The Battle of Blore Heath: Sources, Historiography and Implications for the Outbreak of Conflict, 1459-60

ABSTRACT

Discussion of the battle of Blore Heath (23 September 1459) has focused on the role of Cheshire gentry. This reflects a historiographical tradition that began early in the sixteenth century with Edward Hall. Attempts to reframe analysis of the battle, and in particular to understand dispositions and manoeuvres on the battlefield itself, have placed weight on the evidence of Jehan de Waurin’s chronicle of Great Britain. Compiled from his vantage point at the duke of Burgundy’s court using newsletters and similar materials, Waurin’s account has significant limitations. These are assessed here, alongside further evidence in other narrative sources. This allows for a clearer understanding of the participation of men from across the north-west midlands in the king’s forces, as also of the small group of core followers who accompanied the earl of Salisbury on his journey to rendezvous with the duke of York and other opponents of the court party.

KEYWORDS:

• Wars of the Roses
• Blore Heath (1459)
• King Henry VI
• Richard Neville, 5^th earl of Salisbury (d. 1460)
• Richard Neville, earl of Warwick (‘the Kingmaker’
• d. 1471)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ A. H. Burne, More Battlefields of England (London: Methuen, 1952), p. 140. Some modern historians almost completely dismiss Blore Heath. The ‘bloody skirmish’ commands only a few lines in J. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 351–2, not a single mention, in spite of the role usually attributed to Queen Margaret, in J. L. Laynesmyth, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445–1503 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), and just 2 footnotes in C. Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401–1499 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 471, 620. Similarly: R. L. Storey, The End of the House of Lancaster (new edn, Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1986), pp. 121, 187; E. F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century 1399–1485 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 515; C. Ross, The Wars of the Roses: A Concise History (London: Thames and Hudson, 1976), p. 37; J. R. Lander, The Wars of the Roses (London: Secker & Warburg, 1965), p. 91; idem, Government and Community: England 1450–1509 (London: Edward Arnold, 1980), p. 201; idem, Crown and Nobility, 1450–1509 (London: Edward Arnold, 1976), pp. 20, 99; A. J. Pollard, Late Medieval England 1399–1509 (Harlow: Longman, 2000), p. 154. Coverage is slightly more extensive in A. J. Pollard, The Wars of the Roses (2^nd edn, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 22, 78, 80; D. Grummitt, A Short History of the Wars of the Roses (London: I. B. Tauris, 2013), p. 57; A. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English Society, new edn (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 26–9; ‘English Heritage Battlefield Report: Blore Heath 1459’ <https://historicengland.org.uk/content/docs/listing/battlefields/blore-heath/# >.

² E. Hall, Chronicle: Containing the History of England, during the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the end of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. Henry Ellis (London: J. Johnson, F. C. and J. Rivington, T. Payne, et al., 1809), pp. 239–40.

³ M. Drayton, The Second Part, or a Continuance of Poly-Olbion (London: printed by Augustine Mathewes for Iohn Marriott, Iohn Grismand, and Thomas Dewe, 1622), pp. 40–1.

⁴ J. L. Gillespie, ‘Cheshiremen at Blore Heath: A Swan Dive’, in People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages, ed. by J. Rosenthal and C. Richmond (Gloucester: Sutton, 1987), pp. 77–89, esp. pp. 82–3; D. J. Clayton, The Administration of the County Palatine of Chester, 1442–1485, Chetham Society, 3rd series, 35 (1990), pp. 79–90.

⁵ The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the Fifteenth Century, ed. James Gairdner, Camden Society, n.s., 17 (1876), p. 204; see also the references in ‘Davies’ English Chronicle’ to how the queen ‘allyed vn to her alle the knyghtes and squyers of Chestreshyre for to haue theyre benyuolence, and helde open householde among theym; and made her sone called the Prince yeue a lyuery of Swannys to alle the gentilmenne of the contre, and to many other thorought the lande; trustyng thorough thayre streynghte to make her sone kyng’: An English Chronicle 1377–1461: A New Edition. Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales MS 21,608, and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Lyell 34, ed. C. William Marx (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2002), p. 79. H. E. Maurer, Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), pp. 175–85, 211; eadem, ‘Delegitimizing Lancaster: The Yorkist Use of Gendered Propaganda during the Wars of the Roses’, in Reputation and Representation in Fifteenth-century Europe, ed. by Douglas Biggs, Sharon D. Michalove and Compton Reeves, The Northern World, 8 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 169–86; A. Raw, ‘Margaret of Anjou and the Language of Praise and Censure’, in Finding Individuality, ed. by Linda Clark, The Fifteenth Century, XVII (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), pp. 81–98; T. Thornton, ‘Lancastrian Rule and the Resources of the Prince of Wales, 1456–61’, Journal of Medieval History, 42 (2016), 387–88.

