Page 49 - History of War - Issue 10-14

TOWTON

It has been said that Edward
07 ordered his men to give no
quarter, and not even the commoners
are spared. A patch of land on the
battlefi eld’s western edge becomes
such a killing fi eld it is dubbed Bloody
It’sabrutalslaughteras Meadow, while the Cock Beck is
03 tens of thousands of heavily littered with so many corpses that
armed men batter one another with men can cross the water on a bridge
polearms, maces, war-hammers and of bodies.
swords.Somanydiethatthefreezing
ground is soon carpeted with corpses
and men slip and slide dangerously
amidthegore.Ifamanstumbles,his
chancesofsurvivalareslim.

More of the nobility fi ghts
04 for the red rose than the
white, and with their full-time
warriors and heavier numbers
the Lancastrians begin gaining
ground, possibly forcing back
the Yorkist left and wheeling the
battle lines on their axis. Edward
strides around the battlefi eld like a
mythical giant, but the Yorkist line
still waivers.

The arrival of Norfolk’s men
06 proves pivotal and Lancastrian
leaders such as Somerset along with ‘the
Flying Earl’ of Wiltshire, as well as Exeter
and Devon, gallop from the fi eld. When
the Lancastrian troops see their leaders’
standards withdrawing from the fray,
they break line and run.

With Fauconberg’s arrow
02 storm causing heavy
casualties – men-at-arms no longer
carried shields – the Lancastrians are
forced to cede their strong defensive
position and move down the slope to
attack. The Yorkists move forward to
meet them.

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