his assumed name of ‘John Mortimer’, he did not trust to it and fled for the safety of various Kentish castles, his booty loaded onto a boat bound for Rochester. When he was refused admittance to Queenborough Castle on the Isle of Sheppey he took to the woods, perhaps making for his native Sussex. On 10 July ‘John Cade’ was proclaimed a traitor and a thousand mark bounty promised to whoever could ‘bring him to the king quick or dead.’[iii] It took only two days for Cade to be run to ground. Alexander Iden, appointed sheriff of Kent in place of the murdered William Crowmer, cornered Cade in a garden in Sussex on 12 July. As he attempted to fight his way out, Cade was mortally wounded. He died on the road back to London.[iv]

To demonstrate that ‘this captain of mischief’ was dead, Cade’s naked body was transported to Southwark in an open car ‘that men might see him’ and left on display overnight at the court of King’s Bench. The wife of the innkeeper of the White Hart in Southwark, where Cade had based himself during the rebellion, was summoned to confirm that the body was indeed Cade’s.  The next day, he was beheaded and quartered and then drawn through the city of London on a hurdle, ‘in pieces with the head between his breast’.[v] Saye and Crowmer’s heads now made way for their killer’s on London Bridge. Cade’s dismembered body was dispersed throughout Kent.[vi]

*

Henry VI and Queen Margaret of Anjou

The City of London had been regained, but it was no thanks to Henry. Throughout the rebel occupation of the capital, and for some days after Cade’s dismembered corpse had processed through the streets, Henry remained firmly ensconced within the red sandstone walls of Kenilworth Castle. There was a certain pragmatism to his decision since in the absence of an heir the entire Lancastrian dynasty rested on Henry’s shoulders. Risking his life by staying in the vicinity of London as it collapsed into chaos and bloodshed would have been potentially dangerous not only to him but to national interests. Yet would Cade have been so bold as to cut the ropes of London Bridge and force an entry into the capital if the king had been within the city walls? Henry’s continued presence would have acted as a deterrent, and if he had been close at hand he could have played the prominent role that Margaret and the archbishops did, reacting decisively to end the violence at the most opportune moment. From a distance of a hundred miles, it was impossible for Henry to interact with a rapidly evolving situation in this way. His escape to Kenilworth resembles a frightened flight more than a tactical retreat. By contrast, Queen Margaret had stood firm. Her life was, practically speaking, less valuable to the nation than Henry’s, but she still took a risk by remaining in the area of danger. Seventy years earlier, during the Peasants Revolt, when the rebels had broken into the Tower of London, the dowager queen had been caught in her bed by the ringleaders and sexually harassed.[2] This may be the first moment when the different personalities of Henry and Margaret emerged in public life. Margaret was still playing the expected queenly role of mediator and peacemaker in 1450, but she was, for the first time, demonstrating that she was made of sterner stuff than her husband.

London continued to be unsettled. On 21 July a group of soldiers who had been ‘driven out of Normandy’ broke into the Church of Greyfriars where Lord Saye and Sele’s corpse had been laid to rest, and tore his coat of arms from the pillars. In a final assertion of his treason the lord’s arms were reversed. Such scenes were repeated throughout the southeast over the course of the summer. Three days after the attack at Greyfriars Henry had advanced as far as St Albans, where he met his council to determine if it was safe to proceed into the capital. Despite the ongoing unrest, it was decided that it was more important for Henry to be present to prevent further violence than that he should stay distant for fear of danger. On 28 July he entered London and held a service of thanksgiving for the suppression of the rebellion at St Paul’s Cathedral. He then went to stay in Westminster.[vii]

In the wake of such a rebellion, it might be expected that the streets of the capital would be hung with the corpses of executed insurgents and the city gates topped with their dismembered quarters. But even though the city was far from peaceful – when he attempted to leave London in August to celebrate the feast of the Assumption at Eton College Henry was prevented by angry veterans from Normandy – Henry was resolved to reconcile and placate rather than punish the rebels. Perhaps he believed that overly firm justice would only inspire further vengeful violence, or maybe Henry’s natural instinct for mercy was uppermost in his mind. The rebels had called for justice, and now he gave it to them. From August until the end of October 1450 Henry sent out a commission to tour Kent and listen to locals’ complaints about extortion and malpractice. Heading up these commissions were men of unquestioned loyalty to the crown, but who were not associated with Suffolk’s inner circle. They were led by the prelates who had mediated the rebels’ pardon, Archbishop John Stafford and Cardinal Kempe, and assisted by the duke of Buckingham, who was coming increasingly to represent a middle way in the faction-ridden politics of Henry’s court. Even the fact that Buckingham’s kinsmen had been ambushed and murdered by the rebels did not incline him, it seems, to harsh reprisals.[viii]

