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The Battle of Towton, one of the most decisive of the Wars
of the Roses, is remembered as the bloodiest ever fought on British soil, with casualties believed to have been in excess of
20,000 men. The battle took place on 29th March - Palm Sunday, 1461 (Julian calendar), between the villages of Towton and Saxton in Yorkshire (about 12 miles south-west of York and about 2 miles south of
Tadcaster).
At this point in the civil war, the Lancastrians were on equal terms with the Yorkists, having eliminated the Duke of York
from the scene at the Battle of Wakefield and been victorious
at the second Battle of St Albans. However, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, "the
Kingmaker", controlled London and had proclaimed the eldest of York's sons as King
Edward IV of England. It was Edward himself who decided to
take the initiative and march north in the hope of inflicting a final defeat on his rival, King Henry VI of England. Henry, a pious and peace-loving man, took no
part in any military decisions, but allowed his queen, Margaret of
Anjou, complete freedom to employ her battle commanders, chief of whom was Lord Clifford, on his behalf.
It is thought that 50,000, or perhaps even 80,000 men fought, including 28 Lords (almost half the peerage), mainly on the
Lancastrian side. The numbers often given are 42,000 for the Lancastrians and 36,000 for the Yorkists. This is one of the few
battles in English history, perhaps the only, where the fighting was so violent that the front lines were frequently forced to
stop and remove the bodies to be able to get at each other.
The battle was long and hard-fought, made no easier for either side by the blizzard conditions which prevailed. The decisive
moment came in the middle of the day, when the Yorkist reinforcements arrived, led by John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. The Lancastrians retreated in disarray, resulting in a
near-massacre. The death in battle of Lord Clifford, Queen Margaret's most experienced commander and right-hand man, was a
serious blow from which the Lancastrians would take years to recover. Margaret and Henry fled north to Scotland, while those
Lancastrian lords who were not killed or dispossesed were forced to make peace with Edward.
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