Today in History: The Battle of Towton

On this day (March 29) Edward IV of the House of York won a crushing victory over the House of Lancaster at the Battle of Towton. The inability of Henry VI (Lancaster) to rule effectively due to a combination of his pious nature and his periodic bouts of insanity led to instability in England as rival factions sought to control the person of the king. Richard Duke of York convinced Parliament to make him Henry VI’s heir in 1460 which caused Queen Margaret of Anjou (Henry’s wife) to raise an army to assert her young son’s rights. Richard was killed in the Battle of Wakefield which passed all of his titles to his son, Edward. The Battle of Towton was fought to determine whether Edward (York) or Henry (Lancaster) would be king of England.

Towton was probably the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. The Lancaster’s, with 30-35,000 soldiers had strong defensive positions at Towton. Edward arrived on the battlefield without the badly needed support of the Duke of Norfolk. It was Palm Sunday and snow was falling with a strong wind blowing from the Yorkist lines toward Towton. The Yorkists took advantage of this to launch an archery attack on the defenders. The wind carried their arrows further than their typical range while suppressing return fire. Frustrated by this attack, the Lancastrians left their defensive positions and charged across the battlefield at the Yorkist.

They fought for hours with Norfolk eventually arriving to bolster Edward’s army bringing his strength up to 25-30,000 men. The Lancastrians were routed and thousands more of them died as they were cut down from behind. Many prisoners were also killed. In all 20,000 Lancastrians are thought to have died versus 8,000 Yorkists. The rivers were said to run red with blood for days afterward. Henry fled the country and Edward took the crown of England. He would rule for nine years.