The Wars of the Roses is the name givento the sporadic, but concentrated,outbreaks of petty vendetta settling andhigh-stakes politics amongst England’snobility from 1455 to 1485, although thefighting was amorphous enough to blurthe start and end dates of the conflict –historians argue for the duration of thewar from anywhere between 1399 to1499. The cause of all the fighting isclear, who was going to sit on the throneof England? Henry IV, a Lancastrian, haddeposed Richard II in 1399, setting thefuse for the intense competition to come.The common soldier, who might haveexpected a break in his fighting careerafter the end of the Hundred Years Warwith France in 1453, was deprived of that

prize and sent back into the field to fightagain and again. And so it was that theawe inspiring sight of the Englisharrowstorm was now seen on English soilrather than French or Scottish.

The catalyst for the major period offighting from 1455 was the reign of theweak Henry VI. His inability to governset off a scramble for power behind thescenes that soon erupted into the open.The first major battle fought over theissue was at St Albans in 1455, then in1460 the Lancastrian rout at the Battle ofNorthampton ended Henry’s reign to allintents and purposes and he foundhimself a prisoner in the Tower ofLondon. However, the subsequent Act of

Accord that disinherited Henry’s son andreplaced him with the Duke of Yorkunleashed a sustained campaign drivenby Henry’s queen, Margaret of Anjou, tooverturn the Act and restore Henry andthe Lancastrian lineage. The two sidesmet in a rapid succession of battles atWakefield, Mortimer’s Cross, and againat St Albans, the whole coming to acrescendo at Towton, where up to 20,000men lay strewn and mangled acrosssnow-covered Yorkshire fields. A newKing, the Yorkist Edward IV, backed bythe powerful Earl of Warwick, emergedfrom the mud and blood to become oneof England’s greatest general-kings,even though his reign proved to berelatively short.

In the 1460s, the Wars of the Rosesbecame a regional event with fiercefighting in the north, primarily betweenthe Nevilles and Percies. Edwardremained in London, while his champion,the Earl of Warwick, himself a Neville,carried the crown’s fight to his enemies.But by 1469, Warwick had turned hiscoat against Edward, fuming at Edward’s

By all accounts, the use of the longbow in battle was on its way outby the time the houses of Lancaster and York fought over whoshould be England’s King in the second half of the 15th Century.However, while it was true that the longbow’s best days were in thepast, rumours of its demise were premature. The armies that foughtin the Wars of the Roses still counted archers as their mostsignificant asset, and nowhere was their potency more ablydemonstrated than at the Battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471.

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By Neil Smith. Photos by Michael Perry and all figures from Perry Miniatures Wars of the Roses range

THE BATTLE OFTEWKESBURY, 1471THEBATTLEOFTEWKESBURY,1471

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rash decision to marry ElizabethWoodville and his own loss of influenceover the king that resulted. Edward andWarwick met in combat at the Battle ofEdgecote on 26 July 1469 with Warwickcoming out on top. Edward IV wasconfined at Warwick’s stronghold ofMiddleton Castle, but Warwick could notrestore order to England and had to recallEdward to come and take charge. Anysymptoms of peace breaking out weresoon squashed, however, when Warwickturned a commission to put down theLincolnshire rebellion in 1470 intoanother chance to wage war against theKing. This time he was joined by theKing’s brother Clarence, who Warwickmay have thought was a suitablereplacement for his former protégé.

The subsequent fight at Empingham,known as the Battle of Losecoat Field,in March 1470, saw Warwick’s fortunesreversed and the victorious Edward IVput a price on the defeated noble’s head.Warwick fled to safer ground in France,where he met up with the still seethingMargaret of Anjou. Together, theyconspired to invade England and bringdown Edward and put the stillimprisoned Henry VI back on thethrone. Their new found alliance wascemented by Warwick’s daughter beingmarried off to Edward of Lancaster, thePrince of Wales. With the help of LouisXI of France, the invasion forces weresoon ready.

The invasion went off without a hitch.Warwick landed in England’s WestCountry and advanced on York, gatheringsupport along the way. Of mostsignificance was John Neville turning hiscoat against Edward IV, who now fled toBurgundy with his supporters. Thebefuddled Henry VI now found himselfback on the throne, but he would barelyhave time to warm the seat beforeEdward was back on English soiland ready to fight.