Henry’s decision to be merciful should not make us underestimate the psychological impact of what had been, by any standards, a horrifying series of events. He had lost, in Suffolk, a faithful servant of his regime who had been in some ways a father figure and was unquestionably a constant, trusted presence in Henry’s household from his childhood. Henry could comfort himself with the fact that he had done everything possible to save Suffolk, but Lord Saye and Sele’s blood was on his hands, for he had been the one who committed the treasurer into the Tower then abandoned him to the rebels’ vengeance. Adam Moleyns’ murder in the course of his duty deprived Henry of another faithful adviser who had been a vital ambassador for his peace policy. Perhaps most disturbing of all for someone of Henry’s profound piety, Bishop William Aiscough had been murdered by his own parishioners, the words of the holy mass newly spoken on his lips. Even as he processed these losses, Henry received word of yet another personal tragedy. His childhood friend, Gilles of Brittany, who had been miserably imprisoned as punishment for his loyalty to Henry, had been found dead in his prison cell. His murder was a long time coming – his captors had been trying unsuccessfully to starve or poison him for months, before finally smothering him to death in his cell with such violence that he bled from every orifice.[ix]

Over and above these personal losses, Henry had witnessed a wave of resentment and frustration against his rule such as he had never before encountered. Little wonder that he fled in the face of it. Since before he could walk or talk Henry VI had been cossetted from the harsh realities of kingship. He had faced resistance, certainly, and complaints, from his English subjects but never outright rebellion. His earnest faith in peace and the goodwill of his fellow man had been sorely tested in the last year.

Just as he regained a little control over the south-east, he received alarming reports from the furthest reaches of his kingdom. Without permission, and with questionable intent, Henry’s closest blood relative had left his post and was sailing for England. Whether he came to restore order or to cause further dissension – perhaps even to press his own right to the crown – was unclear. Whatever his reason, Richard Duke of York was coming to England…

Everything worked out fine between Henry VI of Lancaster and Richard Duke of York right…? Right, guys…?

TO LEARN WHAT HAPPENED NEXT IN THE WARS OF THE ROSES,

 GET A COPY OF SHADOW KING

OR DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK HERE

[1] John Benet of Harlington in Bedfordshire copied the anonymous cleric’s chronicle into his commonplace book, so it is known by his name.

[2] According to the chronicler Thomas Walsingham the peasants ‘dared with their worthless staves to force a way into the bedroom of the king [Richard II] [and] of his mother. . . even asking the king’s mother for a kiss.’ Preest, David, trans. and Clark, James G., ed. The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham 1376-1422 (Woodbridge: 2005) 125.

[i] Benet 200; ‘MS Rawlinson B. 355’, ‘MS Gough London 10,’ Flenley, 106, 133-4, 156; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 161; Davies, English Chronicle 67; ‘Short English Chronicle,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 68; Brut 519.

[ii] CPR, 1446-52 338.

[iii] ‘Short English Chronicle,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 68.

[iv] A Sussex garden is mentioned by ‘Short English Chronicle,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 68; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 162; Brut 519. ‘MS Gough London 10,’ Flenley 156, says Iden took Cade ‘beside Maidstone’; Greyfriars 19 says he was slain ‘in Kent’; Gregory 196 gives the Weald in Sussex. Nichols, John Gough (ed.), Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, Camden Society 53 (London: 1852) 19; Benet 201; Gregory 196; Rymer XI: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rymer-foedera/vol11/pp273-279 [accessed 24 January 2017].

[v] Gregory 196.

[vi] ‘MS Gough London 10,’ Flenley, 156-7; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 162; Davies English Chronicle 68.

[vii] ‘Bale’s Chronicle’, Flenley 134; Benet 202.

[viii] Griffiths, 641-2.

[ix]  Bouchard, A., Les Grandes Croniques de Bretaigne, noubellement imprisomees a Paris, tant de la Grande Bretaigne de puis le roy Brutus qui la conduist et Les grandes Annalles ou Cronicques parlans tant de la grant bretaigne a present nōmee Angleterre que de nostre petite Bretaigne de present erigee en duche. Commencantz au Roy Brutus … dan en an depuis ledict Brutus … Iusques aux ans de present, etc.  (Paris: 1514), ccxcvi-ccxcvii.

Jack Cade’s Revolt, Part 2 of 3: An Extract from ‘Shadow King. The Life and Death of Henry VI’

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On this day in 1450, Henry VI lost yet another of his leading advisers, the third royal councillor to be assassinated in the revolt sweeping London – and the country at large. This bloody act of vengence by the rebels would not be the last…

This is an extract from my biography of Henry VI, SHADOW KING.

