St Leonard’s Hospital in York

There have been two reports online recently about the discovery of foundations of part of the buildings of the medieval Saint Leonard‘s Hospital in York. 

This late Anglo-Saxon foundation survived until the dissolution of the monasteries and related institutions in the sixteenth century. Unlike the great mediaeval hospitals of London this York foundation was suppressed and largely destroyed. Although parts of the site have been investigated since the early nineteenth century the only remains above ground out of part of the gate house and the adjoining chapel, dated to about 1240, adjacent to the City Library. The remainder lies under.Duncombe Place, the Theatre Royal and adjoinhg buildings, and adjacent to the York Oratory.

The VCH for York has an article describing the various religious precinct of the mediaeval city, including that of St Leonard’s, together with a map. This can be accessed here

There is more about the history and buildings of the hospital from the York Archives at History in the remains: A look at St. Leonard’s hospital

By 1300 the Hospital had up to 225 inmates, ministered to by thirteen chaplains and eight sisters. However in 1350 the buildings were said to be in great disrepair. 

I recall reading in the VCH volume on the City of York - which I cannot find online - that a few days before the battle of Towton in 1461 King Henry VI and Queen Margaret together with the Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, and, I assume, others of the Lancastrian court, attended Vespers in the chapel of St Leonard’s.

In 1515 the chapel and other buildings were described as dilapidated. The foundation was surrendered to the Crown in 1540, and after sale and repurchase a branch of the Royal Mint was established on part of the site in 1546.

In January 1556 the City Council petitioned Cardinal Pole for the re-establishment of the Hospital, but without success before the end of the Marian Restoration.

The recent online articles can be seen, from Archaeology Magazine, at Sinkhole in York uncovers remains of medieval St Leonard’s Hospital, one of northern England’s largest and, in a very similar account, from GB News at Archaeologists discover remains of medieval England's largest hospital after sinkhole opens up in historic British city

The Battle of Towton remembered

I usually post something on this day to mark the anniversary of the battle of Towton in 1461. On this 564th anniversary I realised that over the years I have written a considerable amount on this blog about Towton, and think that rather than spending time copying and pasting links to all these pieces I have written it is easier to suggest that if you want to look at them, readers should go to the search facility, at the bottom of the side bar and simply type in “Towton”, and be taken to a varied set of articles.

Next year is  not only the 565th anniversary, which trips off the tongue more easily, but it will actually fall on Palm Sunday. Maybe someone will organise more to commemorate the events of that bloody and terrible day for that reason alone. It will be the fortieth anniversary of the first of the Anglican rite Requiem Masses I organised in Saxton Church, where the churchyard contains the bones of many of the slain. 

In those intervening years, we have learned considerably more about the battle, notably with the excavation of the burial pit at Towton  Hall, and the comprehensive scientific study of the remains of the victims. It now looks as if the profile.of the chapel commissioned by King Richard III in 1484 has been identified, embedded in the later buildings of Towton Hall. A further significant discovery were the remains of handguns used by some of the troops at the battle. Whether these were English, or perhaps Burgundians fighting with the Yorkists or French on the Lancastrian side, is not clear. 

In one of my previous posts, I speculate on how far reaching the significance of the battle is. For those who were there, it was clearly very significant indeed. For many it was their last day of life. For the victorious Yorkists it inaugurated almost a quarter of a century.of often tenuous power, for the Lancastrians the horror of defeat, exile, and, for many, subsequent violent deaths. it certainly did not resolve the political problems of the realm and in many ways could be seen as exacerbating them. Without the battle of Towton, there would not have been the subsequent battles of Tewkesbury and Bosworth, and probably a very different political history for the country right down to the present day. Would there have been the English reformation, the Union of the Crowns, the Civil War? We cannot know but what happened on the field of Towton changed, one way or another, the course of British history. 

I usually end these posts on this day by asking readers to join me in praying for the repose of the souls of all those who fought and those who died at Towton in 1461.

Recruitment and composition in armies of the Wars of the Roses

The other evening I watched on YouTube two very interesting videos from Matt Easton of Scholagladiatora. He is a well known and respected re-enactor who also teaches a variety of historic combat techniques and is a prolific creator of informative videos on such matters.

