The largest and bloodiest battle in English history is almost unknown, in 2022. During the Wars of The Roses in 1461, close to the village of Towton near the city of York, a battle was fought during a snowstorm in March that year. When it was over, 28,000 soldiers had been killed, a total never exceeded in England since.

The Wars of The Roses lasted from 1455-1487, a civil war in England lasting for 32 years over who should succeed to the crown. On one side, the Yorkists with their emblem of a white rose. Their enemy was the Lancastrians, who used a red rose as their symbol. The contest began with the capture of Henry VI by Richard Duke of York, and thus began over 30 years of fighting to determine who would be the rightful king of England.

Richard.

Henry VI

In 1460 the English parliament passed an act to let York succeed Henry as king. The queen refused to accept the dispossession of her own son, Edward of Westminster’s right to the throne, and succeeded in raising a large army of supporters, who then promptly defeated and killed York in the Battle of Wakefield. The late duke’s supporters considered the Lancastrians to have reneged on the parliamentary act of succession – a legal agreement – and York’s son and heir, Edward, found enough backing to denounce Henry and declare himself king. The Battle of Towton was to affirm the victor’s right to rule over England through force of arms.

On reaching the battlefield, the Yorkists found themselves heavily outnumbered. Part of their force under the Duke of Norfolk had yet to arrive. The Yorkist leader Lord Fauconberg turned the tables by ordering his archers to take advantage of the strong wind to outrange their enemies. The one-sided missile exchange, with Lancastrian arrows falling short of the Yorkist ranks, provoked the Lancastrians into abandoning their defensive positions.

The ensuing hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, exhausting the combatants. The arrival of Norfolk’s men reinvigorated the Yorkists and, encouraged by Edward, they routed their foes. Many Lancastrians were killed while fleeing; some trampled one another and others drowned in the rivers, which are said to have run red with blood for several days. Several who were taken prisoner were executed.

In 1929 the Towton Cross was erected on the battlefield to commemorate the event. Various archaeological remains and mass graves related to the battle have been found in the area centuries after the engagement.