(5 minute read)

29 JUNE 1450

As Henry fled north, one of the despised traitors of his inner circle was riding west. On 29 June, William Aiscough, bishop of Salisbury, was making for the safety of Sherborne Castle in Dorset when he paused in his parish of Edington in Wiltshire to celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. No doubt he was feeling anxious. His name had featured in the sinister rhyme reciting the office of the dead for Suffolk as it echoed through Kent and Sussex, and in the manifestos issued by Cade. The day before the feast his baggage train had been robbed by locals, who seized 10,000 marks’ worth of goods. Perhaps when his parishoners broke into his church at Edington, interrupting him at mass, Aiscough thought they were just after more of his possessions. In fact, they had bloodier vengeance in mind. Dragging him from the altar still wearing his vestments, Aiscough’s parishoners led him up a hill a mile above the town and ‘slew him horribly’. They tore the clothes from his body ‘unto the naked skin, and rent his bloody shirt into pieces’. The rest of the bishop’s moveable goods were ransacked – everything from books and chalices to oxen, sheep and swine were pillaged. Even the lead on his roofs was filed down and divided up among the locals. It was said that Aiscough’s goods were scattered among every man and woman in Sherborne over the age of twelve so that Henry would have to either forgive or kill them all for the crime. If this was their plan, it seems to have worked. In the event, they were all pardoned.[i]

With parishioners killing their bishop, retainers attacking their masters and constables defying their king, it is little wonder Henry was mistrustful and feared for his safety. When he reached Berkhamsted Castle on 1 July he learnt from one of his yeomen, John Hillesdon, that the rebels in Kent had now been joined by forces from Essex. They were marching for Mile End and the north-eastern gates of London even as Jack Cade’s company returned to Blackheath. By the time Henry arrived at Kenilworth a day or two later, Cade had led his Kentish forces into the inns of Southwark. This area on the south bank of the Thames, only separated from the city of London by the gates and drawbridge of London Bridge, was renowned for its loose living: its prostitutes and bath houses, taverns and inns. Cade established it as the base from which to launch an assault on London.

On 3 July Cade forced his way onto London Bridge and cut the ropes of the drawbridge so that it could no longer be raised against him. Threatening to fire the entire structure unless he was allowed entry, he demanded and was given the keys of the city. He rode through London in triumph, wearing the blue velvet cloak and gleaming armour that had been stripped from the body of the murdered Humphrey Stafford. In his brigandines, gilt spurs and sallet, a naked sword borne before him, he looked like a conquering knight. ‘And yet,’ as the anonymous author of the English Chronicle put it, ‘was he but a knave’.[ii] Although Cade insisted there must be no pillaging, he soon lost control of the rebels, who surged over London Bridge to despoil the houses of resented aldermen. The house of Philip Malpas in Lime Street was stripped of everything from its feather beds and jewels to the supplies of dyestuff and woollen cloth he kept there for his trade.

On 4 July, Cade took over the Guildhall and had Lord Saye and Sele removed from the Tower and dragged before its judges to face justice for his alleged crimes. Lord Saye and Sele reminded the judges that according to the law he should be tried by a jury of his peers, but his appeal was mocked and ignored by the commons gathered there, some of whom argued for killing him where he stood. A form of trial took place, although its outcome was never really in doubt. Having been condemned as a traitor, Lord Saye and Sele was dragged to the Standard in Cheapside. There, to the delight of the jeering crowd, he was beheaded. Cade had Lord Saye and Sele’s body hitched by the feet to the tail of his horse and dragged naked through the streets ‘so that the flesh cleaved to the stones’ from Cheap, over London Bridge, all the way to St Thomas’s hospital in Southwark. In the afternoon, for good measure, Cade had Saye’s son-in-law, the unpopular sheriff of Kent William Crowmer, brought out of imprisonment in the Fleet and delivered up to the judgment of the Essex men at Mile End. Crowmer was also beheaded as a traitor, and then his and Saye’s heads were placed on long poles and paraded through the streets, kissing each other. When this grisly pageant was finally over, their heads were skewered on London Bridge alongside others unfortunate enough to have provokved the ire of the rebels.[iii]

WILL HENRY AND MARGARET REGAIN LONDON?

THE LAST INSTALMENT FOLLOWS ON MONDAY 6 JULY…

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OR DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK HERE

[i] Benet 199; Davies, English Chronicle 64.

[ii] Davies, English Chronicle 66.

[iii] Brut 519; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 160; ‘MS Rawlinson B. 355’, ‘MS Gough London 10,’ Flenley, 105-6, 155-6; ‘Short English Chronicle,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 67; Benet 200.

Jack Cade’s Revolt 1/3: An Extract from ‘Shadow King. The Life and Death of Henry VI’

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On this day in 1450, Henry VI faced the greatest rebellion of his reign so far. In response to military collapses in the Hundred Years War and the failure of his marriage to Margaret of Anjou to produce a much-needed heir, his English subjects rose up in opposition to him, led by the charismatic Jack Cade.

This is an extract from my biography of Henry, SHADOW KING.

It’s probably a 10 minute read, so get yourself a nice cuppa first and settle in…

‘The harvest of heads’ [i]

London: 18 June 1450.

The citizens of London woke to a remarkable sight. Through the city streets came a royal force that numbered into the thousands. At its head rode the earl of Northumberland, and Lords Rivers, Scales and Grey, all arrayed for battle. Behind them marched their armed retinues, wearing their lords’ heraldry over their armour to distinguish their allegiances, and at the rear rumbled a fearsome artillery train, its carts loaded with more than two hundred cannon balls and lead darts.[ii]

London had grown accustomed to such military processions. Six years ago the duke of Suffolk had trooped in just such a fashion with a military accompaniment on route to collect Margaret of Anjou for King Henry. What made this procession exceptional was that in the midst of this warrior band rode Henry, ‘armed at all places’, in gleaming plate armour.  Henry processed through Cheapside and over London Bridge, making for the wide plains of Blackheath. The royal army looked ready to face an invading French army. Instead it went to confront a force of Kentish labourers. For the first time in Henry’s reign, he rode to war. And it was against his own countrymen.

