Towton

I'm reading an excellent book on the monarchy which, like the book on Jewish history I just finished, tries to compact a lot of history into a very short narrative.  Naturally, some parts get glossed over, and one of those was the battle at Towton.

Coincidentally, though, I was travelling for work last week, and was in a hotel room channel surfing when I came across an entire program on the battle, and was riveted.

The next day I had to travel to the other side of the country (which is a 3 hour drive -- it's a small country) and I happened to look up Towton.  It turns out I'd been less than 20 miles from the battlefield!

Of course, I didn't have time to go last week, but someday I'd like to visit, perhaps when I finally see the armoury at Leeds.

The battle of Towton was the final battle of the War of the Roses.  If you thought that was just a Michael Douglas movie, you're an idiot. It was the English civil war, between the houses of York (the red rose) and Lancaster (the white rose) for nothing less than the kingship.

And it was an epic battle, with 42,000 for the Lancastrians and 36,000 for the Yorkists.  It was the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil and several times the battle was paused to move the dead out of the way. There were estimated to be 28,000 casualties. To put that in perspective, the entire English population at the time was about 2.5 million, and 1% were killed in one day.

By comparison, 400 years later, the Battle of Antietam -- the bloodiest day in the bloodiest war on American soil -- had 23,000 casualties, but started with 55,000 Confederate soldiers and 75,000 Union soldiers, out of a total population of 23 million.

Part of the reason it was so bloody was both sides promised "no quarter" -- it was a fight to the death.  The tide turned when Yorkist reinforcements arrived that afternoon, forcing the Lancastrians to retreat, which turned into a rout.  Bridges broke under the weight of the armed men, plunging many into the freezing water, and stranding others who were easy targets after they had dropped their weapons and thrown off their helmets to flee.  The fields were full of bodies from Towton to Tadcaster, over 2 miles away.

We can summarize the War of the Roses as a dynastic feud, starting in 1399 when Henry Bolingbroke, of Lancaster, deposed his cousin, Richard II, to become Henry IV. In so doing, he ignored the normal lines of succession and when his grandson, Henry VI, became unpopular (and was quite probably insane), Richard of York challenged on the grounds of legitimacy. In the first major battle, the Yorkists were defeated and Richard's head was displayed on a pole wearing a paper crown. However, his son, Edward, continued the fight and after Towton was declared Edward IV. (Shakespeare actually documented this entire period in a set of seven plays,starting with Richard II and ending with Henry VI, part 3.)

However, the real issue is that England always liked the idea of a monarchy, but not often the reality. As such, it often put controls on the king that were unthinkable elsewhere, and when the king did not suit the country, it was often able to justify his removal.  Just look at the text of the Magna Carta, written 500 years before the US Declaration of Independence; it is a stark limitation of kingship, whereas other monarchs were believed to be divinely chosen and above all laws.

The significance of the Wars of the Roses wasn't the line of succession -- in fact, in a few short years Henry Tudor of Lancaster would retake the throne from Richard III, and marry Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the two houses as Henry VII. The significance of the Wars of the Roses, on the other hand, emphasized the insignficance of the king.  While still a major political player, it had taken a secondary role to Parliament, and who occupied the throne was largely immaterial.

Of course, Henry Tudor's son would change all that when, as Henry VIII, he challenged the Pope and declared himself head of the Church of England.