#battle of towton

[une-sanz-pluis]

Not only had a significant section of the country, notably the Londoners and many in the south-east, lost faith in the Lancastrian king, but they had also become alienated from the Lancastrian cause itself as represented by the queen and her son. An alternative king had now become acceptable to many people of influence and standing in the country. A question still remains as to whether Margaret of Anjou was the cause of this situation, as her enemies maintained, or whether she was rather the victim of her circumstances. When it came to actual physical fighting, as a woman she was in a weak position, and she was no match for the challenge posed by the young, dynamic soldier, Edward, earl of March, whose success at Towton on 29 March 1461 clinched the Yorkist victory. Margaret, with her husband and her son, awaited news of the outcome of the battle from the safety of the city of York and, on hearing of the Lancastrian defeat, fled north over the border to Scotland.

Diana Dunn, "The Queen at War: The Role of Margaret of Anjou in the Wars of the Roses" in War and Society in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (ed. Diana Dunn, University of Liverpool Press, 2000)

[nightbringer24]

My favourite morbid historical fact is how several skulls recovered from the battle of Towton, one of the battles of the English Wars of the Roses, from the defeated and routed Lancastrian forces have a near perfectly square hole in the sides of their skull.

Many of the skulls had much worse injuries suffered:

This one, Towton 25, had 8 separate blows to the head in total.

But the single square hole in the side of the skull, sometimes unofficially called 'the Towton tap', could only have come from a swung horseman's hammer, against the fleeing foot soldier's head.

[whencyclopedia]

Henry VI of England

Henry VI of England ruled as king from 1422 to 1461 CE and again from 1470 to 1471 CE. Succeeding his father Henry V of England (r. 1413-1422 CE), Henry VI was crowned the king of France in 1431 CE but he could not prevent a French revival led by Charles VII of France (r. 1422-1461 CE) and such figures as Joan of Arc (c. 1412-1431 CE). The Hundred Years' War (1337-1453 CE) was ultimately lost and with it all England's territory in France except Calais. Back in England, the king's weakness of character and mind, and the intense rivalry between his barons led to the conflict known as the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487 CE) between the rival houses of Lancaster and York. After an episode of insanity, Henry VI had, in effect, a regent, Richard, the Duke of York in 1454 CE. Despite military victories by Henry's wife, Queen Margaret, the king was ultimately deposed by Richard's son Edward in 1461 CE. Henry would make a brief return to the throne in 1470 CE before Edward, now Edward IV of England (1461-1470 & 1471-1483 CE), was once more victorious on the battlefield and able to declare himself king for a second time. Henry was then murdered in the Tower of London in May 1471 CE.

Succession

Henry was born on 6 December 1421 CE in Windsor Castle, the son of Henry V of England and Catherine of Valois (l. 1401 - c. 1437 CE), the daughter of Charles VI of France. The reign of Henry's father was short but brilliant. Pressing his claim to the French throne, which had started with Edward III of England (r. 1327-1377 CE), Henry V had won a famous victory against a French army at the Battle of Agincourt in October 1415 CE and then conquered Normandy between 1417 and 1419 CE. This was to be the peak of English fortunes during the on-off conflict between the two countries known to history as the Hundred Years' War. The victories allowed Henry V to sign the 1420 CE treaty of Troyes with Charles VI of France (r. 1380-1422 CE) which made Henry the French king's heir while the blood heir, the Dauphin Charles, was disinherited. All this happened while France was split between two rival factions: the Burgundians and the Armagnacs.

The English barons would entangle themselves in a spiral of competition to see who could hold most power while Henry remained a minor.

Henry V died, probably of dysentery on 31 August 1422 CE at Bois de Vincennes in France. The English king had missed the chance to become the king of France by less than two months as Charles VI died on 21 October 1422 CE. Prince Henry, not even one year old, became the new king of England and the youngest to hold such a title before or since. He would not receive his coronation until 6 November 1429 CE in Westminster Abbey, officially becoming Henry VI of England. In the meantime, the infant had two regents, appointed by Henry V before his death: Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (l. 1390-1447 CE) for England and John, Duke of Bedford (l. 1389-1435 CE) for the territories in France, where, at least according to the Treaty of Troyes, he was also now the king. Another important figure was the king's great-uncle, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester. These three men and others would entangle themselves in a spiral of competition to see who could hold most power while Henry remained a minor.

The Wars of the Roses were not over yet, though. Edward, the Duke of York's son, backed by the Earl of Warwick, was promoted as a replacement to his father and to King Henry. When Edward won the bloody Battle of Towton in March 1461 CE, the largest and longest battle in English history, this is indeed what transpired. Henry VI was deposed, and he, Queen Margaret, and their son Edward (b. 13 October 1453 CE) all fled to Scotland. Edward of York, just 19 years of age, was crowned Edward IV of England at Westminster Abbey on 28 June 1461 CE. Even this was still not the end of the civil war, merely a pause.

Continue reading...

[heather123fan-blog]

medieval women week day 2: Favorite non-Queen or Queen-adjacent royal woman: Jacquetta of Luxembourg Duchess of Bedford and Mother to Queen Elizabeth Woodville

Jacquetta of Luxembourg was the eldest child of the French Count of St Pol; her family descended from Charlemagne and were cousins to the Holy Roman Emperor. She grew up with war between France and England raging around her.

John, Duke of Bedford was the youngest son of King Henry IV. Having lost his wife to plague in 1432, he arranged to marry the seventeen-year-old Jacquetta, who was his social equal by her birth. Although married for two years they were childless when John died in September 1435. The King instructed Jacquetta to come to England and ordered Sir Richard Woodville, to arrange it.

However, Jacquetta and Richard fell in love, but Richard was a poor knight, far below Jacquetta in social status. Nonetheless, they married secretly thus thwarting any plans King Henry may have had to marry her off to a wealthy English lord. Theirs was a morganatic marriage, where one of the partners, most often the wife, was socially inferior. Henry was enraged and fined the couple £1000. He did however allow their heirs to inherit, which was unusual for morganatic marriages in England.

Being the widow of Henry V’s brother and aunt to the King, royal protocol gave Jacquetta the highest rank at court of any female except Henry’s wife, Margaret of Anjou, to whom Jacquetta was related by marriage. She even ‘outranked’ the King’s mother and was referred to as the ‘Duchess of Bedford,’ retaining the title from her first marriage. Richard and Jacquetta lived in their manor house at Grafton Regis near Northampton producing fourteen children, the eldest, Elizabeth being born in 1437.