⁶ M. Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 142–7; idem, Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp. 163–6; A. J. Pollard, Warwick the Kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame (London: Hambledon, 2007), pp. 39–41; Maurer, pp. 165–8; R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of Henry VI (new edn, Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), pp. 819–21; G. Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England 1360–1461 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), pp. 639–40.

⁷ W. Beamont, ‘The Battle of Blore Heath’, Journal of the Chester Archaeological Society, 1 (1850–1), 81–100; C. W. Sutton, revised H. C. G. Matthew, ‘Beamont, William John (1828–1868), Church of England Clergyman and Author’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ed. by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (60 vols, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [hereafter ODNB], IV. 531.

⁸ R. Brooke, Visits to Fields of Battle, in England, of the Fifteenth Century (London: John Russell Smith; Liverpool: J. Mawdsley & Son, 1857), pp. 21–37, esp. 24–37; C. W. Sutton, revised Simon Harrison, ‘Brooke, Richard (1791–1861), Antiquary’, ODNB, VII, 910. Brooke’s family estate was in Handforth (Chesh.) so he had a particular interest in Cheshire and, having practised as a solicitor and notary there, in Liverpool and Lancashire.

⁹ F. R. Twemlow, The Battle of Bloreheath, 1459 (Wolverhampton: Whitehead Brothers, 1912), pp. 11–28, at p. 27. He prints extracts from Waurin at his Appendix B, pp. xii–xiv (from Jehan de Waurin, Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne: a present nomme Engleterre, ed. William Hardy and Edward L. C. P. Hardy, Rolls Ser., 39 (5 vols, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1864–91), V, pp. 69, 319). The road network, still based on Roman infrastructure, would have led Salisbury’s men from Manchester via Middlewich into Staffordshire at Newcastle-under-Lyme, and from there the route lay to Market Drayton and further to Shrewsbury and then Ludlow: I. D. Margary, Roman Roads in Britain (revised edn, London: John Baker Publishers, 1967), pp. 278–322; B. P. Hindle, ‘The Road Network of Medieval England and Wales’, Journal of Historical Geography, 2 (1976), 207–21.

¹⁰ A. H. Burne, The Battlefields of England (London: Methuen & Co., 1950), p. xiv.

¹¹ Burne, More Battlefields of England, pp. 140–9. Remarkably, like Beamont and Twemlow, Burne also had a personal connection to the battlefield, having grown up nearby: p. 149.

¹² I. D. Rowney, ‘The Staffordshire Political Community 1440–1500’ (PhD diss., University of Keele, 1981), pp. 75–87, largely reproduced in his ‘Medieval Chroniclers and the Battle of Blore Heath’, North Staffordshire Journal of Field Studies, 20 (1984 for 1980), 9–17. P. A. Haigh, The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses (Godalming: Bramley Books, 1995), p. 15–20, indicates ‘[d]etailed accounts of the battle itself are virtually non-existent’ and provides a brief account, with Salisbury’s men approaching from the East and Audley’s from the West, referring again e.g. to the sighting of Lancastrian pennons.

¹³ L. Visser-Fuchs, History as Pastime: Jean de Wavrin and his Collection of Chronicles of England (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2018), chapter 6, esp. pp. 408–9, 418, and 474–6. Further, there is wide recognition of his bias in favour of Warwick: e.g. P. A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York 1411–1460 (corrected paperback reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 211–13.

¹⁴ Waurin, V, p. 269.

¹⁵ Waurin, V, p. 705.

¹⁶ A. J. Pollard, ‘The Northern Retainers of Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury’, Northern History, 11 (1975), 52–69, at 52, 57, 62–3, 67; idem, North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses: Lay Society, War, and Politics, 1450–1500 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 276; T. Dunham Whitaker, A History of Richmondshire (2 vols, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1823), II, pp. 261–2; R. Horrox, ‘Harrington Family (per. c. 1300–1512)’, ODNB, xxv. pp. 383–5..

¹⁷ Horrox, ‘Harrington Family’, p. 384; Johnson, p. 222; Pollard, Warwick, p. 112; Hicks, Warwick, pp. 224–5.