*

  • Henry VI, king since he was 9 months old…

Henry had still been wrangling with parliament in Leicester when he received news of the ‘great multitude of people’ marching out of Kent in the direction of London. They were reported to number into the tens of thousands, arrayed like soldiers, bearing spears and bows, but armed too with bills of complaint against Henry’s government. The realm of England, they said, was ‘ruled by untrue counsel’, causing the king’s ‘poor commons’ ‘injuries and oppressions’, excessive taxation and injustice. Their captain, ‘a subtle man’ from Sussex who had complete authority over this vast army, went by a number of names. He called himself ‘John Amende-alle’. Others knew him as Jack Cade. Most alarmingly to Henry and his councillors, he was reported to be an Irishman called John Mortimer. This name carried memories of previous Mortimer rebellions – traitor lords who had come out of Ireland or the Welsh marches with popular support and threatened the Lancastrian regime. Was this rebel horde part of a wider noble conspiracy? Was it connected to the duke of York, heir to the Mortimer inheritance and even now serving as Henry’s lieutenant in Ireland?[iii]

Henry and his advisers took no chances. On 6 June 1450 a commission of senior noblemen was appointed to go ‘against the traitors and rebels in Kent and to punish and arrest the same’. Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, and the earls of Devon, Arundel and Oxford rode south as parliament dissolved and Henry prepared to return to London. Pausing on route at Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire on 10 June, Henry dispatched another commission against the rebels. This time experienced veterans of the French wars were included: Viscount Beaumont, the constable of England; Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers; and Lords Dudley, Scales and Lovell.[iv] The next day the rebels reached the wide plains of Blackheath.[v] Five years earlier, almost exactly, this great heathland with its majestic views over the capital had been the venue for Queen Margaret’s state reception by the citizenry of London. Now it was dyked, ditched and bristled with stakes under Jack Cade’s watchful eye. Queen Margaret was only a mile away, in the palace of Greenwich, where she had moved after a freak fire at Eltham burnt down most of the service wing.[vi]

When he reached London, Henry paused to hold council with his advisers at St John’s Priory in Clerkenwell, just northwest of the city. The king was eager to meet the rebels himself, in the hopes of resolving the situation without further bloodshed, but his more militarily experienced councillors advised against him going in person until they had reconnoitered the rebel forces to get an accurate sense of their numbers. Instead, on 16 June an embassy of lords went to meet Cade in Blackheath. The delegation included a number of figures who would have been well-known to the Kentish rebels. John Stafford, archbishop of Canterbury was the largest landowner in Kent. He was accompanied by the Kent-born Cardinal Kempe (formerly bishop of Rochester). The duke of Buckingham, who held Kentish property including the magnificent park of Penshurst, represented the senior temporal nobility with Viscount Beaumont, constable of England, at his side.[vii]

Undaunted by this high-ranking delegation, Cade and his rebels presented their demands. For the first time in English history, this popular rebellion had a coherent written manifesto of grievances with proposed solutions. The Kentishmen insisted that they were not rebels but ‘petitioners’ to the king. They rejected any implication that they were involved with treasonable plots to overthrow Henry, maintaining that their demand was for government abuses to be reformed and for Henry’s bad advisers to be removed and punished: men like Henry’s treasurer James Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, and William Aiscough, bishop of Salisbury. Cade’s followers insisted they did not want radical social change – ‘we blame not all the lords, nor all those that is about the king’s person, nor all gentlemen nor yeomen, nor all men of law, nor all bishops, nor all priests’. They simply wanted punishment for ‘all such as may be found guilty by just and true inquiry and by the law’.[viii] Henry’s decision to contravene the will of the people and lawful judicial process in his treatment of Suffolk had come back to haunt him.

The lords offered the rebels a pardon in the hope that it would encourage them to disperse, but Cade’s supporters were resolute. They insisted that Henry himself must respond to their petitions. The lords left Blackheath to return to Clerkenwell, taking little joy in revealing the size and preparedness of the rebel horde. Whatever the rebels may have hoped, Henry’s desire to protect his councillors from the anger of the commons was undiminished and Cade’s refusal to depart left Henry with little choice. Since the rebels insisted that they were not traitors, Henry would call their bluff and proceed against them in full military array, with banners raised. If the rebels maintained their defiance in the face of the royal army, they would be guilty of treason.

