Talk:Battle of Towton

Lord Clifford
Bloodier than the Battle of Watling Street?

I changed the Lancastrian commander 'Lord Clifford' to 'the Duke of Somerset'.

Actually Lord Clifford commanded the small Lancastrian force at the Battle of Ferrybridge, where he died, killed by an arrow.

Ralphspikyhair — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralphspikyhair (talk • contribs) 17:31, 31 October 2004 (UTC)

Battle date
I have removed the reference to Palm Sunday because the 29th of March 1461 was a Friday. In 1461 Good Friday was on April 5th, counting back would put March 29th on a Friday and Palm Sunday on the 31st. You can use this program Easter Sunday calculator to find the date of Good Friday in 1461. Also, the calendar of 1461 could be generated with special programs (this one was done with MATLAB):

Mar 1461 S    M    Tu     W    Th     F     S     0     0     0     0     0     1     2 3    4     5     6     7     8     9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17    18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31     0     0     0     0     0     0

Apr 1461 S    M    Tu      W    Th     F     S     0     1     2      3     4     5     6 7    8     9     10    11    12    13    14    15    16     17    18    19    20    21    22    23     24    25    26    27    28    29    30     0     0     0     0

Of course it could be that the battle was fought on Palm Sunday, so the mistake is in the date, but since the remark about Palm Sunday is in parenthesis I removed it instead of changing the date.

On the other hand this calculator: http://www.albion.edu/english/calendar/easter.htm puts Easter on April 5th, making March 29th Palm Sunday!! I will check MATLAB once again. --130.161.31.83 13:58, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This discrepancy might be accounted for by the switch from the Julian Calender to the Gregorian in 1582, which deleted (or added? can't remember) about 10 days from the calendar--possibly one of your calculators is taking this into account and not the other, since they're probably made more for recent use than for the 1400s... --dvyost 29 Mar 2005

Here we go, from Gregorian calendar: "Very few countries implemented the new calendar on 15 October 1582 — only Italy, Poland, Spain and Portugal. Non-Catholic countries objected to adopting a Catholic invention. England, Scotland and thereby the rest of the British Empire (including part of what is now the United States) did not adopt it until 1752, by which time it was necessary to correct by eleven days (September 2, 1752 being followed by September 14, 1752). Britain legislated special provisions to make sure that monthly or yearly payments would not become due until the dates that they originally would have in the Julian calendar. "Old Style" and "New Style" are sometimes added to dates to identify which system is used in the British Empire and other countries that did not immediately change." --dvyost 29 Mar 2005
 * I was recently trying to track down all I could about the Battle of the Standard and one Google hit was on a serious academic paper about how battles got named. It was chiefly memorable for the explanation that Losecoat Field was nothing to do with the losers discarding their livery but more because that already was the name of the field (hloscot = pigsty or some such).  However as I recall it also discussed Towton having had the alternative name of PalmSundayField, which never really caught on.--Rjccumbria (talk) 20:34, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, this is the battle at which Richard Neville famously killed his own horse and fought on foot, shoulder to shoulder with the foot soldiers - is that worth a mention in the article?

I've often wondered if that's because his men feared he'd run away as he (along with Richard of York and others) had done the night before the Battle of Ludford Bridge 2 years previously. Fizzackerly 13:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Introductory section
The current introductory section doesn't do a good job of summarizing. What should be added to the introduction is a summary of the results/significance of the battle (besides a lot of people getting killed). I'm declining to be bold here because I'm not sure of my ground in framing such a summary. My stab at it would be along these lines: "The battle was a decisive victory for the Yorkists. The Lancastrian army suffered heavy losses and ceased to exist as an effective fighting force.  Most of the surviving Lancastrian leaders acquiesced to Edward's coronation later in the year." I offer that suggestion mostly to illustrate the level of generality that I think is appropriate for the introductory section, not because I'm confident that what I've written is accurate. JamesMLane t c 21:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite
I took a crack at rewriting the Ferrybridge battle and some of the marching up north from London. There's more to be done for this article than I have time, but I hope this will give help a bit of help. Some basic sourcing is necessary. Mtsmallwood (talk) 00:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Prominent deaths
As well as Lord Dacre, the Earl of Northumberland, earlier cited as a Lancastrian commander, was also killed, so I've altered the statement that all the Lancastrian senior nobles got away. Lord Dacre's death is commemorated in a local rhyme and he is buried in Towton Churchyard, allegedly still on his horse; whether this latter stuff merits inclusion I don't know! Summitscribbler 12:53, 4th March 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.99.165.210 (talk) 12:53, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Bloodiest ever??
How is this battle the bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil? 30,000 casualties doesn't compare to over 80,000 dead at the Battle of Watling Street which was fought on British soil. Should this be changed? (Trip Johnson (talk) 23:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC))