In 1448 Richard was created Lord Rivers: his advancement ensured his family supported Henry VI in the dynastic feuding of the Wars of the Roses. The situation changed with the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton in 1461 and the seizure of the throne by Edward IV. By the spring of 1464, Jacquetta’s daughter Elizabeth was a widow, her Lancastrian husband having been killed in 1461. Within a few months, Elizabeth was married to the young King Edward IV.

Jacquetta died in 1472 aged 56 and was buried at Grafton, though no record of her tomb survives. Recently, one legacy has come to light. Research by gene specialists indicates that Jacquetta was a carrier of the rare Kell-Antigen-Mcleod syndrome causing impaired fertility and psychotic behavioural changes in the male descendants of the family.

Written by Michael Long. I have over 30 years experience teaching History in schools and examiner History to A level. My specialist area is England in the 15th and 16th centuries. I am now a freelance writer and historian.

[heartofstanding]

Seeing your views on Margaret of Anjou, I was told that Margaret of Anjou was firm, brave, but too radical, revengeful to the enemy and extreme political measures, which led to her failure. I want to know your views on the reasons for her failure?

Hi, sorry this took so long! I've been busy and this got very long. The short answer to all three, however, is that she had a shit-ton of bad luck.

The slightly extended version of is:

The Treaty of Tours which brought her to England had terrible terms for the English and thus terribly unpopular. As the face of the treaty, she was unfairly blamed for.

England was losing the Hundred Years War, badly. Her marriage was meant to bring peace but the only peace to be gained was through defeat and capitulation. Margaret was blamed for failing to live up to unrealistic expectations.

There was something of a succession crisis, the long wait for Margaret to conceive and give birth to an heir did nothing to easeit and only added to her unpopularity.

The long wait for an heir meant there was fertile ground for rumours and gossip, specifically the idea that she was an adulteress and Edward of Lancaster a bastard.

Henry VI's sudden mental breakdown, (probable) limited recovery and imprisonment left Margaret as the figurehead of Lancastrian rule and resistance. It made her the target for Yorkist propaganda attacks.

Following the Battle of Towton, the Lancastrians were in a weak position to negotiate with potential allies, meaning they made great concessions that were then seized upon by Yorkists to turn the general public against the Lancastrian side.

Severe weather hampered the Lancastrians on at least three occasions: Towton, Barnet and Margaret's return to England in 1471.

She lost. Yorkist rule continued to denigrate her and the Tudors weren't interested in challenging that idea.

Want more detail?

The Problem of Determining Personality

To start with, we don't know a whole lot about Margaret's personality. We don't know a whole lot about any medieval individual's personality, the evidence simply isn't there to tell us about their personal thoughts beyond brief flashes of insight. It's a fraught issue, as Rosemary Horrox points out, with reference to Margaret herself.

We also have to contend with the layers and layers of propagandistic narratives. Again, this is true for almost every figure in medieval history (cf. A. J. Pollard on Elizabeth Woodville). When we shift through the Lancastrian, French, Yorkist, Tudor and more narratives about Margaret, how do we know which one is telling the truth? The virago Yorkist writers derided is unlikely to be the true Margaret but that doesn't mean that the tireless heroine of French writers is the "true Margaret" either. Both images are stereotypes, both come from biased sources. Nor does acknowledging that the image of Margaret as the virago was a propagandistic creation that served Yorkist interests mean that Margaret must have been the exact opposite and she was really sugar, spice and all things nice.

These type of stereotypes are attractive to historians and historical fiction writers alike. They're simple but dramatic. They work well with other stereotyped figures, with "accepted" versions of history that are accepted because they've been repeated so often that they now seem true even if the evidence isn't there or doesn't tell us the things we think we know. It produces a simple, coherent narrative which confirms our own biases. The image of Margaret as radical, revenge-seeking and extreme is often tied to the narrative of Richard, Duke of York as a noble, hard-working and good man who was forced to rebel against his king (who is not rightful king, of course, because that's York) due to the plots and schemes of Margaret and her cronies. Margaret's inability and unwillingness to acknowledge and accept York's greatness becomes the reason for her defeat. She's just too petty and self-serving. She brings it upon herself. She could have been safe - but she unfairly and evilly attacked York and he was simply forced by her actions to rebel.

I don't find that view of York convincing. I don't find that view of Margaret convincing. It's too simplistic, too much of a children's tale where the good guys are so good and the bad guys so bad that the bad guy forces the good guy into any acts that are morally dubious. There's more than a little misogyny in it too, blaming a woman for the actions of a man.

"The Bad Queen" and Queenship

Margaret has long been seen as the "bad queen", a woman who abjectly failed as queenship and was the reason why the Wars of the Roses broke out. I've already discussed some of the issues with that view but I want to talk about a couple of other points.

One: the Lancastrians lost, which cemented Margaret's reputation. As Katherine J. Lewis has pointed out, if the Lancastrians had been successful, Margaret would have likely been celebrated for her bravery and steadfast loyalty that saw the restoration of her husband and son. Instead, they lost and the Yorkist narrative about her became the norm.

Two: Margaret appears to have behaved as a conventional queen for as long as possible. She did not arrive in England and immediately begin she-wolfing it up and instead tried to behave in a way that lived up to gender expectations, even when she was forced to move beyond them (cf. Helen Maurer's comment here).

Three: when we talk about the ideals of queenship, we have to realise that while these were kind of a job description, they were subjective and often based in misogynistic "ideals" of womanhood. e.g. "motherhood" reduces the queen to her reproductive ability and this was something she had little to no control over. An infertile queen is often deemed to have "failed" at the "most vital" aspect of queenship by modern historians and commentators (for an alternate view, see Kristen Geaman on Anne of Bohemia) but very rarely is there an acknowledgement of how misogynistic this standard is.

Margaret was not a popular queen before the Wars of the Roses began. She became queen in a situation where she was set up to inevitably fail. She arrived in England to pageants hailing her as a bringer of peace, as the figure to end the war with France, but the terms of the treaty that included her marriage contract ensured that any benefits she could bring were minimal. There was a short, 21-month peace, a paltry dowry, the outlay of considerable expense to bring her to England, and her father had little to no influence with Charles VII of France to be able to help any future negotiations.

