Battle of Ludford Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Ludford Bridge was a largely bloodless battle fought in the early years of the Wars of the Roses
. It took place on 12 October 1459, and resulted in a disastrous defeat for the Yorkists.
, Richard of York had eliminated most of his rivals at court. He reaffirmed his allegiance to the King, Henry of Lancaster
and was reappointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
. However, Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou
suspected that Richard ultimately intended to supplant her infant son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales and become King himself. She continually plotted and agitated against Richard and the Nevilles, his chief supporters amongst the nobles.
Events were precipitated by some high-handed actions by Richard's nephew Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick
. Warwick held the post of Captain of Calais, and late in 1458, he had led ships from Calais in attacks on merchant ships from Lübeck
and Spain
, on obscure grounds of acknowledgement of English sovereignty in the Channel. Though these actions infuriated the royal court, they were popular among the merchants, particularly in London
and Kent
, as they removed competitors for English trade with Flanders
. When Warwick was summoned to London to appear before the King's council, there was violence between Warwick's retinue and the royal household, and Warwick returned to Calais with any charges unanswered.
Margaret took this to be open defiance of Henry's authority. She had long before persuaded Henry to move the court from London to the Midlands, where her supporters had the most influence. They began mustering their forces, and summoned a council to be held in Coventry
on 24 June. Richard of York, his brother in law Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury
(Warwick's father) and Warwick himself feared that they would be arrested for treason, and refused to attend. They were quickly indicted for rebellion.
Richard's forces were scattered. He himself was at Ludlow
in the Welsh Marches
, Salisbury was at Middleham Castle
in North Yorkshire
and Warwick was at Calais. As Salisbury and Warwick marched to join Richard, Margaret ordered a force under James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley
to intercept Salisbury. At the bloody Battle of Blore Heath
, Audley's forces were routed.
. Here, Richard attended mass
in the cathedral before sending written protestations of his loyalty to Henry. These were ignored.
Richard retreated towards Ludlow, before making a stand at a fortified position near Ludford, Shropshire
on 12 October. His troops excavated a defensive ditch in a field on the opposite side of the River Teme
from Ludlow, near the bridge which gave the battle its name. They also constructed barricades of carts in which cannon were emplaced. However, morale was low, not least because the royal standard could be seen flying in the Lancastrian army, and it was known that King Henry himself, in full armour, was present. For much of his reign, Henry had been regarded as an ineffectual ruler, and had even lapsed into madness for periods of several months at a time. Richard of York and his supporters had maintained that they were opposed only to Henry's "evil counsellors". Now they realised that their army would probably refuse to fight against Henry himself.
Among the troops brought by Warwick from Calais were 600 men led by Andrew Trollope
, an experienced soldier. During the night, Trollope and his men defected to the Lancastrians. On hearing this, York, Salisbury and Warwick crossed the bridge and went at midnight into Ludlow, ostensibly for refreshment. They then abandoned their armies and fled. York, with his second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland
, fled into Wales
, and from there to Ireland
. Salisbury, Warwick and York's eldest son Edward, Earl of March
went to the West Country
where a supporter, Sir John Dynham, loaned them a boat which took them to Calais, where the garrison still supported Warwick.
At dawn on 13 October, the leaderless Yorkist troops knelt in submission before Henry, and were pardoned. York had abandoned not only his troops but also his wife Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, his two younger sons and his daughter, who were found standing at the Ludlow Market Cross when the Lancastrians arrived. They were placed in the care of the Duchess's sister Anne, wife of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham
, one of Margaret's supporters. The Lancastrian troops proceeded to plunder Ludlow, becoming drunk on looted wine and committing many outrages.
York, Salisbury and Warwick and their remaining supporters. However, it proved impossible for the Earl of Wiltshire, who was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland in Richard of York's place, to raise troops to oust York from Ireland, while the Duke of Somerset
was twice repulsed by the garrison of Calais when he tried to reclaim it from Warwick.
Although it had appeared that the country had been united behind King Henry at the time of the Battle of Ludford Bridge, within a short time the behaviour of the Lancastrian court had prompted many of the complaints that nobles were enriching themselves at the expense of the King and populace which Richard of York had first used as pretext to take arms against Henry's court in the early 1450s. Within six months of the Battle, Warwick was able to land at Sandwich
in Kent, with popular support from London and the south east of England. He then marched into the Midlands and, aided by treachery in the Lancastrian army, he captured King Henry at the Battle of Northampton
.