The two I saw were about how armies were recruited in the time of the Wars of the Roses, and about the age of those who engaged in battle. He illustrated this latter topic with evidence from the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. As Matt himself pointed out this was a somewhat unscientific sampling, but it was nonetheless interesting and credible.The conclusion could be summed up as being that the professional soldier of the fifteenth century was not that much different in age from the professional soldier of today. Of course the men sampled were the equivalent of the officers of later military formations. The rank and file, as in modern conflicts, would be likely to be younger. Elite commanders, such as the Yorkists Duke of Gloucester at eighteen and King Edward IV’s stepson Thomas Grey at sixteen, or the Lancastrian Edward Prince of Wales at seventeen, might be younger, but their military command was because of their social rank.This does appear consistent with the evidence from the grave pit at Towton where some men had clearly had years of military experience before their fatal encounter that snowy Palm Sunday in 1461.

The two videos can be seen at How were Medieval Armies & Soldiers Recruited? and at How OLD were Medieval Knights & Soldiers in Battle? The Battle of Tewkesbury (1471)

Towton 555

Today is the 555th anniversary of the battle of Towton, fought on March 29th 1461, which that year was Palm Sunday and hence the contemporary name of the battle was Palm Sunday Field. It is normally considered the largest and bloodiest battle fought on English soil.

As someone raised in the area and fascinated by the later middle ages Towton has long been an interest of mine, and when I still lived in the area I organised visits to the site and a series of Requiem Masses ( Anglican Rite ) in the church at Saxton, where many of the victims are buried.

My previous post on the battle can be viewed at  Palm Sunday Field 1461, Towton links, The Battle of Towton - 550th anniversary, Towton - remembering the dead, Victims of the Battle of Towton and Palm Sunday Field.

Palm Sunday Field

Today is the anniversary of the battle of Towton in 1461. Fought on Palm Sunday it was known to the later fifteenth century as Palm Sunday Field.

With Easter having an unfixed date it is not that common for the calendar anniversary and Palm Sunday to coincide. It happened in 1801,1863,1874,1885,1896, and last century in 1931, 1942, and 1953, and this century will happen next in 2026 and then in 2048.

Had there been no battle at Towton with the result it had - the clear victory of the Yorkist King Edward IV - then there would have been no Bosworth and no King Richard III to rebury this past week. There might well have been no Tudors, and no English reformation ( and all that led to ).

Towton is often considered the largest and bloodiest battle fought on English soil. Fought in snowy conditions it was a vicious political and military 'grudge match'.

My previous posts about the battle can be seen at Palm Sunday Field 1461 and Towton links, at The Battle of Towton - 550th anniversary, at Towton - remembering the dead, and, from last year Victims of the Battle of Towton.

The Opening Barrage, by Graham Turner

Image:richardiii.net/© Reproduced by kind permission of the artist. www.studio88.co.uk

The Rout, by Graham Turner

Artwork from 'Campaign 120:'Towton 1461: England's bloodiest battle' by Graham Turner

Image:richardiii.net /© Osprey Publishing Ltd

It is said that the pious Lancastrian King Henry VI, behind the lines in York, sought to prevent fighting on a feast day and a Sunday. His supplanter King Edward IV was less scrupulous - he had the Earl of Devon, a Lancastrian who was injured in the battle and unable to flee with his King and other Henrician loyalists in time, beheaded on April 3, that is on Good Friday. Nice day for an execution. Not that, as can be seen from following the links in the biography of Earl Thomas to the death of Nicholas Radford in 1455, that he and his brother were exactly squeamish when it came to political violence. 

Victims of the Battle of Towton

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Towton in 1461, fought in a snow storm on Palm Sunday and reputedly the bloodiest battle fought in English history. I have posted about it previously in Palm Sunday Field 1461,  Towton links, The Battle of Towton - 550th anniversary and Towton - remembering the dead. I have a longstanding interest in the battle which was fought in my home area.

In recent years there have been several books about the battle, but so far I have not managed to read them. However one I would draw attention to is based on the detailed archaeological examination of skeletons of soldiers who died in the fighting and which were discovered in a mass burial at Towton in 1996.

Image:Amazon

Blood Red Roses is published by Oxbow Books, who are based very close to where I live in Oxford. the book is now in a second edition and is established as an exemplary case study of such battlefield archaeology.

In the years before I came to Oxford I used to organise a Requiem for the fallen of Towton in Saxton church, where many are buried in the churchyard, and in whose parish the battle sites lie. I always try to remember them in my prayers on this day and invite others of you as readers of this blog to do as well.