Another factor was that the surrender of Maine and Anjou came to be widely associated with her marriage. It wasn't an official condition of the marriage but it does appear to have been promised at the same time. It was disastrously unpopular in England and it very likely inflamed tensions within the nobility. Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset held large amounts of territory in Maine and Anjou and was made Lieutenant of France to make up for these losses, which offended his predecessor in the role, Richard, Duke of York. It has been argued, though I'm not convinced, that York continuing in the role would have at least maintained, if not improved, the English position in France instead of the massive decline that followed.

None of this was Margaret's fault. She was 14 years old when her marriage was negotiated. She had no role in negotiations beyond the symbolic. There is also some thought that the English side was hamstrung by Henry VI's instructions to make a peace at any and all cost. We don't know how she felt about marrying Henry or about the surrender of Maine and Anjou beyond speculation based on preconceived ideas of what she was "like". We don't know what she was really like to guess how she felt about these things. And even if she was in favour of the surrender of Maine and Anjou, she was still a teenager when it happened. Are we really saying that a bunch of experienced adult men fell over themselves to do exactly what a teenage girl wanted even though it was disastrously bad for England?

Margaret had basically walked into a scenario where she had very little chance of being the peace-bringer she was expected to be and her popularity suffered as a result. She wasn't the one making choices - at best, she might have influenced others to make choices, but most of the problems with France that she was blamed for began before she set foot in England.

The Succession Crisis

Margaret also walked into a succession crisis.

Typically, the succession crisis tends to be talked about as occurring from after the death of Henry's last paternal uncle and his heir, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, in 1447 but I would suggest that there was an underlying anxiety about the succession that predated Gloucester's death. Since 1435, Henry VI's one and only heir had been his ageing and childless uncle Gloucester (before 1435, Gloucester's elder brother, also childless, had been the heir), who was not terribly popular with Henry and his court. On one hand, Henry and his favourites did not want Gloucester to become king because they disliked him and his policies. From another perspective, Gloucester was getting on in years, childless, unmarried and possibly in poor health, so if he became king, he wouldn't be expected to reign long and if he managed to produce an heir before his death, the chance are this heir would still be in single digits when he succeeded the throne. If there was no child, the question of the succession was wide open. As it was, Gloucester died two years after Margaret's arrival and there was no longer a clear heir.

I know that you're probably thinking, "York, though. It's York." Well, yes and no. York probably had the claim with the least complications. He was Henry's closest male relative who had not descended through the female line or through a legitimised bastard line. But there were were two other lines that had viable claims to the throne: Somerset and Exeter.

Exeter's claim derived from from Elizabeth of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt and his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, making her the full sister of Henry IV. Somerset's claim was derived from John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset who was the eldest son of Gaunt and his third wife, Katherine Swynford. The Beauforts had been born bastards but legitimised by both the Pope and by Richard II. This legitimisation did not contain any clauses barring them the throne (this was done under Letters Patent in Henry IV's reign), quite possibly because Richard appears to have chronically avoided making any pronouncements on the succession and quite possibly because the there was little reason to imagine the Beauforts in contention for the throne.

Somerset was probably Henry's preferred heir. Since Exeter derived his claim through the female line, naming him heir meant that the female line counted in the succession and if it did, York had a better claim to the throne than Exeter and Henry, as he was descended from Lionel of Antwerp (Gaunt's elder brother) through the female line. It risked exposing the weakness at the centre of the Lancastrian claim to the throne which would in turn would reveal the reigns of Henry's father and grandfather were illegitimate. York seems to have never been particularly close to Henry; as Michael Bennett pointed out about Richard II (who, like Henry, faced a similarly uncertain and difficult succession), it's hard to love your winding cloth. But Somerset was a favourite, a Lancastrian from a cadet line and Henry's closest living paternal relative who was of legitimate birth.

These competing claims and the uncertainty about who would succeed caused anxiety. If Henry died childless, who would become king? How would these claims be settled? Would there be civil war and strife? What would it mean if the Lancastrian dynasty came to an end and a new one began?

So it's easy to imagine the pressure on Margaret to conceive and bear a child was almost certainly immediate on her arrival to England. Bearing a child would help ease these anxieties considerably, continuing the Lancastrian dynasty, putting to rest any civil discord caused by competing claim and ensuring a peaceful succession. In view of the unpopularity of the marriage to Margaret, it would also be seen as having a legitimising the marriage.

The Long Wait For An Heir

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. It was eight years between Margaret's arrival in England and the birth of Edward of Lancaster.

We don't know why it took so long. There's speculation of course - a delay in consummating the marriage due to Margaret's youth, the stress and pressure of the situation, Henry being too pious for sex, Margaret undergoing rigorous fasting as part of religious devotion, Henry requiring a sex coach, Henry being the medieval equivalent of asexual and/or sex repulsed, or there being some subfertility issue. There's no real evidence, one way or the other.

Henry VI's sexuality and piety are one of those sort of myths of the Wars of the Roses, embedded in the narrative as a "truth" but lacking contemporary evidence (as Bertram Wolffe points out, there is little direct, contemporary evidence for Henry's piety, most appears in retrospect as part of an explanation for his failed kingship and part propaganda for the (Tudor-sponsored) efforts to canonise him as a saint). The evidence of a sex coach is based a historian failing to understand how a medieval king's bedrooms worked and going, "we don't know that these people in attendance on the king at night in his bedroom left when he had sex with his wife so... sex coach? Please buy my book!" We don't know that there was a delay in consummation or that Margaret was considered too young for sex (for comparison's sake, Henry's grandmother, Mary de Bohun, conceived her first son - Henry V - around her 15th birthday). Margaret herself complained of poor health caused by rigorous fasting during times of "many sufferings and tribulations" but we don't know that she was fasting throughout these early years. We don't have anything like medical records for Margaret (or Henry) to know how she tried to manage this childlessness.

But we generally don't know why a medieval couple was childless. Where we do have evidence, it's often speculative (e.g. Kristen Geaman's work on Anne of Bohemia suggests Anne suffered at least one miscarriage based on a letter she dictated).

What we do know is that Henry and Margaret never attempted to promote the image of having a chaste marriage, even though it would have provided a bulwark against criticism of their childless state - they were choosing the holy, pious option. The birth of Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI's joyous reaction to the news of Margaret's pregnancy also suggest that they were trying for a baby. I think this suggests there was some kind of uncontrollable issue, possibly medical, causing their childlessness than it being a deliberate choice to assign "blame" for. It was, in short, just bad luck.

