The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [155]
York and Salisbury, at the head of about 5–6000 men, rode out of London on 9 December, cheered on by waving crowds lining the streets and leaving Warwick behind to maintain order in the capital. They marched north via Nottingham, recruiting on the way. Many of their scouts, or ‘aforeriders’, however, were killed in a skirmish with Somerset’s men at Worksop, and at the same time Lancastrian scouts discovered that York’s army was vastly inferior to their own.
York made for his castle of Sandal, two miles west of Wakefield, because, says Whethamstead, he desired to be among his own people and enjoy a comfortable lodging at Christmas. He also deemed his presence in the area necessary because his tenants had suffered harassment by local Lancastrian lords. Built in the reign of Edward II, Sandal Castle was a mighty fortress occupying an imposing position, though today it is a crumbling, roofless ruin. York arrived on the 21st and set his men to digging trenches around the castle and positioning their guns at strategic points around the walls, thus putting himself – theoretically at least – in a good defensive position should the Lancastrians attack. His plan was to await March’s arrival from Shrewsbury with reinforcements before engaging with the enemy, and he settled down with his men to celebrate Christmas.
Somerset and Northumberland would have liked to besiege York in Sandal Castle, and in any case planned to prevent any fresh supplies from reaching him there. However, since they lacked the resources with which to conduct a siege, they decided that York must somehow be lured out of the castle and made to fight before March arrived. The Lancastrians certainly had the greater army, about 20,000 men to York’s 12,000 at most, and they had also a substantial number of magnates, including Exeter, Somerset, Devon, Northumberland and Clifford. York had not a single peer in his army, apart from the ever-loyal Salisbury. While the Queen’s captains included the experienced Sir Baldwin Fulford and Sir John Grey, who was husband to Lord Rivers’s daughter, Elizabeth Wydville, one of York’s captains of foot was a mere London mercer, John Harrow, who had served under Salisbury at the siege of the Tower in July. And although Lord Neville responded to York’s summons, riding to Sandal with 8000 men, he then deserted to the Lancastrians. Even after this, York still underestimated the strength of his opponents.
By the end of December the Duke was in an increasingly precarious situation, though his captains believed that if he stayed in the castle until reinforcements arrived he would have nothing to fear. Discipline among his men was lax; many were allowed to go out foraging, thus broadcasting to the enemy that food supplies were running low, and his scouts were incompetent, failing to discover what the Lancastrians were planning. Sir Davy Hall, grandfather of the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall, advised York not to let his men out but to ‘keep within his castle’, but the Duke replied, ‘Wouldst thou that I, for dread of a scolding woman, whose only weapons are her tongue and her nails, should shut my gates? Then all men might of me wonder and report to my dishonour, that a woman hath made me a dastard, whom no man could ever yet prove a coward!’
During the Christmas holidays, Somerset rode over to parley with York, and it was agreed that a state of truce would prevail until after the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January; the royal commanders, however, had no intention of keeping it. For three days running they sent a herald with instructions to provoke York by insults into taking the offensive. The herald publicly sneered at the Duke’s ‘want of courage in suffering himself to be tamely braved by a woman’. On the 29th the Lancastrians selected 400 men, disguised them as Yorkist reinforcements,