In January 2011 the masonry on one side of the bridge collapsed into the river below, closing off the river below and the bridge to traffic.
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses were a series of dynastic civil wars for the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York...
. It took place on 12 October 1459, and resulted in a disastrous defeat for the Yorkists.
Background
In the first pitched battle of the wars, the First Battle of St AlbansFirst Battle of St Albans
The First Battle of St Albans, fought on 22 May 1455 at St Albans, 22 miles north of London, traditionally marks the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Richard, Duke of York and his ally, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, defeated the Lancastrians under Edmund, Duke of Somerset, who was killed...
, Richard of York had eliminated most of his rivals at court. He reaffirmed his allegiance to the King, Henry of Lancaster
Henry VI of England
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. Until 1437, his realm was governed by regents. Contemporaneous accounts described him as peaceful and pious, not suited for the violent dynastic civil wars, known as the Wars...
and was reappointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was the British King's representative and head of the Irish executive during the Lordship of Ireland , the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
. However, Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou
Margaret of Anjou
Margaret of Anjou was the wife of King Henry VI of England. As such, she was Queen consort of England from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471; and Queen consort of France from 1445 to 1453...
suspected that Richard ultimately intended to supplant her infant son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales and become King himself. She continually plotted and agitated against Richard and the Nevilles, his chief supporters amongst the nobles.
Events were precipitated by some high-handed actions by Richard's nephew Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick
Richard Neville KG, jure uxoris 16th Earl of Warwick and suo jure 6th Earl of Salisbury and 8th and 5th Baron Montacute , known as Warwick the Kingmaker, was an English nobleman, administrator, and military commander...
. Warwick held the post of Captain of Calais, and late in 1458, he had led ships from Calais in attacks on merchant ships from Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, on obscure grounds of acknowledgement of English sovereignty in the Channel. Though these actions infuriated the royal court, they were popular among the merchants, particularly in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, as they removed competitors for English trade with Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
. When Warwick was summoned to London to appear before the King's council, there was violence between Warwick's retinue and the royal household, and Warwick returned to Calais with any charges unanswered.
Margaret took this to be open defiance of Henry's authority. She had long before persuaded Henry to move the court from London to the Midlands, where her supporters had the most influence. They began mustering their forces, and summoned a council to be held in Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
on 24 June. Richard of York, his brother in law Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury
Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury
Richard Neville, jure uxoris 5th Earl of Salisbury and 7th and 4th Baron Montacute, KG, PC was a Yorkist leader during the early parts of the Wars of the Roses.-Background:...
(Warwick's father) and Warwick himself feared that they would be arrested for treason, and refused to attend. They were quickly indicted for rebellion.
Richard's forces were scattered. He himself was at Ludlow
Ludlow
Ludlow is a market town in Shropshire, England close to the Welsh border and in the Welsh Marches. It lies within a bend of the River Teme, on its eastern bank, forming an area of and centred on a small hill. Atop this hill is the site of Ludlow Castle and the market place...
in the Welsh Marches
Welsh Marches
The Welsh Marches is a term which, in modern usage, denotes an imprecisely defined area along and around the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom. The precise meaning of the term has varied at different periods...
, Salisbury was at Middleham Castle
Middleham Castle
Middleham Castle in Wensleydale, in the county of North Yorkshire, was built by Robert Fitzrandolph, 3rd Lord of Middleham and Spennithorne, commencing in 1190. It was built near the site of an earlier motte and bailey castle...
in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
and Warwick was at Calais. As Salisbury and Warwick marched to join Richard, Margaret ordered a force under James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley
James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley
James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley, 2nd Baron Tuchet was an English peer.James Tuchet, 5th Baron Audley, son of John Tuchet, 4th Baron Audley and his wife Elizabeth, was a distinguished veteran of the Hundred Years' War...
to intercept Salisbury. At the bloody Battle of Blore Heath
Battle of Blore Heath
The Battle of Blore Heath was the first major battle in the English Wars of the Roses. It was fought on 23 September 1459, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire, two miles east of the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire, England.- Background :...
, Audley's forces were routed.
Battle
Even after this defeat, the forces available to Henry and Margaret outnumbered York's, Salisbury's and Warwick's combined armies by two to one. The Yorkist army tried to move towards London, but found their path blocked by the Lancastrian army with King Henry himself nominally at its head, and fell back to WorcesterWorcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...
. Here, Richard attended mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
in the cathedral before sending written protestations of his loyalty to Henry. These were ignored.
