The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [164]
Behind Trollope came Somerset with the main battle of the royal army. The Yorkists tried again to bombard the enemy with their artillery, but it had now been rendered completely ineffective, and their arrows, shot into an adverse wind, were falling short of their targets. Nevertheless, the Lancastrians were finding it difficult to breach the Yorkist position, and Warwick might have won the day had it not been for the treachery of Lovelace, who had cautiously held back his troops until he saw that the tide was turning in favour of the Lancastrians, then deserted and raced to join them. The gap in the Yorkist lines left by Lovelace was soon targeted by the enemy commanders, who launched a charge of mounted knights, which shattered the Yorkist lines.
After this, it began to grow dark, and Warwick could see defeat approaching. His left wing was already in flight, and he therefore sounded the retreat and withdrew his centre from the field, drawing them up in a tight defensive position between Sandridge and Cheapside Farm, to the north of St Albans. Here he remained, fighting on until dusk fell.
Those of his army who remained in the field, hard-pressed, looked in vain for the Earl to return with reinforcements. The Lancastrians were causing confusion and it was impossible to ward off their onslaughts. But Warwick was preoccupied with disciplining his raw recruits, who made up the larger part of his army; many had deserted during the battle because they had not been adequately fed. The Earl had indeed tried to march his centre south to rejoin the fighting, but was thwarted by some of his captains, who urged him to withdraw altogether from the field and make for London. Although Warwick stubbornly insisted on relieving his men, by the time he got to them his left wing on Bernard’s Heath were already fleeing the battlefield, running in panic in all directions, with enemy soldiers in grim pursuit who butchered the Yorkists when they caught them. Whethamstead, who was at the abbey of St Albans at the time of the battle and gives the most detailed account of it, says that those who escaped did so under cover of darkness. At the sight of the carnage, more of Warwick’s inexperienced recruits ran for their lives.
As it was now dark and useless to struggle on further, and as it was obvious that the Lancastrians had scored a decisive victory – in fact, it was to be their most decisive victory of the war – Warwick sounded the retreat and withdrew the remnants of his army in an orderly manner from the field. He then marched west through the night with a force of 4000 men, aiming to link up with Edward of York. He left behind him a battlefield strewn with 2–4000 dead. Sir John Grey was among them.
After the battle, Henry VI was found seated under an oak tree, smiling to see the discomfiture of the Yorkists. Beside him stood the men Warwick had appointed to guard him, Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriell. Lancastrian officers immediately arrested them, but the King promised them that he would be merciful. Then he was escorted to the tent of Lord Clifford, where he was reunited with his wife and son. He rejoiced to see them after so many months apart, and embraced and kissed them, thanking God for bringing them back to him.
The people of St Albans, however, were horrified by the Yorkist defeat and its implications for them. ‘Gregory’ blamed it on Warwick’s raw recruits, and the incompetence of his scouts, who had failed to warn him of the proximity of the Lancastrian army. Waurin and others held Lovelace to blame. Fortunately, most of the peers in the Earl’s army had escaped; only the Lords Bonville, Berners and Charlton, and Warwick’s brother John Neville had been taken prisoner.
On 18 February, at the Queen’s request, the seven-year-old Prince, wearing a soldier’s brigandine of purple velvet, received his father’s blessing and was then knighted by him. Then came thirty others, who were dubbed knight by the Prince. Trollope