¹⁸ Some previous attempts at an identification are not convincing: Twemlow and Gillespie suggested this was the Cheshireman Sir Thomas Fitton (Twemlow, Appendix B; Gillespie, pp. 77–89, esp. pp. 83–4; and see below pp. 9–10, n. 33); Visser-Fuchs suggested Thomas Criel (p. 475). Clayton, p. 86, correctly identifies Findern.

¹⁹ Waurin refers in similar terms to Findern as a casualty of the battle of Northampton, and one of the Lancastrians active in Northumberland in 1464: V. 300, 441.

²⁰ The House of Commons, 1422–1461, ed. by Linda Clark (7 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the History of Parliament Trust, 2020), IV, pp. 498–501. Findern was on commissions from Dec 1459, when he headed the commission of array in Cambridgeshire (C[alendar of] P[atent] R[olls], 1452–1461, pp. 559, 560–1, 604–5), so if captured at Blore Heath he must have been released soon afterwards.

²¹ Waurin, V, pp. 319–21.

²² When Salisbury, Warwick [sic] and their men ‘aparcheurent’ the court forces ‘derriere une grant forest haye, dont on ne veoit que les boutz des penons, ilz se misrent a pie a larriere dune forest qui leur faisoit cloture a ung coste, et de lautre avoient mis leur charroy et leurs chevaulz lyes les ungz auz autres, et par derriere eulz avoient fait ung bon trenchis pour sceurete, et devant eulz avoient fichie leurs peux a la fachon dAngleterre’ [behind a large hedged forest, only the tips of the pennons being visible, they dismounted behind a forest which enclosed them on one side, and on the other had placed their wagon-train and their horses tied together, and behind them they had made a good trench for safety, and in front they drove in their stakes in the English fashion].

²³ The accounts of the betrayal at Ludford are more probable (the Calais garrison was associated with Warwick, not Salisbury), more extensive and appear in a variety of sources: ‘Bale’s Chronicle’, in Six Town Chronicles of England, ed. Ralph Flenley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), p. 148; Vitellius A XVI, in The Chronicles of London, ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905), pp. 169–70; The Brut, or, the Chronicles of England, ed. Friedrich W. D. Brie, Early English Text Society, original series, 131 (2 vols, 1908), p. 527; The Great Chronicle of London, ed. A. H. Thomas and I. D. Thornley (London: printed by G.W. Jones at the sign of the Dolphin, 1938), p. 191. ‘Gregory’ also describes Trollope’s betrayal, but while still associating it with the lords after their meeting places it a few days earlier: Historical Collections, pp. 204–5. See also Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, p. 822; Goodman, Wars of the Roses, pp. 30–1.

²⁴ Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, ed. Henry Ellis, Camden Society, 29 (1844), pp. 102–3. Robert Fabyan, The New Chronicles of England and France, ed. by Henry Ellis (London: F. C. & J. Rivington, 1844), p. 634; Great Chronicle, p. 191.

²⁵ Hall, pp. 240–1. For Hall’s local connections, see n. 29 below.

²⁶ Hall, p. 240.

²⁷ Raphael Holinshed: Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, ed. by Henry Ellis (6 vols, London: J. Johnson, 1807–8), III, p. 251 (following Hall closely in many places, but rendering ‘Gayles’ as ‘goales’); J. Stow, The Chronicles of England (London: printed by Raph Newberye at the assignment of Henry Bynneman, 1580), p. 688; idem, The Annales of England (London: printed by Ralphe Newbery, 1600), pp. 670–1.

²⁸ Gillespie, pp. 82–3; Clayton, pp. 79–90.

²⁹ Hall, p. 240; The House of Commons, 1509–1547, ed. by S. T. Bindoff (London: Secker & Warburg for the History of Parliament Trust, 1982), II, pp. 279–82, at p. 280. John Speed, on his map of Staffordshire (The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (London: printed by William Hall, and to be sold by Iohn Sudbury & Georg Humble, 1612), unnumbered page following p. 69), listed Venables, Thomas Dutton, Sir Richard Molineux, Troutbeck, Legh, Done and Egerton.

³⁰ Holinshed, III, p. 251 (refers to Molyneux as Sir Richard); Ralph Griffiths, ‘Holinshed and Wales’, in The Oxford Handbook of Holinshed’s Chronicles, ed. by Paulina Kewes, Ian W. Archer and Felicity Heal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 679–94, at p. 691; C. S. Clegg, ‘Holinshed [Hollingshead], Raphael (c. 1525–1580?), Historian’, ODNB, XXVII, pp. 644–7, at pp. 644–5; Clayton, pp. 84–5.