The long wait for an heir meant the anxieties around the succession and continuation of the Lancastrian were not quickly eased. In some ways, they might have been exacerbated. Before his marriage to Margaret, there was no reason to believe that Henry would struggle to have children when he married (or at least, there is no evidence this was the case). Once married, though, Henry's continued childlessness began to appear to be an issue that couldn't be easily or quickly resolved, perhaps even being a permanent issue.

We know, too, that their childlessness was used to criticise them from as early as 1446, and Margaret was the chief target of this criticism. An example of this comes from 1448, where one felon in Canterbury gaol accused his neighbour in the isle of Thanet of saying:

oure quene was non abyl to be Quene of Inglond but and he were a pere of or a lord of this ream he woulde be on thaym that shuld hepe putte her doun for because that sche bereth no child and because that we have pryns in this land

There does seem to have been some view that in marrying Margaret, Henry had betrayed his promise to marry a daughter of the Count of Armagnac and the lack of children from their marriage could be seen as a sign of God's disapproval. It would have added to the unpopularity Margaret was already facing.

While the news of Margaret's pregnancy does seem to have been greeted with joy, the long wait for such news had exposed Margaret to ample criticism and hatred. It made it easy for the allegations of Margaret's adultery and Edward of Lancaster's illegitimacy to take root. It meant that when Henry VI had his breakdown, there was no son who could serve even nominally as a regent for him and the question of who was to govern while Henry was incapable exposed the conflicts between York and Henry and York and Somerset.

Conflict with York

A lot of the conflict between York and Lancaster began with York's quarrel with Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Somerset was considered a favourite of Henry VI and Margaret but we don't know how much Margaret was responsible for his position in comparison to Henry or how much York's quarrel with him was really him quarrelling with the crown without openly doing so and risking a charge of treason. It does seem likely, imo, that Margaret had sympathies with Somerset given her husband evidently trusted him, but we don't know if that's true and even if it is, it was Henry VI who ostensibly promoted Somerset.

Despite the retrospective reading we put on the events leading up to the outbreak of war with the First Battle of St. Albans, we lack surviving evidence for Margaret and York being in direct hostility to each other. As Helen Maurer says:

If there is no concrete evidence of hostility between Margaret prior to the crisis of 1453-54, there is some indication that they were on reasonably good terms. York's recent biographer, P.A. Johnson goes so far to characterise Margaret as a 'politically neutral figure', whose attitude prior to January 1454 was 'if anything sympathetic to York'.

There is no evidence that York opposed Margaret's marriage to Henry. We have evidence of Margaret intervening in a property dispute in York's favour and giving York and his servants' generous New Year's gifts. The gifts to his servants in 1453 were of the same value as she gave the to the servants of Somerset and Cardinal Kemp so there was no deliberate slight there. In 1447, they were higher than the gifts she gave the Duke of Gloucester's servants (although alienated from Henry VI, Gloucester did outrank York so you'd expect his servants to get the more valuable gifts), the archbishop of Canterbury and duchesses of Bedford and Buckingham. Maurer speculates this was to reassure York in the face of his appointment to the lieutenancy of Ireland. We also have evidence of an outwardly cordial relationship between Margaret and Cecily in the early 1450s. It is not enough to suggest Margaret and Cecily were friends or what they really felt about each other but it does suggest they were both invested in keeping up at least the facade of cordiality.

The relationship between Margaret and York did sour some point. It's impossible to know what was the fatal blow was or who was the first to turn hostile. It may have been Margaret's attempt to claim the regency when Henry VI suffered his breakdown, it may have been York's imprisonment of Somerset during his protectorship, it may have been when York lost the protectorship, it may have been the rumours of York's involvement in William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk's murder in 1450.

Maurer notes that Margaret probably viewed the First Battle of St. Albans as an alarming attack on Henry's royal authority by York. She would not be wrong to do so. York may have felt justified and may have been justified in taking action to remove the individual he saw as a threat to his own authority - Somerset - but he raised his banners and fought a battle against his king. A battle where the king, Margaret's husband, had been injured. Regardless of whether or not York was "justified" or whether or not Henry pardoned him, his behaviour was, actually, treasonous (and it is likely he was only pardoned because Henry felt forced into it).

We can argue about the semantics and justifications for York's behaviour but it doesn't really matter when it comes to Margaret's reaction. York had raised an army against his sovereign and fought against his sovereign's own forces in a battle where his sovereign was wounded in the neck. There is no world in which Margaret would not see York as a threat to her family after this. If we argue that York was justified in this action because he perceived (correctly or not) that Somerset was a threat to him, then we must also accept that Margaret had every justification in viewing York as a threat to her family.

I tend to get the feeling that by 1456, Margaret and York were both in the same position. They were at a point where they viewed each other as a threat to the safety of their position and family. Whether one was more justified than the other is impossible to say. It's likely, though, that York held considerably more responsibility that the myth of him as the noble-hearted man forced to rebel to save himself.

The Problem of Henry VI

Another factor in "who do we blame for the Wars of the Roses" is Henry VI himself. We don't know when he began ruling in his own right and what periods, if any, he was unable to rule beyond the breakdown of 1453-54. We don't really know if the criticisms of his favourites, i.e. Suffolk and Somerset, were really criticisms of individuals who were ruling for him or if they were more in line with the attacks on the favourites of Edward II and Richard II. In the case of Richard II, the Lords Appellant maintained the image of loyally serving Richard while purging his household, threatening him with deposition, executing his friends, and placing themselves in positions of power by claiming that they were merely rescuing the king from the influence and bad advice of his evil councillors. This doesn't mean they didn't also have a grudge against the king's favourites, that their attack on them didn't really matter (after all, they killed a lot of them), but by focusing on the favourites, they maintained the image of loyalty to the king which helped them sidestep a charge of treason (though they also forced Richard to pardon them) and maintain popular support.

All of that is just to say that this may very well have been the case with Henry VI. York's attacks on Somerset (and maybe Suffolk, since he was rumoured to be involved in Suffolk's downfall and murder) may have simply been an attack on Somerset, perhaps justified or not, but York may have also been using Somerset as a proxy for Henry.

If he did, his quarrel could, at its core, actually be with Henry. It also raises the possibility that, after Somerset's death at the First Battle of St Albans, Margaret was simply the last one standing between York and Henry and so became the proxy for his attacks on Henry. This only intensified once York gained custody of Henry, and Margaret, with Edward of Lancaster, was out of reach and leading Lancastrian resistance.

