The Battles
The Battle of Empingham (aka Losecoat Field)
12th March 1470
Result of the Battle – Yorkist victory
In March 1470 a local dispute escalated into a full-scale rebellion in Lincolnshire which King Edward IV, who had escaped from Warwick’s custody, decided to deal with personally.
The climax of the rebellion took place on 12th March near Empingham, Rutland, between the king and his army and Sir Robert Welles leading the rebels. That morning King Edward arrived in Stamford and sent his vanguard to search out the position of Welles who was found beside the Great North Road near Empingham, which was just five miles from Stamford. The king advanced with the remainder of his army and took up his position.
The chronicler of the rebellion claims that the rebels charged with cries of “a’ Clarence, a’ Clarence, a’ Warwick” (confirming that the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick had been behind the rebellion all along) and it appears that a single volley from the royalists broke the rebels’ lines and they fled the battlefield. The leaders were captured and executed but the common men, as was often the case with King Edward, were spared.
Early sixteenth century writers reported that the conflict was known as the Battle of Lose Cote Field because the soldiers threw away their coats as they fled. However, later local sources refer to the site as ‘hlos cot’ i.e. pigsty cottage. Consequently, it is most likely that the unusual name of the location inspired writers a couple of generations later (and some distance away) to make a false assumption about its derivation. Contemporaries also referred to the conflict as the Battle of Stamford and the Battle of Hornfield (see Nicholas Bennett, ‘The Road to Losecoat Field’, The Ricardian XXX, 2020).
Contemporary Sources
- ‘Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire 1470’ edited by J G Nichols, Camden Miscellany, vol 1, 1847, pp 5-18.
- Three Chronicles of Edward IV, Sutton Publishing, 1988 (includes the above chronicle)
- A Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of the Reign of King Edward IV by John Warkworth. Edited by J O Halliwell, 1839.
- ‘Hearne’s Fragment’ in The Chronicles of the White Rose, edited by J C Giles, 1843.
Further Reading
- ‘…Where both the hosts fought…’ The Rebellion of 1469-1470 and the Battles of Edgcote and Lose-Coat Field by P A Haigh, Battlefield Press Heckmondwike, West Yorks, 1997.
- ‘An Unnoticed Battle’ by M Barton in Rutland Magazine, vol 1 1904. Full account of the battle.
- ‘The Battle of Losecoat Field March 1470’ by J L Knapp in Squire Magazine vol 1, no 8, July 1980.
- ‘The Lincolnshire Rebellion and its Part in the Downfall of the Earl of Warwick’ by Juanita L Knapp in The Ricardian, September 1978.
- ‘The Battle of Losecoat Field’ by Justin Simpson in Leicestershire and Rutland Notes and Queries, Vol 1, 1889-91.
- ‘The Battle of Empingham (Lose-Coat Field) 1470’ by Alan Smithies in Grantham Journal, 12 March 1970.