The following morning, Henry and his royal entourage marched forth from Clerkenwell. At most there were twenty thousand men in Henry’s army, meaning they were outnumbered around three to one by Cade’s supporters. However, the royal army was made up of a large number of noblemen experienced in warfare, with their own retainers. Command and experience should win out over Kentish labourers. As it transpired, the difference in numbers was immaterial. When Henry reached Blackheath he found it deserted. Forewarned of the king’s advance, Cade and his followers had drifted away in the night.[ix]

Margaret and Henry at their wedding (Talbot Book of Hours)

Staking a physical claim to this vital territory on the route between Kent and London, Henry took up residence with Margaret at Greenwich Palace, leaving the lords’ retainers to be quartered on Blackheath, guarding against the rebels’ return. A force of loyal captains and retainers including Sir Thomas Stanley and two kinsmen of the duke of Buckingham, Sir Humphrey and William Stafford, were sent on southeast to chase down rebels and bring the county to order.[x]

But then disaster struck. The Staffords were ambushed by a party of Kentish men in a narrow lane near Sevenoaks. Both were slain with a large number of their men, and Sir Humphrey’s fine armour presented to Jack Cade as a war trophy. For Henry, the rebel triumph over his forces spelled catastrophe. Word of the Stafford party’s destruction soon reached the noble retainers stationed outside London, inspiring mutiny. ‘Divers lords’ men drew them together on the Blackheath,’ a London chronicler reported, ‘and said that they saw their friends slain and that they were like to be slain also if they followed the king and his traitors.’ [xi]  Shouts of defiance echoed around the heath. The duke of Buckingham rode to Greenwich in a panic to warn Henry that he must answer the retainers’ demands: ‘His people would forsake him [unless] he would do execution on his traitors.’[xii] Reluctantly, Henry agreed to place his chamberlain, James Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, in the Tower of London. His intention was probably to repeat the tactic that had enabled him to free the duke of Suffolk, covertly releasing Lord Saye and Sele into his own custody as he retreated from Greenwich to Westminster. However, when Henry tried to remove Lord Saye and Sele from his imprisonment, the constable of the Tower, Henry Holland, duke of Exeter, refused. Defiance seemed to greet the king at every turn. [xiii] 

By now urgent discussions were being held between Henry and his council about whether they ought to remain in the vicinity of London at all. Unrest had infected the royal household, the lords could no longer trust their own servants and it was rumoured that Cade and his followers were regrouping ready to march on London once again. Now more than ever Henry missed the firm guidance of the duke of Suffolk. With so much uncertainty and violence swirling around the capital, Henry chose to flee. He would leave London until order could be restored. The mayor and aldermen were horrified: without the king’s restraining presence it seemed certain the rebels would return. They pleaded with the king not to abandon them and even offered to pay the costs of his household for half a year if he stayed. But Henry’s resolution was set. He had never fully trusted the Londoners, and with rebellion spreading he was not willing to trust his life to them. The day after Midsummer, he was gone, headed for the refuge of Kenilworth Castle in the unquestionably reliable Midlands, a hundred miles from the suspect loyalties of the southeast.[xiv]

Although Henry took most of his lords with him, some representatives of royal government stayed close to the City to monitor the situation and to be on hand to react quickly if need arose. One of them was Queen Margaret, who was probably still at Greenwich. In 1465 one John Payne claimed that he had been consigned to the Marshalsea prison during Cade’s rebellion ‘at the queen’s commandment’.[xv] This suggests Margaret was both close at hand and actively involved in suppressing the rebels. Queens traditionally played a mediatory role in such intractable situations and since none of the rebels’ rhetoric was directed against Margaret it must have been assumed that she would be safe. From Greenwich, she could easily communicate with the few other representatives of Henry’s government who stayed behind, including high-ranking bishops like Cardinal Kempe and Archbishop John Stafford of Canterbury. Like the queen, churchmen were expected to help restore harmony, but events in the West Country suggested that the archbishops’ religion might not save them from rebel violence.[xvi]

HOW WILL THE REVOLT END FOR HENRY AND MARGARET?

MORE TO COME ON MONDAY 6 JULY…

CAN’T WAIT? GET A COPY OF SHADOW KING

OR DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK HERE

[i] Gregory’s Chronicle 195.

[ii] Gregory’s Chronicle says the king had 10,000 in his retinue; Benet 20,000; Davies 15,000. Gregory 191; Benet 199; Davies, English Chronicle 66; Harvey, I. M. W., Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450 (Oxford: 1991) 84; Devon, Frederick, Issues of the Exchequer being a collection of payments made out of His Majesty’s revenue, from King Henry III to King Henry VI inclusive (London: 1837) 274.

[iii] Benet says 50,000 men from Kent; Flenley says 100,000; Gregory 46,000. Benet 198; ‘Bale’s Chronicle,’ Flenley 129; Gregory 190. Davies, English Chronicle 64; Brut 517.

[iv] CPR, 1446-52 385.

[v] ‘MS Gough London 10’, Flenley 153-4; Benet 198 give 11 June as the date, which is supported by Griffiths 611. ‘Bale’s Chronicle,’ Flenley 129 has the Kentish commons arriving on 12 June.

[vi] ‘Bale’s Chronicle,’ ‘MS Gough London 10’, Flenley, 129, 153-4; Gregory 195; Benet   197.

[vii] Benet 198; ‘Bale’s Chronicle,’ Flenley,129 -130; Griffiths 611.

[viii] ‘Stowe’s Memoranda,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 96.