We know that Tudor efforts to rehabilitate and canonise Henry tended to place more blame onto Margaret to absolve Henry of blame. All of this means that in terms of "how responsible, really, was Margaret for the policy decisions that alienated York?", we simply don't know. She may have served as a receptacle for blame (though personally I think she was more involved than not) or been the prime actor but we can't negate the possibility that some of the things she was blamed for were actually Henry's fault.

On the subject of Henry's mental illness... obviously, neither he or anyone else are to blame for it. Certainly, no one wakes up and goes "I know, now I shall have a deliberating mental illness that will ruin the kingdom, I totally want and will this to happen". But it did make things... very difficult. The medieval monarchy just wasn't set up to deal with a king with a severe, incapacitating mental illness (this was also the case with Charles VI of France). It tended to aggravate factionalism as nobles jostled against each other for power and influence. It placed the queen in an unenviable position of trying to protect her family and govern for the king while also appearing politically neutral, above factionalism and still living up to the ideals of queenship and only wielding soft power. Even if Margaret had managed to be appointed as regent for Henry, the case of Isabeau of Bavaria who had been regent for Charles VI suggests she wouldn't have fared much better.

On top of that, Henry's breakdown came at a bad time. He was unable to recognise Edward of Lancaster as his son upon his birth, which may well have provided some of the initial fodder for the rumours of Edward's illegitimacy. Once again: none of this was Henry's fault but it all had an impact on how much Margaret was viewed and blamed for Lancastrian failures.

Military Defeat

Margaret was widely regarded as the head of the Lancastrians and very likely this was true during the times when Henry VI was unable to rule (i.e. due to mental illness or breakdown, during his imprisonment by Edward IV). However, she was not a military commander and there is no evidence she ever donned armour or was present at any battle (we know she was in Scotland at the Battle of Wakefield, not personally overseeing any indignities heaped on Richard, Duke of York's corpse, for example). When she was travelling with the army when a battle took place, she probably stayed nearby in reasonably secure locations, such as a castle or abbey, a short distance away from the battlefield.

Responsibility for the Lancastrians' military defeats should be laid at the feet of those who actually commanded the Lancastrian forces, not Margaret. We don't know if the Lancastrians had better commanders to say that was Margaret's fault for not appointing better ones (and given the position was often granted to those of high rank, this seems likely - to appoint a man of greater ability but lesser rank risked disaster, as the narratives about the French defeat at Agincourt tells us). This is something more down to misfortune than any choice Margaret could have made. We know that Margaret had wanted to return to France following the news of the Earl of Warwick's defeat and death at the Battle of Barnet but was overruled or convinced otherwise by other Lancastrians. Had she gotten her way, the Lancastrians may never have gotten another chance (or at least a better chance) to challenge Edward IV but they probably would have survived.

There were also elements of bad luck in the Lancastrians' military defeats. The Lancastrian forces at Towton were blinded by the snow and their arrows ineffective against the wind. At Barnet, a heavy fog caused confusion amongst the troops. Storms delayed Margaret and Edward of Lancaster's return to England in 1471; had they arrived earlier they might have been able to take a better position or unite with Jasper Tudor's forces and won the Battle of Tewkesbury. Had the weather been against Edward IV and the Yorkist forces at Towton or at Barnet, had Edward IV's return been delayed by storms - well, the Lancastrians might have won.

This isn't to say that nothing was Margaret's fault. Margaret's delay at returning to England during the readeption was also partially credited to her own mistrust of the situation (a fair if ultimately fatal judgement, given the risk involved to her son and Warwick's untrustworthiness as an ally). The delay meant that Warwick struggled to muster forces under his own authority to deal with Yorkist resistance. This situation wasn't all her fault, though. Her delay was also caused by Louis XII of France, who had refused to let her leave until he got guarantees from Warwick about English support against Burgundy and the storms mentioned above. Another factor is that Warwick was simply reaping what he had sowed - very few Lancastrians had reason to trust the man who had been the chief ally of York against Henry VI, who had put Edward IV on the throne, then attempted to crown George, Duke of Clarence before allying himself with Margaret. He also seems to have been heavily involved in the creation and promotion of the stories slandering Margaret and her son.

We should also be wary of suggesting, as B. M. Cron does, that Margaret of Anjou was partly to blame for her son's defeat and death at Tewkesbury because she didn't let him fight in battle before Tewkesbury. For a start, Lancastrian hopes rested on Edward's survival. He was the viable alternative to Yorkist rule, the figure around whom opposition could gather, and the future of the dynasty. Putting him at risk was a very bad decision. His death meant the end of Lancastrian hopes.

Secondly, Tewkesbury was the first major battle he was actually of an age to fight at. Was he supposed to fight at Towton when he was 8? Hedgeley Moor or Hexham when he was 11? Thirdly, from the few accounts of his time in exile, we know he was military-minded and dedicated to martial exercises so it seems he was prepared as much as was safely possible. Finally, it is unclear whether Edward engaged in the battle proper or whether he was killed attempting to escape when it became clear the Lancastrians had lost.

Summing Up

In short, there were a lot of factors in Margaret's failure and a lot of them compounded on other. Her initial unpopularity only grew as the the English position in France weakened and as the years went by with no sign of an heir. As unrest broke out and Henry was incapable of responding or ruling, Margaret became the de facto head of the Lancastrian court and the focal point for anger at the way things were being governed. Yorkist and later Tudor propaganda built on all these factors, depicting her as the central flaw in Lancastrian rule, the one reason for its failure.

We simply don't know what Margaret was really like. The image of her as a radical, extreme figure bent on revenge fits into narratives that imagines Richard, Duke of York was faultless in his actions, that she had pushed him to an extreme and he reacted in order to save his own life. The idea that Margaret could have felt similarly threatened by York's actions is never once considered, yet she had every reason to fear him.

Do I think Margaret was entirely the innocent in the Wars of the Roses? No. Of course not. But she probably was at fault for far less than is typically attributed to her.

[richmond-rex]

Hi, I want to know if Henry VII and Elizabeth of York got married to unite two families that had been hostile for many years, did the multiple rebellions of the York Party during the Tudor dynasty mean that this wish was thwarted? Or are these rebellious Yorkers mostly supporters of Richard III rather than Edward IV? How did the hundreds of English nobles who were exiled with Henry Tudor fare during the Tudor dynasty? Do they agree with the Tudor dynasty? I heard that many Yorkers expressed joy when Henry VIII ascended the throne?