³¹ Stow, Chronicles (1580), p. 688; idem, Annales (1592), p. 662.

³² CPR 1452–61, p. 582; Clayton, p. 89.

³³ The National Archives of the U.K. [hereafter T.N.A.], CHES 2/133, rot. 10 r(2)–10d; Clayton, pp. 87–8; Gillespie, pp. 83–6.

³⁴ English Chronicle 1377–1461, pp. xiv, 79.

³⁵ Brut, p. 526.

³⁶ Chronicles of London, p. 169.

³⁷ ‘totam quasi militiam Comitatuum Cestriæ et Salopiæ’: Registra quorundam abbatum monasterii S. Albani, qui saeculo XVmo floruere; vol. 2: Registra Johannis Whethamstede, Wilhelmi Albon, et Wilhelmi Wallingforde, ed. by Henry Thomas Riley, Rolls Ser., 28vi (2 vols, London: Longman & Co., 1872–3), I, p. 338; M. Kekewich, ‘The Attainder of the Yorkists in 1459: Two Contemporary Accounts’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 55 (1982), 25–34, at 31, 33.

³⁸ Chronicles of London, p. 276.

³⁹ A Chronicle of London, from 1089 to 1483, ed. by Harris Nicolas (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, 1827), p. 140. It should be noted that two other important accounts (Gregory and Waurin) of the battle did not mention county contingents as involved; this is also true of the less detailed account in ‘John Benet’s Chronicle for the Years 1400 to 1462’, ed. by G. A. Harriss and M. A. Harriss, in Camden Miscellany XXIV, Camden Society, 4th ser., 9 (1972), pp. 151–233, at p. 224, translated in A. Hanham, John Benet’s Chronicle, 1399–1462: An English Translation with a New Introduction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

⁴⁰ Historical Collections, p. 204.

⁴¹ M-R. McLaren, The London Chronicles of the Fifteenth Century: A Revolution in English Writing (With an annotated edition of Bradford, West Yorkshire Archives MS 32D86/42) (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), pp. 29–33.

⁴² Historical Collections, p. 204; B. Wolffe, Henry VI (London: Methuen, 1981), p. 371.

⁴³ Stanley’s role is acknowledged by, for example, J. C. Wedgwood, History of Parliament: Biographies of Members of the House of Commons, 1439–1509 (London: HMSO, 1936–8), p. 799; but not in House of Commons, 1422–1461, VI, pp. 712–17.

⁴⁴ Rowney, ‘Staffordshire Political Community’, p. 73; S. M. Wright, The Derbyshire Gentry in the Fifteenth Century, Derbyshire Record Society, 8 (1983), 99–102, 126–7, 134–8.

⁴⁵ S. J. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England: The Greater Gentry of Nottinghamshire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 114.

⁴⁶ Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, p. 712: returned in 1450 and 1453, connected with York: citing Wedgwood, History of Parliament, pp. 395–6. This appears as one of at most two exceptions to the otherwise loyalist parliamentary gathering in 1453 (p. 699). See also now House of Commons, 1422–1461, IV, pp. 672–5.

⁴⁷ Johnson refers to ‘local score settling’ as lying behind the engagement at Blore Heath, citing evidence for conflict in the 1440s between the Cokaynes of Ashbourne (Derbys.) and Vernons of Haddon (Derbys.) on one side and Ralph Basset of Blore (Staffs.) on the other: Johnson, p. 187; T.N.A., KB 9/263/21,/22. For these conflicts, see Rowney, ‘Staffordshire Political Community’, pp. 315–21, 352–3 (describing how Basset moved from the duke of Buckingham’s orbit to become a Yorkist); it is not clear from Johnson’s account which participants at Blore Heath he believes were particularly affected by this feuding.

⁴⁸ CPR 1452–61, p. 410; E. L. O’Brien, ‘Molyneux, Richard (d. 1459), Landowner’, ODNB, XXXVIII, p. 557. For his date of death, see Clayton, pp. 85, 124, the error first appearing in Holinshed (see above p. 9, n. 30) and reappearing in e.g. ODNB.

⁴⁹ William Dugdale, The Visitation of the County Palatine of Lancaster, Made in the Year 1664–5, ed. by F. R. Raines, Chetham Society, 84–5, 88 (1872–3), p. 204.

⁵⁰ George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, ed. by Thomas Helsby (3 vols, 2^nd edn; London: George Routledge and Sons, 1882), III, p. 370, shows him granting Cholmondeston, Baddington, Broomhall, Over Austerson, and Nether Austerson to John de Nedeham and others as feoffees to his and his wife Joan’s use in 1452–3.

