Wars of the Roses: The Real Game of Thrones (Very Short History Book 4) by Tristan Clark

Author:Tristan Clark [Clark, Tristan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-06-16T07:00:00+00:00

4. To Ireland and Back

In 1458 and 1459, Queen Margaret wanted to destroy the Yorkists once and for all. It wasn’t her aim to allow Henry VI to rule without threat. Rather, as Weir notes, she went so far as to propose that he abdicate his throne to his son (aged five at the time) as a way of giving the public a symbol around whom to rally. Henry refused. It is unclear how mentally fit he was after his initial bout of derangement, but it’s clear that Margaret wanted power, either for herself, for her party, or for future Lancastrians.

More slights and affronts between the two lines ensued, chief among them being York’s refusal to attend a Great Council in June of 1459. Both sides had been amassing armed forces, and by this point, it was really war. Preparations were stepped up.

Salisbury, York’s right-hand man, raised an army of five thousand, while Warwick raised hundreds, and in September, marched to York’s Ludlow Castle to rendezvous with the others.

The Queen leveraged the support of magnates such as Lord Stanley to raise armies. The royal command was headed up by Lord Audley and Lord Dudley. They moved to the North to pre-empt Salisbury’s men who were on the attack. The forces met at Blore Heath, a woody marsh near Wales. This was no minor fracas, but a clash of six thousand men under Salisbury against twice that many under Audley. It was the spearmen and archers of Salisbury (with some cannon) against the archers of Audley.

Outnumbered, Salisbury used his military experience, but more crucially, his cunning, to win the day. He manoeuvered his men, in what presumably was meant to resemble a retreat, to the vicinity of a brook that was guarded by banks too steep for the horses. As the Lancastrian vanguard charged forward, many soldiers dismounted and were jumped by Salisbury’s men. Meanwhile, the archers lobbed their arrows at trailing forces, disabling many horses and thus, in Weir’s prose, 'so unnerved the riders that 500 of them defected at once to the enemy.'

Audley and his line opted for good old-fashioned fleeing; in the pursuit, Dudley was taken prisoner and killed. The second battle in the war had gone, like the first, to the Yorkists.

Yet there was little raising of the gold goblet or the calfskin flask in ribald celebration. The Yorkist attitude after the battle wasn’t exultant or over-confident. They’d suffered too much for that: Salisbury’s two sons, commanding forces, had been captured, and all of the armies had seen their numbers drastically cut.

Just a month later, at the battle of Ludford Bridge, one of Warwick’s captains surrendered, along with precious manpower, to the King. The battle was a loss for the Yorkists, and after it York put himself into a sort of exile in Ireland. He had to bide his time there for months, knowing that points of re-entry, Wales and the Northern marshes, were controlled by the King.

However, his allies were ready to fight on his—and their—behalf. In June of 1460, Warwick set sail from his sanctuary in Calais back to England.

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