Bretwalda Battles
The Wars of the Roses
The Battle of Northampton 1460
by Rupert Matthews
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Published by Bretwalda Books
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First Published 2013
Copyright Bretwalda Books 2013
Oliver Hayes asserts his moral rights to be regarded as the author of this work.
ISBN 978-1-909099-56-2
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Contents
The Wars of the Roses
Leaders at Northampton
Men, Weapons and Tactics
The Battle of Northampton
Aftermath
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The Battle of Northampton was one of the first great battles of the Wars of the Roses, and it was a real turning point. For years the disputes between the causes of York and Lancaster had been played out in the political arena but when the Lancastrians turned to violence they surprised and shocked the Yorkists. But not for long.
The Duke of York fled into exile in Ireland with one son, while a second went to France and the others sought sanctuary. It proved to be only a temporary defeat. With his dashing, talented ally the Earl of Warwick, York contacted friends and supporters across England. Word spread that the Yorkists should get ready to support their leader for he was coming home in the summer of 1460.
In the event it was Warwick and Yorks son Edward, Earl of March, who reached England first. London welcomed them with open arms and men flocked to join their standard. But lurking in the Midlands was the Duke of Buckingham with King Henry VI and an army of prodigious strength.
Warwick marched north, confronting Buckingham just outside Northampton. The battle was fought to the south of the crossing over the River Nene, in the grounds of Delapre Abbey. The site is now a golf course and - bunkers apart - has not changed much over the years. The battle that followed was savage and murderous. Cannon were present in numbers for the first time in a battle fought on English soil, though the older weapons of bow, sword and lance predominated.
The Wars of the Roses would continue for years after Northampton, but the battle fought here set the tone and the pattern for what was to follow: treachery, ruthless violence, political subterfuge and barbaric slaughter dominated at Northampton and were to become savagely typical of the Wars of the Roses in the decades that followed as England was torn apart in a civil war of unparalleled viciousness.
This book seeks to explain why the Battle of Northampton was fought, how it was fought and what its results turned out to be. So read on and learn how history was made in Northampton.
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The Wars of the Roses
The vicious dynastic conflict known to us as the Wars of the Roses tore England apart between 1455 and 1497. Although there were prolonged periods of peace within the wars, this was a period of violence, bloodshed and lawlessness such as England had not seen since the reign of King Stephen in the 12th century.
Historians have sought to link the wars to various social trends within England, to underlying economic factors and to religion. However, there can be little doubt that the prime cause of all the trouble was King Henry VI. Not that this was really his fault. Henry was a weak and simple man who suffered bouts of mental incapacity that came and went with startling suddenness. He would sit down to dinner, fall into a trance and not recover his sense for hours, days or weeks on end. Nobody could predict when the next bout would strike nor how long it would last.
What was clear was that there were unscrupulous men and women close to Henry who were only too willing to take advantage of his weakness and bouts of insanity for their own purposes. Contemporaries pinned most of the blame on Henrys wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou. She was an easy target being both French and a woman, but that does not mean she was blameless. Margaret was undoubtedly a greedy and vengeful woman who found it as hard to forgive a wrong as to remember a favour. Margaret was aided and abetted by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. This nobleman was clever, talented and deeply dishonest. Together these two set up a court that was dominated by those whom they could buy or subvert, or who were willing allies in the task of siphoning government funds into private pockets.
Richard Duke of York was a very different character. Even his friends did not claim he was particulary clever, but he was honest, diligent and brave. As the leader of English armies in France he had won some impressive victories until he was pushed aside by a jealous Somerset who promptly lost a string of battles to the French. Moved to Ireland to oversee the royal estates and interests, York set up a government as honest and efficient as that in England was corrupt and inept. Inevitably people began to draw comparisons between York and Somerset.
What made the situation all the more dangerous was that King Henry VI was not, strictly speaking, the rightful king. Back in 1399 Richard II had been ousted from power by a popular uprising led by Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster. When Richard then conveniently died in prison, Henry became King Henry IV. He claimed the throne as he was the son of John of Gaunt, third son of King Edward III. However, John of Gaunt had had an elder brother named Lionel whose daughter Philippa had just died leaving a nine year old girl, Anne Mortimer, as her heiress. At the time nobody wanted a little girl as monarch, so Henry of Bolingbroke became Henry IV.
However young Anne had later married her cousin Richard of Conisburgh who was another grandson of Edward III. Their son was Richard, Duke of York. By strict rules of inheritance, York should have been king. As a young man York seemed perfectly happy with his lot as a senior and wealthy nobleman, but when Henry went mad he began to reconsider his claims to the throne. That, of course, made Margaret and Somerset all the more determined to get rid of him.
In 1453 Henry fell into a stupor more prolonged than before. A Council of Regency was set up with York as Lord Protector. He promptly put Somerset under house arrest and tasked Margaret with caring for her husband. For the next two years York set about trying to restore the finances of government. He carefully closed down the worst corruptions, threw out dishonest officials and got the finances back into profit. Where he failed was in dealing with the private feuding of his fellow powerful nobles. Under Henrys weak government several nobles had recruited private armies and set about settling old scores with their swords. York had the support of a dashing young nobleman and talented soldier, the Earl of Warwick, but even so he was quite unable to stop the bloodshed.