⁵¹ Chester, Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, DCH C/146; DWN 2/44: both show him as already Sir John Bromley in 1456.

⁵² Ormerod, II, p. 86, III, p. 345.

⁵³ Robert Ardern: House of Commons, 1422–1461, III, pp. 74–9; Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, pp. 698, 711; T.N.A., KB 9/103/1, m. 15; A. E. M. Marshall, ‘The Rôle of English War Captains in England and Normandy’ (MA diss., University College of Swansea, 1974); Johnson, p. 115. Sir Peter Arderne: Reports from the Lords Committees … touching the Dignity of a Peer of the Realm (5 vols, [London: House of Commons, 1819), IV, p. 942.

⁵⁴ Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, pp. 309, 337, 364, 877, 887, 889; J. S. Roskell, L. Clarke, and C. Rawcliffe, eds. The House of Commons, 1386–1421 (Stroud: Alan Sutton for the History of Parliament Trust, 1993), III, p. 279.

⁵⁵ Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, pp. 55, 246, 250, 309, 360, 593; House of Commons, 1386–1421, III, p. 279; Rowney, ‘Staffordshire Political Community’, pp. 64–6; T.N.A., SC 8/117/5836; Stafford, Stafford County Record Office, 3764/46.

⁵⁶ Thomas Rymer, Foedera (2^nd edn, London: J. Tonson, 1726–35), XI, p. 456 (CPR 1452–61, p. 595): 26 June 1460 Coventry, grant to Nicholas Leveson, esq, of £20 from lordship of ‘Walshale’, Staffs. Leveson was escheator of Staffordshire in 1443–4 and 1453–4, and served as deputy sheriff in 1445–6: Rowney, ‘Staffordshire Political Community’, pp. 68, 77, 294, 391, 400, 419, 420; A. C. Wood, List of Escheators for England and Wales, List and Index Society, 72 (1971), p. 157; J. C. Wedgwood, ‘The Staffordshire Sheriffs (1086–1912), Escheators (1247–1619), and Keepers or Justices of the Peace (1263–1702)’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, 3^rd ser. (1912), pp. 271–344, at p. 281 (deputy to Sir John Griffith of Wichnor); T.N.A., C 1/15/132,133.

⁵⁷ CPR 1452–61, p. 536–21 1459, Coventry. Harper had been one of those paid to watch Sir William Oldhall in St Martin’s sanctuary, 22 Mar 1452: Johnson, p. 116.

⁵⁸ E. A. Thomas, ‘The Lords Audley, 1391–1459’ (MA diss., University College of Swansea, 1976), ch. 3; also see gentry associates discussed at pp. 89–92.

⁵⁹ Clayton, pp. 77–8, 144–9, 163–7.

⁶⁰ H. Collins, ‘Sutton, John (VI) [John Dudley], First Baron Dudley (1400–1487)’, ODNB, LIII, pp. 389–91, at p. 389.

⁶¹ Offer of pardon: [The] P[arliament] R[olls] O[f] M[edieval] E[ngland, 1275–1504], ed. by Chris Given-Wilson et al. (16 vols, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, National Archives), XIII, p. 459. For discussion of the motivation of the parties in 1459, see Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, pp. 817–26; Hicks, Warwick, pp. 154–67; Wolffe, pp. 320–1; Pollard, Warwick, pp. 37–9 (neither Wolffe nor Pollard recognize that the offer of pardon to the Yorkists in return for humble submission excluded Salisbury); J. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 348–52; Maurer, pp. 164–8; P. A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York 1411–1460 (corrected paperback edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 185–9. The unusual animosity towards Salisbury’s wife is also significant here: she was, exceptionally, included in the attainders, accused of having ‘ymagyned and compassed’ the king’s death at Middleham on 1 Aug 1459; her flight to Ireland in the aftermath of Ludford, sharing this destination with the duke of York and his son Edmund, rather than to Calais with her husband (and the earls of Warwick and March), suggests she may have been at Blore Heath and was certainly identified closely with the crimes of her husband, resulting in this unusually severe treatment of a noblewoman: PROME, XII, p. 461.

⁶² English Chronicle 1377–1461, p. 79; Historical Collections, p. 204; T.N.A., SC 6/779/7, m. 12 (noted by Joseph Hemingway, History of the City of Chester, From its Foundation to the Present Time (2 vols, Chester: printed by J. Fletcher, 1831), I, p. 140.