 * The figures for the battle of Watling Street are highly unreliable. The reported figure of 230,000 british warriors at the battle is most likely massively inflated, and the total number of combatants on both sides may have been less than 80,000.  91.109.132.246 (talk) 14:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think perhaps a caveat along the lines of 'widely believed to be the bloodiest battle ever' may be a good idea? The above point about Watling street is correct accurate figures for casualties are impossible. However, the accuracy of any casualty details for Towton is also very questionable. Firstly a problem common with medieval battles is there are very limited primary sources. Second those sources there are tend to focus on losses to the nobility and provide rounded guesses of deaths amongst the rank and file.


 * Finally a big problem is its very difficult to come up with an explaination for how the huge lancastrian losses upto 28,000 could have occured. Basically they are utterly out of proportion with any other battles of the wars of the roses or comparable engagments in the hundred years war that ended in 1453. Although no quarter was offered by either side that is not a unique situation for the era and by itself would not explain the casualty rate. Also it is very rare for battles to last for the claimed length of time and certainly for one side to actively persue after such protracted combat would be extremely difficult. Thats not to say the Lancastrians did'nt lose 28,000 soldiers its just that the primary sources and archaelogy at the site do not provide enough proof Kurtk60 (talk) 19:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)


 * The English Heritage reference says that "The presence of over 100,000 men and upwards of 28,000 deaths makes Towton the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought in England."; and Garret's book is called "Towton 1461 England's bloodiest battle". That's good enough for me.  Unless anyone objects, I shall change the text to reflect this.  Even the Wikipedia entry for the Battle of Watling Street doesn't mention casualty figures. Hallucegenia (talk) 08:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Now done Hallucegenia (talk) 09:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The English Heritage reference says that "The presence of over 100,000 men and upwards of 28,000 deaths makes Towton the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought in England."; and Garret's book is called "Towton 1461 England's bloodiest battle". That's good enough for me.  Unless anyone objects, I shall change the text to reflect this.  Even the Wikipedia entry for the Battle of Watling Street doesn't mention casualty figures. Hallucegenia (talk) 08:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Now done Hallucegenia (talk) 09:43, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Uhm, FWIW I lived at Cuttle Mill farm on the A5 in the early 1970's ..but much more importantly have Sheppard Frere's Brittania ISBN 0-77100-8916-3 P107 quotes 80,000 Brits & 400 Roman casualties. The Battle of Watling street article does quotes figures attributing them to Tacitus. These two battles are the only ones I've heard described England's bloodiest. Could we have a snippet reference to Watling Street to avoid conflicting articles?  I can do it but I don't mind if someone else does it Regards JRPG (talk) 21:29, 10 March 2015 (UTC).

Re Watling Street: 80,000 British versus 400 Roman casualties is an impossible ratio for a pre-firearm era. If the Roman casualty figure is anywhere near correct (and it might be), then the British casualty figure would struggle to top 4000. A 10:1 casualty ratio is exceptional; a 200:1 casualty ratio is unheard of. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.108.92.22 (talk) 12:42, 1 October 2017‎ (UTC)
 * Although Tacitus' figures are doubtful, the conditions of the battle make insane Briton casualties possible. High casualty ratios occur often in suppression of peasant revolts due to the high disparity of beligerents. The Romans were in an advantageous position, preventing chariot charges. The Roman force was just cohort legionaries, without auxilia, so were all armoured with strong steel Lorica Segmentata. Few Britons were armoured in more than leather jerkins, which are unsuitable for countering the pilum or gladius. Another crucial aspect was the ineffectiveness of Briton ranged weapons. Bows heavy enough to pierce segmentata have been around for thousands of years, they weren't a new invention for Agincourt, but the majority of bows were small hunting affairs, and shot far from the enemy. The distance also affects a lot, as the melee Britons charged headlong at the Roman line, so their own archers shot through them. The Britons also refused the opportunity to encircle. They had the freedom of manoeuvre and the numbers to completely encircle the Roman force, the terrain was not stopping them.