Hello! @blackboar answered a similar ask (here) and I agree with most of their points. The purpose of Henry and Elizabeth's marriage was to unite two very specific rival claims which could (and did) mean more stability for the realm in the long run**. However, other claims were still around in the form of the cadet York branches headed by George of Clarence's children and the de la Poles (the children of Edward IV's sister) as well as the claim headed by the Duke of Buckingham. Most of the English political elite was already in support of Edward IV's direct heirs and by extension to Henry VII but ultimately anyone discontented with the Henry's regime could always support those other claims. That doesn't mean Elizabeth and Henry's marriage failed its purpose.

How did the hundreds of English nobles who were exiled with Henry Tudor fare during the Tudor dynasty?

They were restored to the positions they lost when they rebelled against Richard III and Henry VII granted offices/rewards to several of them. Most of Edward IV's councillors received a place in Henry VII's council too and were favoured by him.

Do they agree with the Tudor dynasty? I heard that many Yorkers expressed joy when Henry VIII ascended the throne?

Considering they remained almost two years with Henry in exile, yes. As to how Henry VII was perceived after he ascended the throne, the continuator of the Croyland Chronicle said that 'he [Henry] began to receive the praises of all as though he had been an angel sent down from heaven, through whom God had deigned to visit His people, and to deliver it from the evils with which it had hitherto, beyond measure, been afflicted.' This is not Croyland's opinion of Henry (as ricardians like to claim) but rather his retelling of the events and the actions of the people around him, very much punctuated by irony as well.

____________

** Although the political/ruling elite was already consistely united behind Edward IV, it's difficult to measure the feelings still surviving in the popular imagination. Henry VI was a very popular saint and his memory was intensely revered to the point that Edward IV tried to suppress his cult. There were likely some political aspects to it as every other cult dedicated to 'political martyrs' in that century did. Henry VII's reconciling discourse to the realm touched on feelings that were, presumably, still very much alive in popular memory. 20,000 or more englishmen died in a single battle between Lancaster and York (Towton) in the 1460s. I don't think people had completely recovered from the memory of those battles yet. We should never downsize the Wars of the Roses to an event that involved the ruling elites only. Common people lived and died in those wars and Edward IV, Warwick, Richard III and Henry VII all tried to dialogue with their aspirations and fears. So in a sense Henry VII's reconciling discourse was very much propaganda, but it most likely wasn't baseless propaganda rooted in no popular sentiment, as propaganda very rarely (if ever) is.

[natequarter]

the bloodiest battle being fought on english soil being the battle of towton boggles my mind... not in that it was a violent medieval battle but in that it is to this dat the deadliest war fought on english soil. that's not indicative of anything about medieval society so much as it speaks a lot to england as the home of an empire which has had very few battles fought in it in the modern day. as a general rule modern technology is more deadly and yet a battle fought in 1461 was the bloodiest battle to be fought in england. it's bizarre

[battlephase]

The Duelists of the Roses Character Profiles - Yorkists/The Whites Name: Christian ‘Seto’ Rosenkreuz  Deck Leader: Blue-Eyes White Dragon Location: Stonehenge, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “You’re here much sooner than I expected. I knew that Crawford would turn on us one day. But I didn’t expect the tide of battle to turn so soon. Actually, Crawford’s betrayal and the fall of the Yorkists matter not to me. All I hoped from this tiresome struggle was to find an opponent worthy of my attention! When I knew you’d been summoned I chose to wait. Each time a member of my Rose Crusaders fell before you I shivered in anticipation. Once you beat the final member I knew you were ready to face me! Long have I starved to best a duelist equal in power to me, hungered to best such an opponent in battle! You wish to have my Rose Card? Then take it from me! Face me in battle, Duelist!” Player Win Dialogue: “Well done, Duelist. I may have lost, but my heart sings with the joy of having faced you in battle.” Name: Weevil Underwood Deck Leader: Basic Insect Location: Chester, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “Hehehe. So, you’re the legendary Rose Duelist. Prepare to face the wrath of my Insect deck!” Player Win Dialogue: “Nooo! I lost! This can’t be happening!”

Name: Rex Raptor Deck Leader: Two-Headed King Rex Location: Tewkesbury, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “The Rose Duelist, eh? I’m not impressed. In fact, I’ll crush you to a pulp with my Dinosaur deck!” Player Win Dialogue: “What?! Me!? Lose?! I don’t believe it!” Name: Necromancer Deck Leader: Pumpking the King of Ghosts Location: Exeter, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “Oooh, my Zombie deck hungers for a taste of you.” Player Win Dialogue: “Argh! You’d be a fool if you think you’ve seen the last of me!” Name: Darkness Ruler Deck Leader: King of Yamimakai Location: St. Albans, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “You dare challenge the Dark deck of the Darkness Ruler?! Rose Duelist or not, you don’t stand a chance!” Player Win Dialogue: “No! How can it be? How could I lose!?” Name: Keith Deck Leader: Slot Machine Location: Towton, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “So, you’ve managed to beat a few minor duelists. Well let’s see how you fare against my Machine deck!” Player Win Dialogue: “I can’t believe you actually beat me! Me! The ‘Card Professor’ of the Rose Crusaders!” Name: Labyrinth Ruler Deck Leader: Monster Tamer Location: Newcastle, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “What brings you to this northernmost region? Lost? If you want some directions, you’ll have to beat me first!” Player Win Dialogue: “Unbelievable! You’ve won yourself a light to guide you out of this labyrinth!” Name: Lord Pegasus Crawford (Thomas Stanley) Deck Leader: Illusionist Faceless Mage Location: Lancashire, England Notes: Has a son that is being held hostage by Richard Slysheen (Richard III). Pre-Duel Dialogue: “Wow! So you’re the famed Rose Duelist! I am Pegasus Crawford, the Champion of the Northlands, the noblest of Yorkists, and master of the Rose Crusaders. I am also known to some as Thomas Stanley, or Lord Stanley to my friends. Seto has told me much about you, dear Duelist. Seto has taught me a thing or two about dueling. So, come on! Let’s duel!” Player Win Dialogue: “You must be joking! Me? Lose? Never! Oh dear... You might be stronger than Seto... I really enjoyed that! I’ve learned a lot from you. In fact, you’ve done wonders for my game! Oh, by the way: I’m afraid I don’t have any Rose Cards. Sorry.” Name: Ishtar Deck Leader: Witch of the Black Forest Location: Isle of Man, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “Amazing. I never thought you would reach the point where you could challenge me. Too bad that it all has to end here...” Player Win Dialogue: “I’m not surprised, you know. I knew I was destined for defeat. I can live with that.” Name: Richard Slysheen of York (Richard III) Deck Leader: Battle Steer Location: Bosworth, England Pre-Duel Dialogue: “I see you’ve got Rose Cards! You must be one of Lord Crawford’s Rose Crusaders. Your timing couldn’t be better! When I heard Yugi had landed, I rushed my troops to the front. However, I arrived much too early. It will be some time before Lord Crawford and his men arrive. In the meantime, why don’t we play a duel or two. I learned a trick or two from Seto that I’d like to try out. It’s not every day that you have the great opportunity to play the great King Richard III of England! How about it?” Player Win Dialogue: “Drat! I lost!”

