The Battle of Northampton

by Mike Ingram

10th July 1460

Result of the Battle – Yorkist victory

The battle is highly significant nationally as it was the first time that artillery was used en masse in England and the only time a field fortification was assaulted during the wars. It was also the last time protracted negotiations preceded a battle, the only time a whole army was excommunicated in the wars and, in the immediate aftermath, the Yorkist leader, Richard, Duke of York, publicly laid claim to the throne of England for the first time.

The story of the battle began the previous year when the Yorkists were forced to flee England. Led by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, better known as the Kingmaker, and Edward, Earl of March the eighteen year old son of the Yorkist leader Richard, Duke of York, the Yorkists returned on 26th June 1460. Landing at Sandwich they stopped briefly in London all the time gathering supporters.

On 4th July, Fauconberg, commanding an advance guard of up to 10,000 men, left London and headed north. Warwick securing a baggage train and a £1,000 loan from the merchants in London left the following day at the head of the main army. With Warwick and Edward was a growing number of Yorkist supporters, including Henry Bourchier (Earl of Essex), William Fiennes (Lord Saye), Henry Mountford, Sir John Mowbray (Duke of Norfolk), Edward Neville (Lord Bergavenny), John, Lord Scrope of Bolton, Sir John Stafford, Lord John Clinton, and John Tuchet (Lord Audley). An impressive array of clergy headed by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, Coppini, the Papal Legate, Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury and the Bishops of Ely and Exeter also accompanied the army. Robert Horne, John Scott and John Fogge, who along with their men, had changed sides at Canterbury, were no doubt with them as well. Of the ordinary soldiers, we only know for certain of the men from Rye and Winchelsea, but many towns and villages in Kent must have also sent contingents.

The chroniclers make no mention of any Yorkist artillery brought from Calais or collected on route, although both Bale’s Chronicle and A Short English Chronicle state that they left with a considerable artillery train. Warwick’s capture of the fleet preparing to assault Calais at Sandwich earlier in the year would have no doubt resulted in a considerable haul. Only a heavy siege gun, known as a bombard had been left in London, so we must assume that it was at least 30 pieces. Whilst the main army headed north, Salisbury and Sir John Wenlock stayed behind to deal with Lancastrians trapped inside the Tower.

In the meantime, over 6,000 Lancastrians marched to Northampton from their base at Coventry. Although King Henry VI was with them, it was Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and Earl of Northampton who was in command of the army. When the royal army arrived at Northampton, they built a large fortification for their men and guns in the fields close to the Abbey. Many of these defences were based around a river or stream. Northampton offered a number of suitable locations due to the River Nene (Nen) and its myriad of tributaries in the valley immediately to the south of the town. The Register of Abbot John Whethamstede of St Albans described the fortifications at Northampton as strongly fortified camp equipped with engines of war, and in another account, ‘…a strong and myghty feeld…armed and arayed wythe goonnys.’ According to Gregory’s Chronicle it was a ‘Castramatatio armed and arrayed with goonys’, which can be translated as a military camp. On Monday 7th July 1460 at about five in the afternoon, William Waynflete Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England, in the presence of the Bishop of Hereford, the Bishop of Durham, Keeper of the Privy Seal and Master Thomas Marninge, the King’s Secretary, as well as two esquires, surrendered the Great Silver Seal of England to the King in his tent. According to official records, this was standing in Hardingstone field. Waynflete then fled. The seal was placed in a chest in the tent, and the keys given to the King.

The Yorkist army moved to Towcester and through Bilsworth, spending the night before the battle outside the town, probably on high ground around the village of Hardingstone. John Lowe, Bishop of Rochester was sent ahead of the army to salute the King and tell him that his cousins the Earls of March and Warwick had come to deliver him from the hands of his enemies, and also to warn Buckingham that he should leave the field or else they would fight him. The bishop rode until he reached King Henry, Wavrin continues:

‘when the bishop had approached the camp as far as a cross on a hill above the said camp, he met a gentleman of the watch, who asked him the reason for his coming there and the bishop without fear answered him that he came to speak with the king…when the bishop found himself near the presence of the king and saw the great preparation of men at arms and artillery and the great ditches they had made around the camp, in which the water of the river flowed, which (the water) encircled the whole army.’

