The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [148]
At mid-day the rain began again, rapidly turning the Lancastrian camp into a quagmire. Far from being unassailable, the royal army, which probably comprised 20,000 men, was only half the size of Warwick’s force, and some expected reinforcements did not arrive in time to see action. Warwick was in command of the main battle of the Yorkist army; March, bearing aloft his father’s banner, led the vanguard, ably supported by Lord Scrope, and Fauconberg was in charge of the rearguard. For the first time the Yorkists had mustered a substantial number of magnates – Bourchier, Bergavenny, Audley, Say, and possibly Clinton and Stanley were all present in the field, while most of the foot soldiers were from Kent, Sussex and Essex.
The royal vanguard was commanded by Lord Grey de Ruthin, a wealthy local landowner who had courted royal favour in the Coventry parliament and promptly ridden at the head of his retainers to obey the King’s summons to arms. Prior to the battle, however, March received a secret message from Lord Grey that he would change sides and fight for the Yorkists if they would back him in a property dispute with Lord Fanhope. Grey may also have been offered inducements by Warwick, such as the promise of future high office in a Yorkist government, for he did indeed become Treasurer of England in 1463.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, watched by Coppini and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warwick ordered his trumpeters to sound the call to battle, and the two armies advanced on each other, with the three Yorkist battles attacking the enemy simultaneously on different sides of the royal barricades. Warwick had ordered his men not to capture any magnates but to kill them, and not to lay violent hands on the King or the ordinary soldiers, especially those wearing the black ragged staff of Lord Grey’s men.
March’s advance across the Nene marshes was met with a deadly series of volleys from the archers in the Lancastrian centre, which caused many casualties. Despite this, they waded onwards through thick, viscous mud towards the royal entrenchment; the weather conditions were in fact so atrocious that Buckingham’s cannon were soon lying deep in water and were rendered useless, while many of the royal cavalry were forced to dismount and fight on foot.
As the Yorkists approached the royal defences, Lord Grey signalled, and his men began to burst through the barricades in order to join them and assist them over the stockade, thus enabling them successfully to breach the Lancastrian entrenchment. This heralded the end of the battle, which lasted only half an hour and did not involve much in the way of hand-to-hand fighting. Seeing that the day was lost, many Lancastrian soldiers panicked and made desperate attempts to cross the swollen River Nene; few made it to the other side. The chronicler ‘Gregory’ relates the tale of Sir William Lucy, who lived near the battlefield and heard the desultory gunfire. He quickly hastened to the King’s aid, but when he got there the rout was in progress. Alas for Sir William – John Stafford, a relation of Buckingham’s, saw him coming. John had been conducting an illicit affair with Lucy’s wife and now, in the chaos and confusion, seized his opportunity to murder his rival, an act typical of the lawlessness and self-interest of the times.
The Battle of Northampton ended in a resounding victory for the Yorkists, which was attributed to the fighting skills of ‘the true commons of Kent’, but was also due largely to the treachery of Lord Grey. About 3–400 men lay dead on the field, Lancastrian losses being heaviest. Buckingham, one of the mainstays