Towton - remembering the dead

In previous posts I have written about the battle of Towton, fought in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday, March 29th 1461, south-west of York and probably the biggest and bloodiest battle fought on English soil. Two years ago I posted Palm Sunday Field 1461 and Towton links, and last year I wrote The Battle of Towton - 550th anniversary.

This year I thought I would post in particular about the graves of some of the dead.

There is an introduction to the battlefield archaeology of the site here, and the excavation of a mass grave discovered at the site of the chantry chapel built by King Richard III in the village of Towton itself is recorded in Blood Red Roses: The Archaeology of a Mass Grave from the Battle of Towton 1461, published by Oxbow here in Oxford.

Apart from this and the large grave in the churchyard at Saxton vide infra there are two monuments in the area of peers who fell in the battle. The first is on the edge of the battelefield in the churchyard at Saxton.

All Saints Church and Lord Dacre's Tomb, Saxton
Ranulph or Ralph Dacre, Lord Dacre, was the second son of Thomas, Lord Dacre, wh had died only three years earlier. His mother was Philippa, a daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland and an elder half-sister of Cecily, Duchess of York, the mother of the victorious King Edward IV.Lord dacre's wife was a FitzHugh of Ravensworth, so he was very much part of northern noble society.
Ranulph was a loyal Lancastrian and at the Battle of Towton, he commanded the Lancastrian left wing. After fighting through the day, he removed his helmet to drink just as the Duke of Norfolk’s men arrived on the field. Moments later, he was killed by an arrow, fired by a youth hiden in some bushes nearby. This is commemorated in the rhyming phrase "The Lord Dacres was slain in the North Acres. He was buried in the churcyard at All Saints Church at Saxton under a table tomb. Legend has it that he was buried upright with his horse. This was apparently confirmed when in the eighteenth century a horse's skull was discovered near the tomb.
A cross on the battlefield has been given his name. It is the scene of a small service each year on Palm Sunday, in memory of those who fell in the battle.

Source: The Richard III Society website: www.richardiii.net

Image and comments (adapted and extended) from uistin on Flickr

Behind the tomb is the long communal grave which was made by William Hungate of Saxton in the early sixteenth century to contain bodies moved from the battlefield. Even today it is of recognisable elevation.

A few miles away in the church at Methley is the tomb of Lionel Lord Welles KG. Like Lord Dacre he was a man in middle age at the time of his death. Legend, again, has it that after his death in the battle his body was concealed in a snow drift, and then brought in a sack by night to Methley.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography lives of him and his sons by Michael Hicks can be read here and there is another online account of his life with links here.

In the Waterton chantry in Methley church - incidentally the church is a treasure house of good things to see - is his tomb and that of his first wife. She was born Joan Waterton, and was the neice of Bishop Richard Fleming; the very fine tomb of her parents lies opposite theirs in the same chapel, which appears to be of later date than the tombs. The Welles tomb appears to have been moved from an originally free-standing position to its present place against the south wall.

Lord Welles' effigy is clearly later than 1457 as he is shown wearing the Garter, an honour he only received that yearas shown as KG, but it is unlikely, in the circumstances that the tomb was erected after his death. He clearly planned to be buried there. The effigy is virtually identical to that of Lord Hungerford and Moleyns, who died in 1459, in Salisbury cathedral. Both the effigies of Lord and Lady Welles are of high quality, with the details of the fabric of her dress and mantle and his tabard rendered in fine detail. Both are weasring the Lancastrian collar of SS. Lionel's effigy has undergone repair - his nose is a replacement - and the whole tomb underwent a full restoration in 1988.

The tomb of Lord and Lady Welles in Methley church

Image:leodis.net

After Joan's death he remarried, Margaret, the widowed Duchess of Somerset, who was the mother of Lady Margaret Beaufort. She clearly intended to be buried at Wimborne with her previous husband Duke John. Their tomb can be viewed in my post The tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Somerset at Wimborne Minster.

Of your charity pray for the repose of the souls all who fought and of all who died at Palm Sunday Field

The Battle of Towton - 550th anniversary

Today is the 550th anniversary of the Battle of Towton, fought on Palm Sunday 1461, and probably the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil.

Last year I posted about the battle, and you can read, or re-read, those posts at Palm Sunday Field 1461 and Towton links.

