The Battle of Wakefield took place in Sandal Magna near Wakefield, in West Yorkshire on December 30, 1460. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by nobles loyal to the captive King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, his Queen Margaret of Anjou and their seven year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales and opposed by the army of Richard, Duke of York, a rival claimant to the throne. The Duke of York was killed in the battle and his army was destroyed.
On October 7, 1460, Parliament recognized the Duke of
York’s stronger claim to the throne and agreed that Henry VI should rule
England until his death when the crown would pass to York. King Henry agreed to
this but his queen certainly did not; no sooner was the Act of Accord passed
than Queen Margaret marched south with an army of twenty thousand men under the
command of the Duke of Somerset. In a desperate position, York resorted to sending his
eldest son, the Earl of March, to tackle an emerging Lancastrian rebellion in
Wales led by Jasper Tudor. Then, leaving Warwick with orders to guard the King,
York left London with an army of seven or eight thousand men and headed north.
With him went his second son the Earl of Rutland, the Earl of Salisbury and his
son Sir Thomas.
York and his army arrived at Sandal Castle on the 21st of
December. Reaching his northern stronghold, York decided to settle in for the
winter and put his men to work digging ditches, improving the defenses and
mounting guns on the walls. Thus entrenched in near-impregnable positions the
Duke sat down to wait for reinforcements. Though he could not distinguish their
exact whereabouts, York knew there were five or more Lancastrian armies in the
vicinity and dared not face battle. The exact reason why York left the safety
of Sandal Castle on December 30, 1460 is not known. All but abandoning the
castle, York hurried down to the skirmish on Sandal Common only to be attacked
on both flanks by Andrew Trollope and Lord Roos. Soon York realized that he
would be totally surrounded, and overrun. He ordered his seventeen-year-old
son, Rutland, to flee the battlefield but the boy was promptly captured on
Wakefield Bridge and stabbed to death. Lord Clifford meanwhile brought his men
up the Yorkist rear and sealed their line of retreat. York himself was
unhorsed, and after refusing quarter, was brutally hacked to death. With York
dead the battle ended. Half the Yorkist army lay dead and of their leaders only
Salisbury (temporarily) escaped. The Earl was captured during the night and
executed the following day. The heads of York, Salisbury and Rutland were later
impaled on spikes and left to rot on Mickelgate Bar in York. Two of York’s son’s
would ascend to the throne as Edward IV and Richard III.
Michael Thomas
Barry is the author of Great Britain’s Royal Tombs: A Guide to the
Lives and Burial Places of British Monarchs. The book can be purchased
from Amazon or Barnes and Noble through the following links:
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