The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [171]
Meanwhile, King Henry had sent a message pleading for a truce to be negotiated, as it was Palm Sunday on the morrow, but King Edward refused the offer. He knew that a contingent of the main Lancastrian army, under Somerset and Rivers, was waiting two miles away, ready to crush the Yorkists if they overcame Clifford and tried to cross the river, and that if this campaign was to be successful then he must persist. Accordingly, he sent in the Yorkist vanguard under the command of John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, which managed to push the Lancastrians back to the end of the bridge. Messengers raced back to inform King Edward what was happening and he, seeing that reinforcements would be required, marched the main body of his army to Ferrybridge and commanded his men to go to Suffolk’s aid, himself going on foot to fight with them.
At this point, in the midst of a violent struggle, the Lancastrians destroyed the bridge. The Yorkists, undeterred, built a narrow raft, intending to ferry their soldiers across, but it was seized by the enemy. Further furious fighting took place as the Yorkists made a successful but bloody attempt to recover it. Eventually they managed to cross the river a few miles upstream at Castleford, and set up camp on the other side amidst driving snow and freezing hail. In the end they had won the day, their victory having demonstrated to the enemy the new king’s superior qualities as a general; by continually reinforcing his vanguard he had achieved victory, knowing that to do so was critical at this stage. The Lancastrians, although they had fought furiously, had lacked sufficient reinforcements, although they did manage to make off with a great number of Yorkist horses whose owners were fighting on foot with their king.
Lord Clifford, however, had been killed in the fight. As the Yorkists crossed the Aire at Castleford, Fauconberg was the first to go over, at the head of the vanguard. Clifford tried to trap him on the farther bank, and there was an intense struggle on Brotherton Marshes. Clifford fought with heroic courage, but seeing that his men were surrounded and no match for the enemy, gave the order to retreat via the valley of Dintingdale and the village of Saxton; he was by then so shattered with exhaustion that he unwisely loosened his gorget, and as he rode off a headless arrow embedded itself in his exposed throat and he died in great suffering. Edward had neither forgiven nor forgotten Clifford’s brutal murder of young Rutland after Wakefield, and would have considered his brother’s death well avenged.
That night, King Edward lodged at Pontefract Castle. At dawn on 29 March – Palm Sunday – both armies awoke to find themselves in the midst of a snowstorm. Shortly afterwards the Yorkists began their march north, and at eleven o’clock in the morning encamped on the hill south of the village of Saxton, ten miles south of York, with their backs to the village. When Edward drew up his men in battle formation, their lines stretched for a mile along the ridge. At the same time the Lancastrians moved north from Tadcaster along the road from London, via Stutton and Cocksford, and took up their position half a mile to the north of the Yorkists on high ground a hundred feet above meadowland and the village of Towton, six miles north of Ferrybridge. Below them the land sloped gently down to the valley.
The armies were now facing each other across what would shortly be known as the ‘Bloody Meadow’ and a field which is still called North Acres. From an offensive point of view the Lancastrians were in a commanding position and seemingly had the advantage. Behind the Yorkist lines lay the road to London and, beyond that, the River Aire: the Yorkists could easily