The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [138]
Today, it is hard to locate the site of Blore Heath. The decayed stone cross, erected in 1765 on the spot where Audley is said to have fallen, is concealed in a field to the left of the road leading from Newcastle-under-Lyme to Market Drayton, halfway up the slope where Salisbury’s men were drawn up. The battlefield itself is on privately owned farmland.
After the battle the remnants of Audley’s army fled to Eccleshall Castle, following the path of the brook. Henry VI was shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Audley and the defeat of his army, and was roused to anger against the Yorkists.
Salisbury wanted to press on to join York as soon as possible, but was aware that the Queen’s main force was only ten miles away and would soon come after him. It was now nearing night, and very dark. The Earl cunningly entrusted his cannon to an Augustinian friar, who agreed to fire them off intermittently throughout the night, leading the Lancastrians to believe that the Yorkists were still encamped on Blore Heath. They did not discover the truth until the next morning, when the King and Queen rode over at the head of their army, determined to surprise Salisbury’s force. All they found was the deserted camp, the frightened friar, and the battlefield strewn with corpses, and all they could do was order the capture of the Yorkist cannon. Salisbury, meanwhile, had gone to Market Drayton, where he camped that night.
Here he received a congratulatory message from the perfidious Lord Stanley, who promised he would secretly continue to support the Yorkists. The Queen had been angered by Stanley’s failure to arrive on the battlefield with reinforcements, and had him impeached in Parliament for it, but her anger was short-lived, and she afterwards pardoned him.
Salisbury’s triumph was short-lived. While he was at Market Drayton he learned that two of his sons, Sir Thomas and Sir John Neville, had been captured by the Lancastrians at Acton Bridge in Cheshire. Possibly they were searching for a safe house to rest in after being wounded at Blore Heath. Salisbury waited as long as he dared for further news of them before disconsolately pressing on. He left behind one of Sir William Stanley’s cooks, who had been wounded fighting for him. When Shrewsbury’s troops occupied Market Drayton later that day, they interrogated the man as to Salisbury’s whereabouts, and he told them which road the Earl had taken.
Salisbury, however, arrived safely at Ludlow, followed soon after by Warwick. York had heard that the royal army, allegedly 30,000 strong, was advancing rapidly towards them. The Queen was bent on routing out the Yorkists and taking them prisoner, and her recruits were ready to fight ‘for the love they bare to the King, but more for the fear they had of the Queen, whose countenance was so fearful and whose look was so terrible that to all men against whom she took displeasure, her frowning was their undoing and her indignation their death’.
The Yorkists led their great army, 25,000 strong, out of Ludlow, and marched towards Worcester, making for London, but the royal army blocked their way; the two came face to face on the road between Kidderminster and Worcester. While the royal army was being drawn up in battle order, with the King’s standard displayed to proclaim his presence, York ordered a retreat into Worcester, having no desire to engage in battle with an army under the direct command of his sovereign. In Worcester Cathedral the Yorkist lords, after receiving the Sacrament,