The Battle of Blore Heath 23 September 1459
A Decisive Encounter between the Houses of Lancaster and York
Aug 23, 2009
Staffordshire was the scene of the first large-scale battle in the Wars of the Roses, the dynastic civil wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster that plagued England in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The battle was fought on September 23 1459 at Blore Heath, two miles east of Market Drayton, and was the first breach of the fragile peace that had existed since the Battle of St Albans in 1455 had resulted in a Yorkist victory and the capture of King Henry VI.
The Insanity of King Henry VI and Outbreak of War
Attempts to reconcile the warring factions had proved unsuccessful for the Duke of York and Queen Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s wife and the real head of the House of Lancaster as her husband suffered increasingly frequent bouts of madness, loathed and distrusted each other. Both sides openly recruited armed supporters and made efforts to rally support among the nobility, and by 1459 it was clear that England was on the verge of all-out civil war.
Lancaster and York Muster their Armies
The main Yorkist army mustered at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, while another force was raised in Yorkshire. Led by the Earl of Salisbury, the Yorkshire force marched south-west with the intention of linking up with their allies at Ludlow but word of their advance reached the Queen. She sent orders to Lord James Audley, who had recently raised a Lancastrian army at Market Drayton, to ambush Salisbury’s troops as they approached Ludlow.
Lord Audley marched out with an army of 12000 men onto the bleak heathland of Blore Heath, where he had decided to set up an ambush. His men took up a defensive position behind a line of hedges on the south-western edge of the heath facing Newcastle-under-Lyme to the north-east, from which Salisbury with his smaller force of some 3000 men was advancing. Audley’s hopes of ambushing the Yorkists were dashed when Yorkist scouts spotted Lancastrian banners waving over the top of a hedge and immediately galloped back to warn Salisbury.
The Ambush at Blore Heath
The two armies now faced each other, separated by the wide fast-flowing Wemberton Brook. Both sides sent heralds to parley, but this was no more than a gesture. The archers on both sides advanced and began firing upon each other, but even though they were armed with longbows the distance between the armies was too great for their arrows to cause much damage.
The Charge of the Lancastrian Cavalry
Aware that any attempt to attack the more numerous Lancastrians across the brook would be a disaster, Salisbury decided to try and lure the enemy into attacking him. He ordered the men in the centre of his line to withdraw in an attempt to trick the Lancastrians into thinking he was retreating. Lord Audley or one of his captains took the bait and ordered a cavalry charge, and Salisbury called his men back and launched them against the Lancastrian horsemen as they struggled across the brook. The Lancastrians suffered heavy casualties and were forced to retreat, leaving a great many men dead or dying in the water.
Enraged by this failure, Lord Audley ordered a second charge and personally led his men across the brook to smash into the Yorkist line. Intense hand-to-hand fighting ensued and for a time the battle hung in the balance as both sides grappled and hacked at each other. The issue was decided by the death of Lord Audley himself somewhere in the brutal melee, possibly at the hands of a Shropshire knight named Sir Roger Kynaston. Whoever killed him, the spot where Audley fell is commemorated by the Audley Cross.
The Rout of Lancaster and Victory of York
With the death of their commander the Lancastrians began to waver, and in a desperate effort to turn the tide Audley’s second-in-command Baron Dudley led his infantry, some 4000 men, into the fight. With no cavalry support this also failed to push the Yorkists back, and the final blow came when several hundred Lancastrians joined the Yorkists and began attacking their former comrades. The Lancastrian line now crumbled and Salisbury had only to order a general advance to seal the rout. The defeated Lancastrians were pursued throughout the night, many of them being killed or maimed as they fled. About 3000 of them perished during the battle and in the ensuing rout, while Yorkist losses were far lighter and did not exceed 1000.
The Anvil at Mucklestone
Local legend has it that Queen Margaret herself watched the battle from the spire of a church in the nearby village of Mucklestone, and that she fled when the battle was lost, hiring a local blacksmith named William Skelhorn to reverse the shoes on her horse to cover her escape. However the tale is unlikely to be true as Mucklestone was behind the Yorkist lines, and it is more probable that she waited at Chester for news of the battle. Nevertheless, an anvil from Skelhorn’s smithy still stands in the churchyard at Mucklestone to commemorate the reputed event.
Sources:
"The Lancaster and York: Wars of the Roses" by Alison Weir, published by Pimlico (1998)
"The Wars of the Roses" by Antonia Fraser, published by University of California Press (2000)