⁶³ Pollard, ‘Northern Retainers’, pp. 59, 63, 68; G. M. Coles, ‘The Lordship of Middleham, especially in Yorkist and Early Tudor Times’ (MA thesis, University of Liverpool, 1961), p. 278; W. Page, ed. The Victoria History of the County of York: North Riding (3 vols, London: Constable, St. Catherine Press 1914–25), I, p. 112, relying on T.N.A., C 139/173/31, for a transaction recently involving Henry le Scrope, recorded in his inquisition post mortem of 1459.

⁶⁴ A. Gross, ‘Ashton, Sir Thomas (c. 1403–c. 1460), Alchemist’, ODNB, II, p. 684; Johnson, p. 82; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, CRU/614 (Nov 1442); Preston, Lancashire Archives, DDB 13/9. Thomas is still described as the son & heir of Sir William in T.N.A., C 1/83/34 [1486–93]. Like others involved in the campaign, Ashton and Rokeby were soon pardoned, at Coventry on 20 Dec 1459 and Farnham on 2 Jan 1460 respectively: CPR 1452–61, pp. 537, 545.

⁶⁵ 34^th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (London: HMSO, 1873), p. 167; R. L. Storey, Thomas Langley and the Bishopric of Durham, 1406–1437 (London: S.P.C.K. for the Church Historical Society, 1961), p. 61; J. W. Armstrong, England’s Northern Frontier: Conflict and Local Society in the Fifteenth-Century Scottish Marches. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 123n; Michael Jones and Simon Walker, ‘Private Indentures for Life Service in Peace and War 1278–1476’, in Camden Miscellany, XXXII, 5th Ser., 2 (1994), pp. 1–190, no. 121, at p. 151; J. S. Roskell, The Commons in the Parliament of 1422: English Society and Parliamentary Representation Under the Lancastrians (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954), p. 178. Sir William: House of Commons, 1422–1461, IV, pp. 270–7.

⁶⁶ PROME, XII, pp. 458–61; Pollard, North-Eastern England, pp. 271–2, 276–7.

⁶⁷ Pollard, ‘Northern Retainers’, pp. 63, 67–8; R. Horrox, ‘Conyers family (per. c. 1375–1525)’, ODNB, XIII, pp. 72–4, at p.73; Coles, pp. 95, 113, 116, 121–34, 276–8.

⁶⁸ R. Horrox, ‘Parr family (per. c. 1370–1517)’, ODNB, XLII, pp. 838–9; R. L. Storey, The End of the House of Lancaster (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1986), pp. 120–1; P. Jalland, ‘The Influence of the Aristocracy on Shire Elections in the North of England, 1450–70’, Speculum, 47 (1972), 483–508, at 496, 499. Hicks, Warwick, p. 214, is an example of one of those led by ‘Annales rerum Anglicarum’, in Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry the Sixth, King of England, ed. Joseph Stevenson, Rolls Ser., 22 (2 vols in 3, London: Longmans, 1861–4), II/2, 775, to refer to his death at Wakefield.

⁶⁹ Calendar of Inquisitions, Miscellaneous (Chancery), Preserved in the Public Record Office, viii: 1422–1485 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press; London: Public Record Office, 2003), p. 159 (no. 253: inquisition on traitors’ property in Yorkshire, 1459) demonstrates that Thomas Meryng was seized of the manor of Tong, worth £20 pa. He was also named as of Tong in Yorkshire in the proclamations against the traitors issued in 1460: Rymer, Foedera, XI, 454; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1454–61, p. 416. Wedgwood, History of Parliament, p. 586; Calendar of Close Rolls, 1441–7, p. 434; C. E. Arnold, ’A Political Study of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1437–1509’ (PhD diss., University of Manchester, 1984). For the family’s prominence in Yorkshire, and the way they connected its politics with Nottinghamshire’s, see The Plumpton Letters and Papers, ed. Joan Kirby, Camden Society, 5^th ser., 8 (1996), nos. 146, 171. They were not part of the elite gentry group identified by S. Payling, Political Society in Lancastrian England: The Greater Gentry of Nottinghamshire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 148–9, 153, but see comments by Carpenter, p. 147; also A. Cameron, ‘A Nottinghamshire Quarrel in the Reign of Henry VII’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 45 (1972), 27–37; idem, ‘Sir Henry Willoughby of Wollaton’, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 74 (1970), 10–21, at 17. Confusion on his identity: Pollard, North-Eastern England, p. 272 (Meryng as being from Tong (Shrops.) and hence joining Salisbury later with William Stanley, after the earl’s departure from Yorkshire).