[cbk1000]

Talk about the fic’s biggest moment & how you came up with it

About The Book

I love that you called it The Book. It makes it sound like The Bible. lmao

I had to think about this for a while since there are several large turning points in the fic. I'm putting under a cut to avoid spoilers for anyone who is reading but not caught up. You will want to avoid reading further if you're reading the Book of Merthur and you are not yet caught up to chapter 37.

The battle in this chapter was based on the Battle of Towton, an incredibly bloody battle that took place during the Wars of the Roses. I wanted the clash between Arthur's and Uther's troops to be really ugly, but then to have the actual confrontation be almost a small, intimate thing, away from the site of the battle. I can't remember where I got the idea to have Arthur and Uther face off against one another in the woods, or if anything particular even sparked that idea, I just liked the imagery of it, the almost claustrophobia of the dark woods where they were out of reach of everyone. And then I wanted to show it from Mordred's perspective, to heighten the feeling of dread, because he's a child who has now been under Uther's influence for a while, listening to the vilification of someone he formerly admired, almost deified. Uther blames Arthur for everything that's happened, and Mordred, in need of a parental figure as badly as Arthur, trusts him, and hates to but feels he has to accept that he was wrong about Arthur.

And now Arthur is a sort of bogeyman in this wood where Mordred can still hear the screaming of men dying in battle, and they're being stalked by him. I wanted Mordred's murder of Arthur (or, in this case, almost murder) to be driven by the fear of a young kid who had only two very toxic people, Morgause and Uther, in his life, for him not to do it out of hatred for Arthur, but abject terror, and in defense of a man who had positioned himself as a manipulative authority figure, just as he had done to Arthur. I really didn't feel that scene would have suited a big, flashy battle; so I had it be a small, ugly thing in some woods, with no one left for witness except a traumatised kid.

[archaeologyprehistoricstones]

⚔ SOLDIER ~ TOWTON 25 ⚔

⚔ The largest and bloodiest battle on English soil, was the Battle of Towton.

It took place on 29th March 1461, between the Lancastrians and the Yorks during the Wars of the Roses.

⚔ In 1996, a mass grave unearthed near the battlefield of Towton, contained the skeletal remains of some of those men that were brutally cut down during the fighting.

These bones are now helping archaeologists research medieval battlefield injuries.

The location of the grave, is about a half a mile from the battlefield.

Carbon dating links the gravesite to the battle, and is the only mass grave of a known medieval battle found in England.

⚔ The exhumed bones tell the story of men who lived hard lives, and died in a grisly fight.

The remains of 38 individuals, including 28 complete skeletons, were recovered.

The bodies belonged to men who ranged in ages from 17 to 50 years old, and had heights that ranged from five feet to six feet, with the older men being the tallest.

⚔ Researchers from the University of Bradford believe these bones belong to members of the Lancastrian army, because the bodies were found in a mass grave and there were no grave goods.

Many of the skeletons had injuries that occurred around the time of death, and some had healed wounds from previous fights.

⚔ Most of the trauma was to the skulls.

There were 113 wounds on the 28 recovered skulls.

A total of 43 postcranial (the bones below the skull) injuries were found on all 38 bodies.

An osteological exam of the skull wounds suggest that 73 were caused by sharp force trauma, 28 were produced by blunt force trauma, and 12 were the result of puncture wounds.

Archaeologists believe that a weapon consistent with the poleaxe, could have easily made these injuries.

⚔ The injuries sustained by the soldiers were horrific, and demonstrated the ferocity of the combat.

The medieval weapons commonly used during the Wars of the Roses, such as swords, war hammers, poleaxes, and maces, were responsible for causing devastating wounds.

Skull fractures, severed limbs, and shattered bones were common findings, indicating the sheer force with which these weapons were wielded.

⚔ Dr Alan Ogden, a palaeopathologist, comments:

"The thing that shook us was that these people had been butchered.

The main thing is the sheer number of head injuries.

Perhaps the most spectacular ones are where people have basically had part of their head sliced off, or their head cut in half.

But what's interesting about Towton is that there's also evidence of mutilation.

Noses and ears were cut off."

⚔ The body with some of the most severe injuries is known as Towton 25.

Towton 25 got his nickname from the order in which his bones were removed from the grave.

Towton 25, was between 36 and 45 years old at the time of his death, and sustained eight wounds to his head.

Osteologists can recreate the order in which Towton 25 received his injuries, because of the direction and pattern of his skull fractures.

⚔ The first five blows to Towton 25, were by a bladed weapon to the left side of his head, yet surprisingly, these were not fatal.

The soldier then sustained another blow to the back of his head that opened a large horizontal gash, causing other radiating fractures down the base and sides of his skull.

Bone fragments from this injury would have likely embedded in his brain, and would have caused his death.

Towton 25 then received another wound that cut through his face from his left eye to the right side of his jaw.

⚔ The Towton Skeletal Collection, is now housed at the University of Bradford.

It's important to archaeologists because it is a good resource to study perimortem battlefield injuries, and the effects of medieval battle on the skeleton.

Maybe one day they can be all laid to a dignified rest....

The Tudor Intruders (and more)

⚔ Source - strangeremains/the-game-of-thrones-written-in-bones-the-battle-of-towton.

⚔ The Skull of Towton 25, showing some of his many battlefield injuries.