Richard retreated towards Ludlow, before making a stand at a fortified position near Ludford, Shropshire
Ludford, Shropshire
Ludford is a village and parish immediately to the south of the town of Ludlow, in Shropshire, England, on the south bank of the River Teme.- History & Amenities :...
on 12 October. His troops excavated a defensive ditch in a field on the opposite side of the River Teme
River Teme
The River Teme rises in Mid Wales, south of Newtown in Powys, and flows through Knighton where it crosses the border into England down to Ludlow in Shropshire, then to the north of Tenbury Wells on the Shropshire/Worcestershire border there, on its way to join the River Severn south of Worcester...
from Ludlow, near the bridge which gave the battle its name. They also constructed barricades of carts in which cannon were emplaced. However, morale was low, not least because the royal standard could be seen flying in the Lancastrian army, and it was known that King Henry himself, in full armour, was present. For much of his reign, Henry had been regarded as an ineffectual ruler, and had even lapsed into madness for periods of several months at a time. Richard of York and his supporters had maintained that they were opposed only to Henry's "evil counsellors". Now they realised that their army would probably refuse to fight against Henry himself.
Among the troops brought by Warwick from Calais were 600 men led by Andrew Trollope
Andrew Trollope
Sir Andrew Trollope was an English soldier during the later stages of the Hundred Years War and at the time of the Wars of the Roses. Born into a family of Durham dyers, Trollope began his long military career in France in the 1420s as a man at arms, serving under Sir John Fastolf and later John...
, an experienced soldier. During the night, Trollope and his men defected to the Lancastrians. On hearing this, York, Salisbury and Warwick crossed the bridge and went at midnight into Ludlow, ostensibly for refreshment. They then abandoned their armies and fled. York, with his second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland
Edmund, Earl of Rutland
Edmund, Earl of Rutland was the fifth child and second surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville...
, fled into Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and from there to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. Salisbury, Warwick and York's eldest son Edward, Earl of March
Edward IV of England
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...
went to the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
where a supporter, Sir John Dynham, loaned them a boat which took them to Calais, where the garrison still supported Warwick.
At dawn on 13 October, the leaderless Yorkist troops knelt in submission before Henry, and were pardoned. York had abandoned not only his troops but also his wife Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, his two younger sons and his daughter, who were found standing at the Ludlow Market Cross when the Lancastrians arrived. They were placed in the care of the Duchess's sister Anne, wife of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham
Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham
Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham KG , an English nobleman, great grandson of King Edward III on his mother's side, was best known as a military commander in the Hundred Years' War and in the Wars of the Roses....
, one of Margaret's supporters. The Lancastrian troops proceeded to plunder Ludlow, becoming drunk on looted wine and committing many outrages.
Aftermath
Henry and his army then returned to Coventry, where a Parliament packed with Queen Margaret's supporters attaintedAttainder
In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura is the metaphorical 'stain' or 'corruption of blood' which arises from being condemned for a serious capital crime . It entails losing not only one's property and hereditary titles, but typically also the right to pass them on to one's heirs...
York, Salisbury and Warwick and their remaining supporters. However, it proved impossible for the Earl of Wiltshire, who was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland in Richard of York's place, to raise troops to oust York from Ireland, while the Duke of Somerset
Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset
Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset was an important Lancastrian military commander during the English Wars of the Roses. He is sometimes numbered the 2nd Duke of Somerset, since the title was re-created for his father after his uncle died...
was twice repulsed by the garrison of Calais when he tried to reclaim it from Warwick.
Although it had appeared that the country had been united behind King Henry at the time of the Battle of Ludford Bridge, within a short time the behaviour of the Lancastrian court had prompted many of the complaints that nobles were enriching themselves at the expense of the King and populace which Richard of York had first used as pretext to take arms against Henry's court in the early 1450s. Within six months of the Battle, Warwick was able to land at Sandwich
Sandwich, Kent
Sandwich is a historic town and civil parish on the River Stour in the Non-metropolitan district of Dover, within the ceremonial county of Kent, south-east England. It has a population of 6,800....
in Kent, with popular support from London and the south east of England. He then marched into the Midlands and, aided by treachery in the Lancastrian army, he captured King Henry at the Battle of Northampton
Battle of Northampton (1460)
The Battle of Northampton was a battle in the Wars of the Roses, which took place on 10 July 1460.-Background:The Yorkist cause seemed finished after the previous disaster at Ludford Bridge...
.
In January 2011 the masonry on one side of the bridge collapsed into the river below, closing off the river below and the bridge to traffic.