The following piece is adapted from the RichardIII Society website:

The Opening Barrage at Towton by Graham Turner
Reproduced by kind permission of the artist
www.studio88.co.uk

Following their success at the second battle of St Albans the Lancastrian army moved south towards London but the city was chary of opening its gates to Queen Margaret’s army despite the fact she was re-united with the king. Margaret decided not to press the matter and withdrew with her army to the north. Meanwhile Edward, the new Duke of York and the Earl of Warwick, following their respective victory at Mortimer's Cross and defeat at St Albans, were reunited at either Chipping Norton or Burford and marched on the capital. The young duke felt sufficiently secure in his position to take the crown and on 4 March 1461 he was declared king as Edward IV. He knew that to make good his claim he had to defeat the Lancastrians once and for all. On the 5th the Duke of Norfolk left London to raise an army in his base of East Anglia and on 7 March Warwick left for the midlands to the same end. Edward remained in London for another week and then marched north.

By 27 March Warwick, leading the vanguard of the new royal army, reached Ferrybridge, the crossing for the river Aire and just eight miles south of the Lancastrians who were encamped and preparing for the battle. The bridge was badly damaged but repairs were made and Warwick crossed and made camp. Early on morning of the 28th Lord Clifford led a surprise attack on the Yorkists, who were driven back across the river and Warwick’s lieutenant, Lord FitzWalter, was killed and the earl was wounded in the leg by an arrow. Meanwhile King Edward advanced from Pontefract to find the bridge once again seriously damaged. Lord Fauconberg was sent westwards along the river to Castleford, three miles away, where he successfully crossed the Aire. He immediately marched north, caught up with Clifford, killed him and scattered his force. By the evening of the 28th the Yorkist host had crossed the river Aire and moved northward to meet the Lancastrian army.

The 29th March 1461, Palm Sunday, was a bitterly cold windy day with snow on the ground. The Lancastrian army, under the command of the 24-year-old Duke of Somerset, may have been 30,000 strong, and was drawn up on heathland north of a ridge between the villages of Towton and Saxton. His two main ‘battles’, one under his own command and the other under the command of the Earl of Northumberland, were side by side with archers to the front and a small rearguard behind them. King Edward, south of the ridge, ranged his archers, under the command of Lord Fauconberg, across the width of his two ‘battles’, one commanded by himself and the other by Warwick. As with Somerset, he had a small rear guard but the young king’s major worry was the non-arrival of the Duke of Norfolk and the East Anglians. To the left of the northward-facing Yorkist army was the river Cock which meandered westwards and surrounded Castle Hill Wood on three sides. North and south of the wood, the heathland fell sharply to the river and to the right of the Yorkist army was a plateau. The battlefield was anything but spacious. There has been speculation that the Lancastrians hid a force within the woods to ambush the Yorkists but this has not been substantiated.

The battle began mid-morning and the first Yorkist volleys of arrows were aided by the wind to find their mark within the Lancastrian ranks. The Yorkist archers immediately moved back and the Lancastrian response fell on empty ground. Fauconberg’s archers were then ordered forward to retrieve the spent missiles. The first advance probably came from the Lancastrians with Somerset’s ‘battle’ moving towards King Edward at a greater speed than Northumberland upon Warwick’s ‘battle’. The clash between the armies was intense within the restricted arena of battle, the fighting was hand to hand and the whole battle became a melée. The turning point was probably the arrival of the Duke of Norfolk and his men who flung themselves onto the left flank of the Lancastrians. Gradually the Lancastrian line gave way until late in the day it eventually broke and the troops fled towards the river, their pathway becoming known as Bloody Meadow. The river Cock was in full flood, and hundreds were drowned. So ended one the longest and bloodiest battles fought on English soil. As many as 28,000 may have been killed, the Yorkists possibly losing 8,000. Amongst the Lancastrians the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Dacre, Lord Welles and Sir Andrew Trollope were killed and the Earls of Devon and Wiltshire were captured and executed shortly afterwards although the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Exeter escaped. The dethroned King Henry and his Queen and son, who had stayed in York during the battle, fled with them to Scotland. The victorious young King Edward was now free to return to London and his coronation.