⁷⁰ M. C. Punshon, ‘Government and Political Society in the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1399–1461’ (DPhil diss., University of York, 2002), p. 168.

⁷¹ CPR 1452–61, pp. 440, 674.

⁷² PROME, XII, pp. 504–5; M. J. Bennett, ‘Stanley, Sir William (c. 1435–1495), Administrator and Landowner’, ODNB, LII, pp. 244–6, at p. 244; Clayton, pp. 80–1, commenting on Twemlow, p. 36, and Gillespie, p. 78. Thomas Stanley was married to Eleanor Neville, daughter of the earl of Salisbury and sister of Warwick; his loss of the offices in Cheshire held by his father has already been noted above: Michael J. Bennett, ‘Stanley, Thomas, first earl of Derby (c. 1433–1504)’, ODNB; B. Coward, The Stanleys, Lords Stanley and Earls of Derby, 1385–1672: The Origins, Wealth and Power of a Landowning Family, Chetham Society, 3rd ser., 30 (1983), pp. 9–10; Clayton, pp. 77–8; House of Commons, 1422–1461, VI, pp. 728–30.

⁷³ CPR 1452–61, p. 451.

⁷⁴ Arnold, I, pp. 142, 263–4.

⁷⁵ Pollard, North-Eastern England, p. 271; Punshon, p. 201; T. Lawson-Tancred, Records of a Yorkshire Manor (London: E. Arnold, 1937), p. 67; W. Wheater, Knaresburgh and its Rulers (Leeds: R. Jackson, 1907), pp. 160, 187, 189. We cannot be sure all those named rode with Salisbury to Blore Heath and Ludford: one of Birnand’s group, Ralph Pullen allegedly occupied Knaresborough for the earl on 26 Sept. After Ludford, Percy took action in Chancery against Sir William Plumpton for house-breaking and theft: Arnold, I, p. 144; T.N.A., C 1/31/485.

⁷⁶ Thomas, ‘Lords Audley’, p. 18; The Visitation of Shropshire, Taken in the Year 1623, ed. by George Glazebrook and John Paul Rylands, Harleian Soc., 29 (1889), p. 295; W. Burson, ‘The Kynaston Family’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 2^nd ser., 6 (1894), 209–22, at 211; House of Commons, 1509–1558, II, pp. 486–7; H. T. Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915), pp. 103–4; ‘Moliant i Syr Rosier Cinast ap Gruffudd o’r Cnwcin’ <http://www.gutorglyn.net/gutorglyn/poem/?poem-selection=79 > [accessed 27 Apr 2022].

⁷⁷ T.N.A., C 49/52/2; PROME, XII, pp. 502–3.

⁷⁸ Sheriff 1455–6, 1460–1 (List of Sheriffs for England and Wales, from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1831, Public Record Office, Lists and Indexes, 9 (1898), p. 158), Fulk was involved in recognisances for Salisbury’s son John Neville regarding his marriage to Isabel Ingoldesthorpe in 1457: T.N.A., SC 8/28/1399; PROME, XII, pp. 542–4.

⁷⁹ William followed his father Leonard into York’s service, and succeeded him in Oct 1455: R. Horrox, ‘Hastings, William, First Baron Hastings (c. 1430–1483), Courtier and Administrator’, ODNB, XXV, pp. 792–5, at p. 792 (which refers to his presence at Ludford and does not mention Blore Heath).

⁸⁰ PROME, XII, pp. 502–3; R. K. Rose, ‘Bowes, Sir William (c. 1389–1465), Soldier’, ODNB, VI, pp. 945–6 at p. 946. Pollard, North-Eastern England, pp. 272, 275, says the pardon was for involvement at Ludford, but the record indicates it was for Ludford ‘or other places’, and therefore potentially in Bowes’ case for Blore Heath.

⁸¹ He became an important figure in the Yorkist regime in Shropshire from the summer of 1460, including as escheator from Nov 1460, and sheriff for two years from Nov 1461, again from Nov 1469, and then a further time on the victorious return of Edward IV in 1471: CPR 1452–61, pp. 608, 676; Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1452–1461, p. 292; CPR 1461–7, pp. 98, 518, 570; Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1461–1471, pp. 10, 48, 254, 268; List of Sheriffs, p. 118.

⁸² e.g. York’s receiver general John Mylewater of Stoke Edith (Herefs.) and Walter Mymme of Fairford (Gloucs.), who had been auditor of York’s lordship of Denbigh in Nov 1458: CPR 1452–61, pp. 531, 538; Johnson, pp. 17, 64, 118, 235.

