Battle of Towton

battle_name=Battle of Towton

The Battle

Both armies were divided into three battles (divisions), four hours were spent as the huge masses of men lined up in the blizzard conditions and awaited the final stragglers. Finally Lord Fauconberg took the initiative as the wind changed direction and blew the snow into the Lancastrians' faces. He led his archers forth and sent a rain of arrows into the massed Lancastrian ranks. Visibility was bad and with the wind blowing in their faces the returning volley of Lancastrian arrows fell way short of their targets. As casualties mounted the Lancastrian army knew the only way to stop the slaughter was to engage the enemy (in Towton 1461, the author calculates that Fauconberg would have been sending about 120,000 arrows a minute into the enemy ranks). In a last clever move, Fauconberg ordered his men (who had loosened all their own arrows by now) to retrieve some of the enemy shafts in the turf before them, while leaving some as obstacles for the oncoming Lancastrians.

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Weight of numbers pushed the Yorkists back initially, but the Earl of Warwick and Edward both fought in the front ranks to encourage their men. As the hours passed the Yorkists found themselves giving more and more ground until they came close to Castle wood. From here two hundred spearmen launched a surprise attack on the Yorkist left flank. Hundreds of men fled and Edward was forced to use his whole reserve to stop it breaking up.

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In the middle of the afternoon the elderly John Mowbray, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, arrived with several thousand fresh men. The Yorkists fought on with new determination for about an hour, when very suddenly the Lancastrian line broke and thousands of men fled the field.

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