[ix] Griffiths, 619, 623.

[x] The ‘English Chronicle’ mistakenly names them Sir Edmund and William Stafford. Davies, An English Chronicle 131.

[xi] ‘MS Gough London 10’, Flenley 154.

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] ‘Bale’s Chronicle,’ Flenley, 131-2; Benet 199; ‘Short English Chronicle,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 67; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 159; Davies, An English Chronicle, 65-66; Giles 40; Brut 517. For the activities of Stanley and his fellow household officers in Kent see Virgoe, R., ‘Some Ancient Indictments in the King’s Bench referring to Kent, 1450-1452’ in Du Boulay, F. R. H. (ed.), Kent Records: Documents Illustrative of Medieval Kentish Society (Ashford: 1964).

[xiv] Giles 40; ‘Short English Chronicle,’ Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles 67; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 159; Brut 518; Great Chronicle 183; ‘MS Gough London 10,’ Flenley 154; Harvey 86.

[xvi] When a pardon was offered to the rebels on 6 July, it was made ‘at the request of the Queen’. Kempe and Stafford are mentioned by chroniclers as directly negotiating with the rebels. William Waynflete, bishop of Winchester is also named by Gregory and Thomas Kempe, bishop of London, by Giles. CPR, 1446-52 338; ‘MS Gough London 10,’ Flenley 156; Short English Chronicle 68; ‘Vitellius A XVI’, Kingsford, Chronicles of London 161; Brut 519; Benet 201; Giles 41. Wolffe suggests Margaret was still at Greenwich, and Griffiths that she stayed behind in London. Maurer, 71-2; Griffiths 662, n. 215; Wolffe 238. Dunn disagrees, interpreting the pardon as mere form. Dunn, Diana, ‘Margaret of Anjou, Queen Consort of Henry VI: A Reassessment of Her Role, 1445–53’ in Archer, Rowena E. (ed.), Crown, Government and People in the Fifteenth Century (New York: 1995) 142-3.

[xv] PL I, 134-5.

Book No. 4: Margaret Beaufort

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It’s just been her birthday (happy 577th, Maggie) so it seemed like a good moment to let you know that my next book will be a biography of Margaret Beaufort – again for the brilliant Head of Zeus.

For those of you who’ve never heard of her – and are possibly freaked out by this apparently pinched-face old lady in black – let me give you an idea of why Margaret is so fascinating, and why I’m so excited to be working on this book.

1778D036-31D9-4AE9-B091-8C38159C944B
 

1. Margaret gave the Tudor Dynasty its claim to the throne – through her Beaufort father, she was descended from King Edward III (slightly illegitimately) and it was this claim that enabled her son, Henry Tudor, to ascend the throne in 1485.

2. She lived into her 60s – long enough to see her grandson, Henry VIII, become king. As you will have learned in my previous book, So Great a Prince, Margaret died after his coronation feast, allegedly from eating a baby swan. (Badass.)

3. Margaret is remembered as a real ‘survivor’ of the carnage of the Wars of the Roses – which she undoubtedly was, but she was also its victim. During the course of these wars she lost 2 husbands as a result of violence, her guardian was beheaded by a sailor, she gave birth aged only 13 in deepest wartorn Wales, she lost and regained various lands multiple times and for 18 months she was effectively the prisoner of her own husband.

The Wars of the Roses: pretty miserable, I think we can agree.

4. You’ll notice a lot of husbands there. Margaret had 4 (although 1 is contested) and was married to all of them before she was 30. Her first ‘marriage’ took place when she was a child.

5. Margaret is remembered, often unfavourably, as an arch-manipulator. This is unfair, not least because at times Margaret was a terrible manipulator. Throughout the Wars of the Roses she made shocking errors of judgment as she struggled to protect her family, often choosing the wrong allies at exactly the wrong moment. Yet, still, she persisted.

Christ’s College, Cambridge – one of two colleges Margaret founded.

6. In recent years it has become very popular to suggest Margaret was involved in the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. There is literally nothing to support this theory from the C15th. Or C16th. It is first suggested by a Ricardian apologist in the early C17th, who claimed to have found evidence for it – but never revealed what that ‘evidence’ was. Nonetheless, for better or worse, Margaret’s connection to this dark legend of English history has brought her fame in recent years…

7. … But I’m not one of your Maggie-come-latelys*. I’ve been fascinated by Margaret’s story since I first learned about her during my A2s. It was astonishing to me that there was a woman of such formidable political experience (and, later, educational patronage) whom I had never heard of – despite having studied the Tudors repeatedly throughout my school life. Margaret partly inspired my Masters, investigating the impact of the Wars of the Roses on noblewomen, which gave me the opportunity to contextualise Margaret alongside other women’s’ experience.

8. Only when you place Margaret in the context of her time – as a woman, a noble and a C15th individual – can you understand her. That’s why I intend, in my book, to incorporate the stories of the women who surrounded her as much as the men. She had a fascinating array of in-laws, maternal relations, women cousins and friends with whom she interacted – and too often they have been neglected. We can only make sense of Margaret’s political and personal behaviour if we compare her to those men *and* women.