The Rout
Artwork from 'Campaign 120: 'Towton 1461: England's bloodiest battle' by Graham Turner
© Osprey Publishing Ltd.
www.ospreypublishing.com

The livery is that of the Earl of Northumberland and the Percy family

I would add the thought that Towton wasa decisive battle, which made the Yorkist seizure of power effective, even thought the 1460s were punctuated by attempts to restablish the Lancastrians, as did happen in 1471. Not until after the battle of Tewkesbury that year was King Edward IV secure. Whether the change of King and royal house solved anything is difficult to tell. What it did do was make a complex situation more so, and the fighting and deaths of 1460-61, and of the following decade made for greater division, and created new individuals and groups with much to lose or gain. Moreover by changing the dynastic line and succession, removing not a few potential heirs along the way the continuing issue of the sixteenth century monarchy was to come to the fore - just who was, or was not, the heir apparent or presumptive?

As with my post last year I will end by asking the prayers of my readers for all those slain at Towton or in its aftermath, and for all the combatants.

Towton links

I realize some of the links I put in my earlier post about Towton do not work (my fault no doubt), so here is another attempt, with some more sites added:

A selection of pieces about the battle listed by the Towton Battlefield Society can be found here.

An article which raises questions about the location can be found here.

For the archaeological evidence look here.

For recent books on the battle there are several listed on Amazon; they appear in most cases to be essentially military histories, rather than more wide ranging studies of the battle in context.

For a review of one by Christopher Gavett, and published by Osprey, look here.

For the work of Graham Turner, a modern artist who specializes in reconstructing the conflicts of the period look at this.

Palm Sunday Field 1461

Today is the 549th anniversary,(allowing, that is, and being pedantic - you would expect nothing less I know - for the calendar change of 1752) of the battle of Towton, fought on a snowy Palm Sunday, and known to contemporaries as Palm Sunday Field. The Yorkist victory secured the crown for Edward IV and the battle is often considered to have been both the largest and bloodiest fought on English soil. It marked the end of a vicious series of battles which had begun at Wakefield three months earlier - one of the few periods of intense conflict in the so-called Wars of the Roses.

Towton lies a few miles north of my home town of Pontefract and it was one of those local links to the late middle ages which shaped my historic interests.

To learn something about the battle look here and for a review from The Ricardian of September 1995 of Andrew Boardman The Battle of Towton (Stroud 1994) click here. For something about the archaeology of the burials discovered in 1996 adjacent to the site of the battlefield chapel erected at Towton look here and here.
The website of the Towton battlefield society is here

The battlefield has survived relatively unscathed, and can be walked and studied. There are locations there which are eerie and atmospheric even on a summer day. To look across the centre of the battlefield or to follow the line of the Lancastrian flight and the Yorkist pursuit along the old road towards Tadcaster and York makes anyone aware of what happened that day and to sense, chillingly, the horror and brutality of civil war.

In 1986, the 525th anniversary year, as Secretary of the Local History Society in Pontefract I organised a commemorative event on the Easter Monday - as close as we could get to the actual date. My inspiration was knowing that in 1971 to mark the the quincentenary of the battle of Tewkesbury there had been the celebration of a requiem in the Abbey church there and that there had been the revival of the Sarum liturgy for the burial of the unknown sailor from the Mary Rose in the Anglican cathedral in Portsmouth a year or two previously. We therefore had an Anglican Requiem - I was not then up to organising a Use of York one - in Saxton Church, which lies just off the battlefield, and in whose churchyard lie the remains of many of those who died at the battle. These include not only Lord Dacre under his table tomb, but many anonymous bodies, re-interred there a generation after the battle. Many of us then walked the battlefield, following an excellent trail outlined in a leaflet produced shortly beforehand. The fates were kind to us in so far as we actually had flurries of snow at one point.

For the next few years I organised an Anglican-rite requiem in the church - it seemed the least, yet also the best one could do for all the participants. I remain very grateful to those Anglican clergy who enabled this to take place, notably Brian Harris, then Vicar of Aberford cum Saxton. I rather think this liturgical celebration may have ceased when I left the area and moved to Oxford. There continues to be, I assume, the tradition of walking the battlefield on Palm Sunday, and a short service in the chapel at Lead on the western edge of the battlefield.

Today, if I was in the area, I would organise something similar, but now it would be an Extraordinary Form Mass, or indeed see if it could be the occasion for a reconstruction of a York Use Requiem.

Please remember in your prayers all who died at Towton and all the combatants.