But the biggest factor that could have made high losses plausible, is the rout. People generally don't appreciate how dangerous crowds become. And the larger the crowd, the damage grows exponentially during stampedes. The Briton camp was close behind their lines, at a point where terrain acted as a funnel, and blocked off by their own baggage train. Under these conditions crowd effects run out of control and thousands would die, even those well away from the front line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.95.137 (talk) 19:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Rewrite for FAC
In one or two weeks, I will rewrite the article to try for Featured Article. The new article's structure is as such:


 * Background
 * Matters of the Wars of the Roses that lead up to this battle
 * Force compositions
 * The soldiers and the commanders
 * Deployment
 * A bit about the sources on this battle; the topography and deployment of forces
 * Fighting
 * Ze battle itself
 * Aftermath
 * The rout and what happens after
 * Literature
 * Shakespeare and Geoffrey Hall; no trivial stuff
 * Legacy
 * What remains on the battlefield; memories and traditions

I will be adding contemporary images that are definitely "free" as well. Sources used will mostly be academic books. The aim is to achieve Featured Article by the end of February such that we can nominate and get this to be the Today's featured article for 29 March 2011 (550th anniversary) or 17 April 2011 (the 550th Palm Sunday since the battle). Jappalang (talk) 03:34, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅; as noted above, I have implemented a rewrite according to the above. Note that some recent stuff have been excluded.  The fate of Dacre's brother would be more pertinent in his own or in Dacre's article (else we are going to have to justify why every other noble dead in this battle is not mentioned).  The handgun claim is primarily excluded because it lacks the higher quality reliable sources appropriate for FAs (the target level for the rewrite).  The finding has not been reviewed by other historians/archaeologists nor sourced to by an academic publication;  even the Economist has hedged the story by stating the claim is Sutherland's belief.  Regardless, contemporary sources have pointed out the use of handguns before this battle (St Albans come to mind).  External links have been pruned in accordance with WP:EL and looking towards FAC (what is not used should not be there).  Jappalang (talk) 17:21, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Economist article
I didn't want to screw up the fine work being done on preparing this article for FAC, so I'll just note it here if its needed that the Economist recently had an article on the skeletons found in burial pits from this battle. The article doesn't appear to be on their website. It is:


 * The Economist, "Nasty, brutish and not that short," 18 December 2010, pp. 110-112. Cla68 (talk) 12:37, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The article was formerly referred to before my revision. I left it out because it did not provide substantially new information that cannot be found in other sources.  In the rewrite, the discovery of the mass grave and analysis of the bones are mentioned in the start of Force Compositions and Aftermath (greater detail on them would be undue and more appropriate for an article on battlefield archaeology).  Initially, I was going to mention that handguns were found ("Centuries after the battle, various relics that have been found in the area include ..." was meant to do this), but as pointed out above ("even the Economist has hedged the story by stating the claim is Sutherland's belief"), I excluded the news because the discovery had not yet been vetted or reviewed by other academics.  There is likely going to be more newspaper articles about the event as the battle's 550th anniversary approaches, and I believe we should be selective over what to include (i.e. preference of reviewed or accepted academic sources)  Jappalang (talk) 22:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