Picture credit - Blackgate. com

Source: Facebook

The Tudor Intruders

[kit-williams]

Simon Ghost Riley

Demon name: Ymeo Sgosh Inirlt Birth: Battle of Towton... War of the Roses. *Sounds like a knight conflict* -Demonologist [REDACTED] *Calls himself the ghost of chivalry* -Demonologist [REDACTED]

Notable feature: Favors knives and swords compared to the typical axes or whips other bloodthirsters carry. He is very talkative which aligns with his habit of targeting imperial knights when summoned. Like König he is black furred/skinned though there is a face marking that looks like a human skull around his eyes and upper face. His horns tend to spiral. -Demonologist [REDACTED]

"Luv what has two legs and bleeds?" "What?" -Handler [REDACTED] "Half a Dog." [Snickering in the background] "Do not laugh at the Demonhost's joke!" *I'm pretty sure the Demonhost was lobotomized so I think the demon was making a joke? Are you sure you gave me a Khornite demon to watch?* -Handler [REDACTED]

Demonhost: Has to be 2+ meters tall or else the skin of the demonhost starts to rip. He will complain about the skin being too tight and if too small it will rip fully. Noted to like to keep it's face covered so often a baclava will be given to him to wear but usually even with this he has a habit of putting the front part of a human skull on his face (upper jaw to just a little bit above the brow line). Has a nasty habit of getting his host killed so two handlers are needed or Jocnr has to order him. Hair tends to shift to brown or blonde and either brown eyes or blue eyes it all depends on the host. He is one of the few who is very picky about the initial hair and eye color; Age should be no older than 35. His left arm has to be left unmarked as usually tattoo like markings will show up and replace anything that is there. Will keep his hair short in standard Astra Militarum standards.

Will want to be paired up with Imvaassj (Soap) if possible as the two seem to enjoy talking. He's a very talkative and as some initiates point out "silly" man. Telling bad jokes and has a strange taste in clothing as some initiate got them a pair of gloves with bones on them and he has since demanded that it be offered to him each time he inhabits a new host that they have to have those gloves. Bonds to initiates easily as well as Agents working along side him but will be trouble for authority as he will obey his orders but barely. Has a strict code of honor and will take slights against his honor with the same intensity as a knight pilot would.

@ghouljams for your regency aus (and your König stuff too)

and to all the other knight ghost girlies who helped inspire this.

@charliemwrites I'm not gonna lie there's a bit of your charmed slasher somewhere in this demon man

[hyperions-fate]

Met Gala attendees should be slaughtered en masse like aristocrats at the Battle of Towton.

[redundant2]

Random British Royal tidbits

I'm reading "The Vanity Fair Diaries" by Tina Brown and came across this tidbit:

Monday May 26, 1986

"We had lunch with the preposterous Princess Michael of Kent, who looked about fifteen hands high in an orange silk wrap dress. She has developed a mad, false laugh and a new Lady Bracknell voice for dealing with inferiors. "Row-eena," she gushed at the cowed debutante she totes around as her "lady in waiting." "where is the Dom Perignon? It was sitting outside but those fooooools have taken it away! Find it!" (Mad false laugh.) "Isn't the service quite diabolical? Do shut the kitchen door, Rowena. I hate to stare into a kitchen!"

From The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown, p. 199

Princess Michael of Kent, nee' Baroness Marie-Christine Anna Agnes Hedwig Ida von Reibnitz, would have been 41 at the time of this lunch. She was born in the German-occupied Sudetenland in what is now the Czech Republic. Her father, Baron Günther Hubertus von Reibnitz, was a descendant of the ancient Reibnitz family, Silesian landowners, who trace their ancestry back to 1288. He was a Nazi party member and a SS calvary officer during WWII.

Princess Michael's mother was Countess Maria Anna Carolina Franziska Walburga Bernadette Szapary von Muraszombath, Szechysziget und Szapar.  The House of Szapáry is an old and important Hungarian noble family. Members of this family held the title of Imperial Count granted to them on 28 December 1722 by Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor.

Princess Michael's parents divorced n 1948 and she with her mother and eldest brother moved to Rose Bay, Australia. In the early 1960s, she lived with her father on his farm in Mozambique.  She then went from Vienna to London to study History of Fine and Decorative Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  

She first married an English banker in 1971, but divorced in 1977. Once month after her marriage was annulled by the Pope, she married Prince Michael of Kent, Queen Elizabeth II's first cousin. She has said that Lord Mountbatten played matchmaker.

The lady-in-waiting mentioned in the excerpt is The Hon. Rowena Hawke Leatham Sanders, daughter of the 9th Baron Hawke of Towton.

The Baron of Towton peerage title was created on 20 May 1776 for the admiral Sir Edward Hawke (of Scarthingwell Hall in the parish of Towton), responsible for a blockade of all French merchant shipping and the grounding of six French ships, and scattering of the rest, at the Battle of Quiberon Bay.  

Rowena Hawke's sister, Annabel, pictured above.

Rowena's father, Bladen Wilmer Hawke, 9th Baron of Towton, above. He served as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords from 1953 to 1957 in the Conservative administrations of Churchill, Eden and MacMillan.  

Another of Rowena's sisters, Lavinia, married Nicholas MacLean-Bristol. She became a Justice of the Peace and lives in 15th century Old Breachacha Castle on the Isle of Coll in Scotland. This tower fortress was the stronghold of the MacLean clan. The Isle of Coll was granted to the MacLeans in 1431. There is also a new "castle" on this island, built in 1750, which is available to rent for just £1500 for a party of two for one week.

Rowena lives at Hankerton Priory, Malmesbury, Wiltshire, and borrowed a page from her sister's notebook, as her home is also available as an Air BNB rental - hosted by Rowena! Perhaps she will tell you stories about her days with Princess Michael if you stay with her?

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2777181?source_impression_id=p3_1676477115_Gba9bnmOeznlt0af

[fantastictyphoonpeanut]

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick on the left, fights on foot against Lancastrian forces, Battle of Ferrybridge 28 March, 1461. Is wounded and so sits out on the Battle of Townton the next day, England's bloodiest battle...the first date is historical conjecture as it is possible that this battle and a subsequent engagement at Dittingdale AND Towton were all fought on the same day - the 29th...If the mounted figure is meant to be Baron Clifford? Shield is incorrect - right colours but diamonds should be squares...(FTP)

[tallmadgeandtea]

Sometimes I take a moment to remember how feral high-school me was. Running on two hours of sleep for the day. Had Bangs. Dressed like an English teacher. Sitting in the cafeteria watching a documentary on the Battle of Towton on my school iPad while eating trash. Who was she?

[ladyvictoriart]

Henry VI watches the Battle of Towton

Shakespeare's 'Henry VI: Part 3' Act 2, Scene 5