9. And as a little bonus link to my Shadow King research, Margaret was the main promoter of the cult of ‘Holy King Henry’ VI. She probably named her only son after him – allegedly in opposition to her in-laws’ wishes – and since her grandson was also called Henry, perhaps it’s Margaret we have to thank for the name of our most famous monarch, Harry VIII.

 

(*See? Margaret Nerd for years, me.)

 

‘SHADOW KING’ AVAILABLE AS AN AUDIO BOOK

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As well as now being out in paperback (with a very sexy new black cover)….

Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI is now also available to be delivered direct to your ears as an audiobook!

BUY THE AUDIOBOOK HERE

So make yourself feel better – revel in an age of incompetent political leadership, international economic disaster and pestilence! (Thank goodness we’ve left those behind, eh?)

On this day in 1461: The Battle of Towton & the Shadow King

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On this day in 1461 a Lancastrian army defending the throne of King Henry VI fought a Yorkist force under Edward IV. The Battle of Towton was the bloodiest battle in British history – more men were killed than died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The day was a turning point in the Wars of the Roses, the bitter contest between these rival dynasties for the English throne.

Here is my description of Towton from Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI:

 

Towton, Yorkshire: Palm Sunday (29 March) 1461

The open plain between Towton and Saxton, which in early spring was usually alive with the noisy toil of ploughmen, presented a scene of horror. As night descended, hail and snow froze the furrowed soil, but amid the grey-brown patchwork of ice and earth, streaks of blood were still clearly visible. Everywhere the eye fell, it gazed on death. Maimed and battered bodies lay, unburied, their bloodied faces turned unseeing to the darkening sky. As many as 28,000 men had fallen here, and more beyond – at Ferrybridge to the south, and at Dintingdale where yesterday Lord Clifford had met his end by an arrow to the throat in the first phase of this two-day orgy of violence. The Lancastrians had been driven back from the river crossing over the Aire at Ferrybridge, back beyond the village of Saxton to this high plateau, near to Towton. On the northern fringe of this plain, the main Lancastrian force had assembled, flanked by thick woodland on the slopes above Cock Beck. The churned landscape of blood and snow, stretching as far as the eye could see, told the story of how this day had unfolded, and of a battle that had lasted longer than any in living memory.[i]

Towton.jpg

Towton field (by Graham Turner)

On the morning of Palm Sunday, the Yorkist force had assembled on the southern edge of this network of fields, stamping their feet up the slight incline from Saxton to ward off the biting cold. A mile or so from the town, a mass of footprints and hoof marks showed where an army numbering into the tens of thousands had drawn up. They cheered as one when the newly proclaimed King Edward IV – the one-time earl of March – addressed them in the gloomy morning light, their shouts seeming to rouse the skies, sending flurries of snow into the faces of their enemies. The royal standard could just be seen in the heart of the Lancastrian host facing them, whipping above the left battle in the command of the earl of Northumberland. King Henry, Queen Margaret and Prince Edward were nowhere to be seen. They were 14 miles (22 km) north, inside the protective walls of the city of York, waiting anxiously for word of the battle’s outcome. That news would be many hours in coming. In their place, Henry and Margaret’s captains took their positions on the battlefield: the vanguard was commanded by Sir Andrew Trollope, hero of St Albans, and alongside him ranged the vast majority of the chief lords of England – the dukes of Somerset and Exeter, the earls of Northumberland, Wiltshire and Devon, Lord Rivers. By contrast the Yorkist cause was, as ever, a family affair: Edward IV was joined in command by his uncle, Warwick – limping from an arrow wound to the leg sustained at Ferrybridge the day before; by Warwick’s uncle Lord Fauconberg, a veteran of the battlefield; and Edward’s brother-in-law the duke of Suffolk. Edward’s cousin the duke of Norfolk had fallen ill and his forces were still some distance away, but the fight would not wait for him.[ii]

6. Henry VI .jpg

Henry VI of Lancaster

Battle opened in a hail of arrows, Yorkist steel puncturing the Lancastrian front line. The Lancastrian return volley fell short, leaving a bristling carpet of feathers and sticks in the snow between the two armies. With the weather turning against them, Sir Andrew Trollope, Somerset and Rivers spurred their horses in the vanguard into action, making the ground tremble with their advance. The Yorkist cavalry shuddered and then collapsed. The puncturing force of the Lancastrian right wing drove through the southern horsemen and on, chasing them miles away from the battlefield. Panic followed hot on the fleeing horsemen’s heels, threatening to destabilize Edward’s army before it had even joined battle. But although ‘the Rose of Rouen’ was only eighteen years old, he had calm and strength of purpose far beyond his years. He rode the entire length of his battlelines, rallying his soldiers. These men had marched all this way to support his right to the throne, he reminded them. He had been proclaimed king by the people and they stood beside him to oppose the Lancastrian usurpers. Then, in a flourish as dramatic as it was inspiring, he dismounted his horse, standing before his standard, sword in hand. He intended that day to fight beside his men and he announced that he would live with these men, or he would die with them. The contrast between the vibrant young Edward IV and the absent, pacific Henry VI had never been clearer, or more damning. Virtually by force of will alone, Edward IV rallied his panicking forces, a sea of tens of thousands turned to his command. Inspired by his example, they set to battle with grim purpose and advanced across the plain.[iii]