⁸³ Above, p. 22 and nn. 80.

⁸⁴ CPR 1452–61, pp. 537 (19 Dec, Conyers; 20 Dec, Ashton), 545 (2 Jan 1460, Rokeby), 581 (25 Mar 1460, Haryngton).

⁸⁵ CPR 1452–61, pp. 537, 527, 530, 540, 549, 570, 575, 577, 591 (Mountford, who had the usual scope of pardon but with the additional coverage of all gifts of liveries before 20 Nov last), 592. Pollard, ‘Retainers’, pp. 59, 61, 63, 67, 68; idem, North-Eastern England, pp. 130, 137, 270, 289; idem, ‘The Burghs of Brough Hall, c. 1270–1574’, North Yorkshire County Record Office Journal, 6 (1978), 5–33, at 13–14; Johnson, p. 150; Jalland, pp. 491–2; Coles, p. 278.

⁸⁶ Testamenta Eboracensia: A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York, ed. by James Raine, James Raine jr, and J. W. Clay, Surtees Society, 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (6 vols, 1836–1902), II, pp. 239–46, at pp. 244–5, 246; III, pp. 264–8; Pollard, North-Eastern England, pp. 137–8; Hicks, Warwick, p. 22.

⁸⁷ PROME, XII, p. 501.

⁸⁸ CPR 1461–7, pp. 17, 19; 37^th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (London: HMSO, 1876), app. ii, p. 589. For his rewards after Towton, see Pollard, North-Eastern England, p. 291.

⁸⁹ Testamenta Eboracensia, II, p. 246; Pollard, North-Eastern England, p. 254.

⁹⁰ CPR 1452–61, pp. 527, 530, 532, 539.

⁹¹ Pollard, North-Eastern England, p. 277.

⁹² Historical Collections, p. 204.

⁹³ See the differences of opinion between Hicks, Warwick, pp. 147–59, and Pollard, Warwick, pp. 37–9, 203–6.

⁹⁴ CPR 1452–61, pp. 534, 564–5, 574, 578, 604; T.N.A., C 49/32/12A; C 81/1376/9; Rymer, Foedera, XI, pp. 444–5; Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, pp. 828, 851 n332, 852 n352; Johnson, p. 194; R. S. Thomas, ‘The Political Career, Estates and Connection of Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Bedford d. 1495’ (PhD diss., University College of Swansea, 1971), pp. 117–33, 180–7; T.N.A., SC 6/779/10, m. 7 v.

⁹⁵ T.N.A., SC 6/779/9, mm. 2 v–4 v.

⁹⁶ Ormerod, I, p. 481; T.N.A., SC 6/779/7, m. 12 (not Butler or Oldham).

⁹⁷ In Nov 1460, Thomas Harrington was recorded as having been subject to a long imprisonment from early Oct 1459, preventing his appearance in Chancery that month and some time after: CPR 1452–61, p. 636. Hall, p. 240.

⁹⁸ T.N.A., CHES 2/133, r. 7 r(4) (37^th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, app. ii, p. 499); Clayton, p. 92. Of the prisoners recorded as being held, Thomas Ashton was pardoned 20 Dec 1459, Ralph Rokeby on 2 Jan 1460: CPR 1452–61, pp. 537, 545. That left only the obscurely named ‘Robert Evereus’ esq. (probably Robert Eure; see above pp. 17–18, n. 62) from among the wider group being held. The calendar in 37^th Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records renders the name ‘Robert Laurens’.

⁹⁹ Griffiths, Reign of Henry VI, pp. 855, 867; Johnson, p. 211: although we only have indentures of 2 Oct at Gloucester to prove the renunciation (K. B. McFarlane, ‘The Wars of the Roses’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 50 (1964), pp. 87–119, at pp. 92–3), the surviving text of an indenture made at Chester on 13 Sept, appointing Robert Bold constable of Denbigh Castle, appears to confirm in its anno domini dating that York had taken that step: CPR 1461–7, p. 60.

¹⁰⁰ Johnson, p. 211, relying on Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Fr 20,136, f. 75 r.

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Tim Thornton

Tim Thornton completed undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Oxford, the latter a DPhil on Cheshire, 1480-1560, under the supervision of Chris Haigh. Author of a number of books and articles on late medieval and early modern political history, he is a Royal Historical Society prize winner (David Berry prize, Alexander prize proxime accessit). He is currently Professor of History and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Huddersfield.