New Leader
I don't wish to carp, considering the considerable work done in extending this article, but is not the leader rather long and POV as well as unreferenced? "Henry was weak in character and mentally unsound." even if true, this should be referenced, and put in the background section. I think the leader should be about the battle (who, what, when) with little interpretation.Chemical Engineer (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think your wording should be clarified to "lede" or "lead" (WP:LEDE); I initially thought the issue was over a section about leaders. Per WP:LEDE, citations are not generally needed for the section except for quotes and particularly contentious issues.  "Henry was weak in character and mentally unsound" is the accepted consensus in the reliable sources used; it is fact (the sources referred are cited in the article's body) and is not contentious.  About the length, WP:LEDE already stated the lede should be a summary of the body, including the Background.  The Wars of the Roses have quite a complicated history for its battles (several are not fought just because two forces just happened to be in the vicinity or that the land is a prized area); the Battle of Towton was the culmination of events and readers would be much clearer with a knowledge of the circumstances that lead to the encounter.  Jappalang (talk) 00:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Minor error
Presumably the words "Polydore Vergil, chronicler for Henry VI of England" are not quite what was intended? - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 12:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ack, yes, there is a missing "I"! Thank you for spotting that.  It is now corrected.  Jappalang (talk) 22:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Amendments
I altered several passages where I thought that the prose was repetitive and I removed a few eccentric turns of phrase and mad commas. I hope that this had made the prose consistent but feel free to alter it as desired.Keith-264 (talk) 11:18, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I have put back certain adjectives (high vantage, substantial bounties, previously upheld) as their removal changed the context of the sentences (conveyance of height, value, temporal). I have also corrected certain commas (parenthetical, serial, and "Never use only one comma between a subject and its verb").  "Disputes over the crown" and "disputes over the country's state of leadership" carry different meanings to me; the first is between the contenders for the throne, the second is the public's (lords and commoners) view over who was in charge.  The use of "expropriated" seems inappropriate to me as the word means to take from private ownership for public purposes, which is totally opposite to what the Inclosure Acts did.  Jappalang (talk) 08:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Outranged213.61.58.164 (talk) 09:31, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
How could the Yorkist bowmen "pluck out" the short-fallen arrows fired at them by the Lancastrians without getting into range? This seems to be rather impossible. 213.61.58.164 (talk) 09:31, 29 March 2012 (UTC) koookeee

Rewrote a couple of sentences about Henry VI
I felt as though the sentence sounded like the author of the article actually sat on a chair watching the battle in the 15th Century. I took the information from a general description from Wolff's book. However, I don't know how to do the citations like you have here, since I despise it as a reader and an editor, mainly because you have to click twice to get to actual online link. I don't know why people like this type of citation, but I don't care, and you all probably don't care about my opinion on it either. But it does feel like the method of citations from the 1940's. Of course, I stick with science articles where we rarely cite books (although it does happen for certain types of articles), and stick with journals. Nevertheless, if someone could fix my citation to fit with the rest of the article, I'll be most appreciative. Thanks. SkepticalRaptor (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Casualties
The word casualties in this article needs to be defined (and then used only in accordance with that definition) and/or replaced with less ambiguous words. Casualties can mean the total of dead and wounded and missing and captured; it also can mean only "dead" and "wounded"; and it can mean just "dead". The infobox at the top left of the article even has the redundant(?) "Casualties and losses": what are losses (dead? captured? missing? deserters? wounded?)? We need specificity and clarity (and, lacking the knowledge, I'm not the one to introduce those things). — President Lethe (talk) 17:26, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

The text of the article says that the claim of 28,000 dead is most likely exaggerated. The info-box should also reflect this, instead of taking the claim at face value. --89.27.36.41 (talk) 22:19, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Newletter? Eh?
The article states that A newsletter circulated a week after the battle reported that 28,000 died on the battlefield. I wonder what a medieval newsletter looked like. How many copies were written? Did they all have the same content and how reliable were they? I suspect you need a different word for newsletter or there is some other mistake. Norvo (talk) 22:59, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. William Caxton didn't set up his printing press until 1476, fifteen years after Towton. It is inconceivable that there would be any "newsletter" in the way we think of it today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.108.92.22 (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Updated Online Resources.
The link to the Towton Battlefield report was broken. English Heritage removed it from it's site. The report is now house at Historic England's website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.145.6.145 (talk) 02:09, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Doubt over casualty figures and duration
There is a strong argument that the unusually large casualty figures and long duration apparently reported by some chroniclers is in fact a result of combining the three separate but linked battles at Ferrybridge, Dintingdale and Towton. See Sutherland's 2009 article from the Journal of Conflict Archaeology reproduced by the TBS here Svejk74 (talk) 14:47, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Richard III's chapel
The article says: "In 1483 Richard III, younger brother of Edward IV, started to build a chapel to commemorate the battle. Richard died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and the building was never completed. It eventually fell into disrepair and collapsed. The ruins of the structure were evident five centuries later." - This seems contradictory to the findings of a 2013 study, which uncovered the remains of Richard's chapel to be part of the still standing Towton Hall. There never have been ruins of the chapel, because the chapel never fell out of use. Renerpho (talk) 23:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Jones 2012
Anyone know the source for this? Regards Keith-264 (talk) 21:00, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It was removed as it was from the Daily Mail, so we need a new source for this.
 * Keith D (talk) 23:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Keith D (talk) 23:59, 22 September 2020 (UTC)