The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [159]
On 5 February, the Council ordered Sir William Bourchier and others to raise the Essex lieges and march with them to the King. The ports of Norfolk were told not to permit the shipment of provisions to the Lancastrian army, which was then at Hull. Nevertheless, provisions did get through, and the Council wasted a lot of time and effort in fruitlessly trying to discover who was responsible.
Castles were garrisoned, curfews imposed. On 7 February the Council ordered the seizure of Castle Rising in Norfolk, the home of a prominent Lancastrian supporter, Thomas Daniel, who had served the Duke of Suffolk and been a member of Henry VI’s household. The Paston Letters imply that he was orchestrating a Lancastrian uprising, recording that he had ‘made a great gathering of people and hiring of harness, and it is well understood that they be not to the King-ward, but rather to the contrary, and for to rob’. Daniel apparently enjoyed great influence in Norfolk and presented a danger to the Yorkists, but he escaped and rode north to join the Queen.
Margaret’s intention was to march on London and deal with Warwick. Meanwhile, Pembroke and Wiltshire, who had raised an army of Welsh soldiers and French, Breton and Irish mercenaries, intended to march east from Wales to link up with the Queen’s main force. But Edward of York had summoned the levies of Bristol, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Somerset and Dorset to meet him at Hereford, and after recruiting more men at Wigmore Castle, an old Mortimer stronghold, was also planning to march on London, intent on avenging the deaths of his father and brother. Warwick, who had been joined by Fauconberg, was holding the capital, and Edward meant to link up with him before the Queen got there, or intercept her before she reached the city.
Edward was moving east through Gloucestershire, therefore, when he learned that a large Lancastrian army led by Pembroke had left Wales and was making for the Midlands. He made a quick decision to swing his army round, march west, and dispose of this new threat before advancing on London.
Very early in the morning of Candlemas Day, 2 February 1461, Edward and his army came to Mortimer’s Cross, which was – and still is – a hamlet of a few homes spanning a quiet crossroads between Ludlow and Leominster, in the midst of the Marcher territory once held by the Mortimers. On that morning a strange sight was to be seen in the sky above the astonished Yorkists – three suns appeared on the firmament ‘and suddenly joined together in one’. This is a rare phenomenon called a parhelion, or mock sun, which occurs when light is refracted through ice crystals. Such things were, of course, not understood in the fifteenth century, and the Yorkist soldiers wondered what it portended, some crying out in fright. But Edward proclaimed that it was an omen of victory, saying to his soldiers, ‘Beeth of good comfort and dreadeth not. This is a good sign for those three suns betokeneth the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and therefore let us have a good heart, and in the name of Almighty God go we against our enemies!’ He also construed the sign as foretelling the joyful reunion of the three sons (suns) of York – himself and his brothers George and Richard. At his words the entire Yorkist army sank to its knees in prayer, overawed by the vision. In time, Edward would incorporate those three suns into his personal badge, ‘The Sun in Splendour’.
Contemporary chroniclers estimated that Edward had between 30,000 and 50,000 men in his army; the real figure was probably much less, and modern historians assert that it was nearer 5000. He certainly had a strong force of experienced archers and many retainers and tenants from his lordships in the Welsh Marches, men who were intent on preventing their property from being occupied by the enemy and on guarding the interests of their communities. Edward’s chief captains were Lord Audley, Sir William Herbert, and Sir Walter Devereux, ably supported by Lord Grey de Wilton, Lord FitzWalter,