On Palm Sunday, 29 March 1461, two English armies met on a windswept plateau between the villages of Saxton and Towton, about 10 miles southwest of York. They fought through a snowstorm until the Lancastrian army broke and was cut down as it fled. The victory secured the crown for the young Edward IV. Britannica and Historic England both call Towton the largest and bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses, although how many men fought and died there is still argued over. The date is in the Julian calendar, which England used until 1752; in today's Gregorian reckoning the battle fell on 7 April.
Two kings
In 1460 the Act of Accord made Richard, Duke of York, heir to the Lancastrian king Henry VI, cutting out Henry's son. Queen Margaret refused to accept it. York was killed at Wakefield at the end of December 1460, but his eldest son Edward won at Mortimer's Cross in February 1461. Although the Lancastrians beat the Earl of Warwick at St Albans on 17 February and freed Henry, London opened its gates to Edward and Warwick, and on 4 March Edward took the throne as Edward IV. England now had two kings, and, in the words of the Battlefields Trust, the matter could only be resolved on the battlefield.1
Edward marched north after Henry's army, which had withdrawn across the River Aire into Yorkshire. On 28 March the Lancastrians contested his crossing of the River Aire at Ferrybridge. The bridge was probably won when Edward sent a detachment to outflank its defenders, and the Lancastrian Lord Clifford was among the dead. A Tudor chronicler places a further clash at Dinting Dale, just east of Saxton. Like every date here, 28 and 29 March are given in the Julian calendar, then in use in England until 1752.2
Arrows in the snow
The Lancastrians, under the Duke of Somerset according to most accounts, held the high ground south of Towton, with the steep valley of the Cock Beck on their right. Snow was falling and the wind blew from behind the Yorkists. Hall's Chronicle, followed by Historic England and HistoryOfWar.org, tells how Fauconberg's archers used it: their arrows carried farther than usual, while the Lancastrian arrows, shot into the wind and snow, fell short. HistoryOfWar.org warns that the story may be an embellished version of a simpler contemporary report of the wind. Rather than stand and be shot down, the Lancastrians advanced to fight hand to hand.3
The turning point came with Yorkist reinforcements. According to HistoryOfWar.org, the Duke of Norfolk's men came up along the Ferrybridge road on the Yorkist right; Norfolk himself, a sick man who died within a year, may not have reached the field, but his fresh troops were enough to turn the tide, and the Lancastrian line began to give way.4
The rout and the dead
The flight was worse than the battle. The fugitives ran toward the Cock Beck, where the crossing was difficult and many were caught or drowned; the low ground there is still called Bloody Meadow. Historic England records that orders were reputedly given to grant no quarter, so that more nobles than usual were killed rather than held for ransom, and Archaeology magazine likewise notes that historical sources suggest both sides ordered that no quarter be given. Lord Dacre was among the Lancastrian dead.5
The numbers are where the sources part company. The heralds counted 28,000 dead. Historic England notes it may include the men killed at Ferrybridge and Dinting Dale; the Neville chronicler gives a far lower 9,000, and HistoryOfWar.org judges any attempt to estimate the dead fairly futile when the size of the armies is unknown. On the size of the armies, Historic England gives a modern estimate of around 80,000 men with the Lancastrians the larger; HistoryOfWar.org reports modern estimates ranging from about 10,000 to a more generally accepted high of about 50,000; and the Battlefields Trust calls the chronicle figures grossly exaggerated and thinks the Lancastrians were probably the smaller army.6
In 1996 construction workers at Towton uncovered a mass grave. Researchers of the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service and the University of Bradford excavated it, and their report, Blood Red Roses, records the bones of at least 39 individuals, according to Archaeology magazine.7
A throne secured
Towton made Edward IV king in fact as well as in name. Henry VI, Margaret and their son escaped, so the Lancastrian cause survived and the wars flared up again. How the House of York itself lost the crown is told in our article on the Battle of Bosworth Field. A stone memorial cross known as Dacre's Cross, set in its present position in the early 20th century, stands on the battlefield today. Other great fights of the age are in our guide to the most famous medieval battles.8