According to Wavrin, the assembled Lancastrian lords agreed that it was very clear to them that:

‘the earls of March, Warwick and Fauconberg were only wishing for their own deaths, so they decided together to answer the bishop saying that he should return to the lords who had sent him and tell them that they were no traitors at all nor disloyal to the King, but on the contrary they were there to protect him against all those who would do him harm.’

An English Chronicle has a slightly different version of events having Buckingham say, ‘you don’t come as Bishops but men of arms and if Warwick comes he shall die’.

Three sources, Wavrin, a ‘Newsletter from Bruges’, and Hall, all write of a Lancastrian force outside the fortifications. Hall says it was Beaumont, who with a small force, attacked Warwick’s division as they approached but were easily swept aside. The Bruges newsletter says that there was a torrential downpour, which, ‘forced the Lancastrians to come out of that place and encounter Warwick’. Wavrin, in his second account of the battle, on the other hand, says that it was ‘le seigneur de Greriffin’, who along with thirteen to fourteen hundred men, was outside the fortifications. He goes on to say that the Yorkists skirmished with Greriffin outside the town for an hour and a half. It is not clear whether the report means the whole Yorkist army or just part, but it is more likely that it was the Yorkist vanguard led by Scrope and Stafford when they first arrived. These Yorkists then assaulted the town itself which took another half hour from when Greriffin’s men retreated. They entered Northampton by force, pillaging the town as they passed through it.

Watching from Queen Eleanor’s Cross (then, as now, headless) was the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Papal legate Francesco Coppini, Bishop of Milan. With the talking over, Coppini raised the standard of the Roman Catholic Church in support of Warwick. Addressing the assembled army, he gave plenary remission of sins for all those who were to fight on the side of Warwick. He likewise pronounced the most terrifying of all excommunications – an anathema on their enemies, exhibiting before the camp an Apostolic letter in which was believed to contain the formula for the excommunication. Evidence suggests that the Yorkists bombarded the camp. In 2014, a cannonball was rediscovered near Eagle Drive. Verified by archaeologist Dr Foard of Huddersfield University (who also led the search for Bosworth battlefield), the ball was almost certainly fired from a Yorkist gun during the battle and as such is the oldest cannonball found in England. At around 2.00pm, with the town under their control, the Yorkists began their assault on the fortifications. Whethamstede says that the Yorkist army divided into three battles, the first commanded by the eighteen year old Edward, Earl of March fighting in his first battle, under the banner of his father. The second was commanded by Warwick and the third by Fauconberg. They attacked simultaneously along different sections of the defences, their superior numbers making an enveloping assault. According to Wavrin’s first account, after the Earl of Warwick gave the men their instructions, the vanguard which was led by Fauconberg, marched down the hill to the bottom of the valley. Many Yorkists would have been killed, and many more injured by the archers as they approached the defences.

Those who made it to the fortifications then had to try and scramble across the water-filled stream and the bank of earth behind. The chroniclers tell us that the clash continued for a half an hour, then to Buckingham and the other earls’ surprise, there came a shout from his far left. Lord Grey’s men had changed sides and were helping Edward’s troops over the defences into the camp!

Once the Yorkists were inside the defences, it was all over for the Lancastrians. Many were killed in the ensuing rout. Many poured out through the rear of the camp, and were drowned as they tried to escape by crossing the river or its tributaries swollen by unseasonable rain. Many more were taken prisoner. Buckingham was either killed outside his own or the King’s tent. Shrewsbury, Beaumont and Egremont were also killed close by.

Lancastrian William Lucy was a late arrival on the battlefield, and although most only just mention his death, Gregory gives us far more detail. It appears that the Yorkist knight John Strafford was in love with Lucy’s wife. As soon as he appeared, Strafford attacked and killed Lucy with an axe. The happy couple were married soon after.

The number of casualties varies wildly between the chroniclers. At one end of the scale, Bale puts the total at fifty eight, although this probably refers to just the nobles and gentry, whilst at the other Wavrin gives a figure of 12,000. The true figure was probably in the thousands rather than hundreds.

King Henry VI was captured. He was first taken with due reverence to Delapre Abbey, then in a stately procession, led into the town where he was kept for three days. The King was then taken to London and conveyed ceremoniously to the Bishop of London’s palace. A bare headed Warwick bearing the sword of state led the way.

Further Reading

• ‘A Quincentenary: the Battle of Northampton, July 10 1460’ by R. Ian Jack in Northamptonshire Past and Present Vol 3 No 1, 1960.

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