This approaching date may be of particular remembrance/interest to ermtony, who bears the Yorkist emblem of the White Rose* From the 1968 Guinness Book of Records - “The bloodiest battle fought on British soil was the battle of Towton in Yorkshire on 29 March 1461, when 36,000 Yorkists defeated 40,000 Lancastrians. The total loss has been estimated at between 28,000 and 38,000 killed.” ** The battle was fought in a snowstorm and proceeded at dawn by colossal longbow barrages. The wind and blinding snow was in the Yorkists favour and the storm of arrows - about 120,000 striking per minute - forced the Lancastrians to charge. No quarter was given in the battle or the rout which followed. If the figures are correct then this day was not just the bloodiest day in England (possibly 3% of England‘s adult male population perishing in just one day!), but in British history - well exceeding the 21,392 fatalities suffered on 1st July 1916, the First Day on the Somme. The turning-point of battle occurred in the early afternoon when the momentum caused by the late arrival of Norfolk’s Yorkist army helped push the exhausted crush of Lancastrians down the slope towards the River Cock. Before the river the slope suddenly becomes exceedingly steep and it was here that catastrophe overtook them as men lost their footing and tumbled in heaps into the freezing waters of the flooded river. This section of the battlefield is marked on maps, appropriately, as Bloody Meadow. Seeing the battle was lost the Lancastrians on the left and centre tried to fall back to the town of Tadcaster. Before Tadcaster a heaving mass attempted to cross the river, but the damaged bridge collapsed. Once more there was a pile-up of human detritus in the water. Other Lancastrians avoided the bend in the river and made a desperate last-stand in the town. They were massacred to the last man in the streets. Yorkist cavalry caught up with and killed fugitives over a wide area. No mercy was shown to the defeated Lancastrians and the slaughter of fugitives continued through the night and into the next day as far away as York. Skulls from recently excavated Towton grave pits demonstrate the terrible effect of having one’s face smashed in with a pole-axe, mace or sword. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Towton ****************************************************************** * For those hazy on English history: The opposing House of Lancaster adopted a Red Rose as emblem. The barbarous power struggle for the Crown between the Yorkists and Lancastrians is therefore remembered as the quaint sounding Wars of the Roses. No higher principle was involved than that of two vicious dogs fighting over a bone. The wars finally ended at the battle of Bosworth 1485 and the death of in battle of King Richard III (‘wicked Uncle Richard‘) after which the victor, Henry Tudor, married the heiress of the House of York. He adopted the mixed red and white rose emblem (the Tudor Rose) thereby symbolically fusing a rivalry dating back to 1402. ** The Paston Letters give a total of 28,000 killed of which 20,000 were Lancastrians. Some modern historians like Christopher Gravett (Towton 1461: England’s Bloodiest Battle) argue that 76,000 combatants was too high for the Medieval era and that an involvement of 45,00 is more realistic with 13,000 killed. The Medieval historian AW Boardman (The Battle of Towton) also suggests 45,000 combatants but a much higher death toll due to Edward IV’s insistence on total annihilation.
Henry Tudor (the VII) was my fourteenth great grandfather.