18. Edward IV .jpg

Edward IV of York

On the bleak plateau above Towton Dale, blade hacked into undefended flesh, blows raining down as men fell, insensible, into the bloodstained earth, their broken bodies impeding the progress of their comrades. The slaughter was immense, a mutually incompatible desire to live pitching one desperate hand against another. For hours it went on like this, in a slugging match of sword and axe, halberd and mace. At last, as the noonday sun – if it showed at all – was high above their heads, a shout of triumph from the Yorkist men. A relief force had arrived under the duke of Norfolk, finally turning the odds in their favour. Whether the men themselves, or just the hope they offered, was the deciding factor was not clear. It hardly mattered. The Lancastrian line began to falter, to fall back, and at last to flee. Back, towards the road to York; away, to the wooded sanctuary to their west where they might ford the brook in safety; to the pinch point at Tadcaster to the north, where desperate men converged. As their opponents fled, the Yorkist forces, exhausted and enraged in equal measure, chased them down. What had started as a battle became a massacre. Those men who escaped the blade fell into the treacherous depths of the Cock Beck, turning its waters blood-red and creating a grim raft of bobbing corpses. In total, an area 6 miles (10 km) wide was covered with the mangled remains of the dead and dying.[iv]

When word reached Henry and Margaret at York it was of a decimation. Heralds later said that ‘besides the wounded and those who drowned’, 28,000 men lost their lives at Towton.[v] What despairing thoughts must have assailed Henry, to see all his peaceful intentions twisted into slaughter on a scale unknown in English history? His own subjects, cutting one another to pieces on his account. Among the 28,000 corpses were men who had been vital to his resistance over the last two years: the earls of Northumberland, Devon and Westmorland; Lord John Neville; Lord Welles; the recently knighted Sir Andrew Trollope. And the final bitter conclusion was that God was against him. Battlefields were a form of divine decision-making writ large, and whoever won the field enjoyed God’s blessing. It was clear to all observers that Henry had lost it. The true king now was Edward IV, the white rose of the House of York. The Battle of Towton offered a final judgement. Henry VI was king no more. Now he and his family were fugitive traitors, rebels against the new, Yorkist regime.

Before darkness fell on the devastated field at Towton, Henry had fled the city of York. Margaret, their son and the few faithful surviving commanders were at his side, spurring northeast towards Newcastle. And above the fleeing Lancastrian family, leering from the gates of the city, the head of the duke of York was still grimly silhouetted against the sky – a warning, as if it were needed, of where Henry himself might end, if he did not stay ahead of his enemies.

 

[i] ‘English Heritage Battlefield Report: Towton 1461’, https://content.historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/battlefields/towton.pdf [accessed 31 July 2017].

[ii] Richard Beauchamp, bishop of Salisbury, and Gregory’s Chronicle reported Edward’s army as being close to 200,000 men, an inflated figure that nonetheless reveals how comparatively large the armies at Towton were. Benet believed there were 80,000 Yorkists and 40,000 Lancastrian soldiers; Waurin reckoned Edward had 30,000 men and the Lancastrians 60,000; Hall’s Chronicle agrees there were 60,000 Lancastrians and a highly specific 48,600 Yorkists. Gregory, p. 216; CSPV, no. 370; Benet, p. 230; Waurin, V, pp. 336–7; Hall, pp. 255–6.

[iii] Edward’s speech and the cavalry charge is reported by Waurin, V, pp. 337–41.

[iv] CSPV, no. 370. A forensic report on a mass grave discovered at Towton reveals the types of wounds inflicted. See Fiorato, Veronica, Boylston, Anthea and Christopher Knüsel (eds.), Blood Red Roses: The archaeology of a mass grave from the Battle of Towton AD 1461 (Oxford, 2007), especially pp. 99–101.

[v] This figure was repeated by the Yorkists George Neville and Richard Beauchamp, bishop of Salisbury; reported to Pigello Portinaro, a Milanese merchant in Bruges and the Milanese ambassador in the French Court; repeated by William Paston; and cited by the Crowland Chronicle. The bishop of Elphin was even more specific and said 28,800 were killed. Chroniclers tended to cite 24,000–45,000 as the death toll. CSP, nos. 370, 372, 374, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol1/pp92–126 [accessed 23 August 2017]; CSPM, nos. 79, 81, 83, 94, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/milan/1385-1618/pp37-106 [accessed 20 June 2017]; PL, II, pp. 4–6; Ingulph, p. 425; Benet, pp. 230–1; Gregory, p. 217; Waurin, V, p. 341; ‘The Rose of Rouen’, Thornley, Isobel D. (ed.), England Under the Yorkists 1460–1485 (London, 1921), p. 17; Brut, p. 533; Hall, p. 256; Hearne, EHD, IV, p. 290.