A Virtual Tour of Towton Battlefield (Continued)

I have moved forward from the cart-track now, to the front of Lancaster’s line. It is estimated that the line was forty men deep and stretched across this ridge above Towton Dale for 1,500 yards.

I am pointing at a lone Hawthorn tree which roughly marks the extreme right of the Yorkist line and the point where their army mounted the ridge at the other side of the Dale, forming their battle-line across it. The clump of trees in the centre of the sky-line is where Edward IV stood and directed the battle.

And this is the view Edward had of the opposing army’s position – the lines and lines of men spreading across the horizon.

In fact Edward would not have seen the opposing ridge as clearly as this, since he did not arrive at Towton until around four o clock on the afternoon of Saturday, March 28th. His army was prepared to march out from Pontefract, their designated rallying point, towards York at dawn on that day and a scouting party under the Earl of Warwick had moved north to reconnoitre the crossing of the Aire at Ferrybridge.

Here, Warwick had run into an ambush laid by John, Lord Clifford – Shakespeare’s "Bloody Clifford" – a dour and bitter man – with a strong force of mounted archers. They easily drove off the surprised Yorkists and Warwick, slightly wounded in the knee, spurred frantically back to rejoin Edward, leapt off his horse, and killed it with a blow from his sword, vowing he would retreat no further.

Edward, unimpressed,ordered the army to continue its move forward and detached Lord Fauconberg, Warwick’s uncle, with a strong body of mounted archers to find a way round the fortified crossing. This he easily did at Castleford, two miles upstream, crossed there and arrived on Clifford’s exposed flank as Edward reached the opposite bank. Caught between the two, Clifford ordered instant and speedy retreat, but his own departure was not swift enough. He was hit in the neck by an arrow and mortally wounded. He died en route back to the ridge before Towton village, a sad loss for Lancaster, even before the main battle was joined.

By mid-afternoon, Edward’s army had passed Saxton and reached the ridge facing the hosts of Lancaster. Here, the army deployed between the Ferrybridge/Tadcaster road and Castle Hill Wood, which, in those days would have come further to the left across the skyline than it does today.

Castle Hill Wood shown in the centre of the picture below, curving upwards to, and over, the facing ridge.

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