Edwardlanded atRavenspurat the mouthof the RiverHumber inMarch 1471.Accompanyingthe Kingwere hisbrotherRichard ofGloucester,Lord Rivers,Lord Hastings, and asizeable group ofmercenaries. They marched to York, thentook the road south to London, issuingcommissions for troop recruitment inDerbyshire and Nottingham along the way.Warwick was in Coventry waiting forClarence before coming out to fight, butClarence flip-flopped again and returned tohis brother’s side. Edward made it to

Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke ofSomerset (1438-1471)

The Wars of the Roses were not kindto the Dukes of Somerset. At theoutbreak of war proper in 1455,Edmund, 2nd Duke of Somerset diedin a desperate Lancastrian charge atthe Battle of St. Albans. His sonHenry became the 3rd Duke ofSomerset and vowed revenge.Unfortunately, his efforts to do soended with defeat at the Battle ofHexham in 1464 and his subsequentbeheading shortly afterwards.

Edmund’s second son, also calledEdmund, became the 4th Duke ofSomerset. He was also on theLancastrian side. He first appears asthe commander of the Isle of Wight in1460 but was captured and thrown inprison by Warwick. Edward IVreleased him in 1463 and made greatefforts to befriend such a prominentsupporter of the still at-large HenryVI. Edmund deserted back to theLancastrians in 1464 and spent muchof the next few years after Hexhamon the continent at the exiled andimpoverished court of Margaret ofAnjou. He returned in 1470 as part ofthe campaign to restore Henry VI.Edmund never trusted Warwick’sconversion to the Lancastrian cause,but took charge of Margaret’s forcesin the 1471 invasion. Warwick died atBarnet, but an undaunted Somersetpersuaded the Queen to fight atTewkesbury, with disastrousconsequences for both of them.Somerset’s life ended shortly after thebattle on the chopping block to wherehe was dragged from his “sanctuary”in Tewkesbury Abbey.

MARGARET’S LANDING AND THE MARCH TO TEWKESBURYFrom Campaign 131 - Tewkesbury 1471, © Osprey Publishing Ltd. www.ospreypublishing.com

Margaret of Anjou(left) and HenryVI, painted byJim Bowen.

Above: Somerset and his retainers.

Edward IV (1442-1483)

There have been few grander sights on anEnglish battlefield than the strapping 6ft 4inEdward of York who took the Yorkist fightto the Lancastrians at a series of battlesculminating in the carnage at Towton in1461. His father had been killed theprevious year at Wakefield and that leftEdward in poll position to claim the throneof England, which he duly did on enteringLondon after Towton.

Unfortunately, Edward’s impact onthe battlefield was echoed in his exploitswith the ladies. His blindness in that regardled him into a disastrous marriage withcommoner and Lancastrian ElizabethWoodville. Edward’s mentor Warwick “thekingmaker” was so upset that he defected tothe Lancastrian cause along with Edward’sbrother, Clarence. Edward and Warwickmet at the Battle of Edgecote Moor withWarwick coming out on top and Edward aprisoner in all but title. Warwick was noking, however, and he had to releaseEdward to bring order to England.

Edward’s other blind spot was notrecognizing his enemies clearly enough,and he attempted to reconcile with Warwickand Clarence. But, similarly to the situationwith Somerset, Edward’s reaching out wasspurned and Warwick and Clarence ledanother revolt. Defeat followed, but theyfled to France to ally with Margaret ofAnjou. The invasion of 1470 followed,leading to the Readoption of Henry VI.Edward fled to Burgundy where he raisedan army to reclaim his throne.

On his arrival back in England, Edwardmarched to York then London. Along theway, Clarence rejoined him and thebrothers marched into London unopposedand arrested Henry VI. Warwick was stillon the loose, however, so Edward marchedout to meet him, this time at Barnet.Warwick died in Edward’s victory but theking had little time to savour his victory,when news of Margaret of Anjou’slanding came. Edward marched againstthe former queen on roads that led toTewkesbury. After the battle, Edwardsettled in to govern England,which he did with considerableadministrative skill. He alsofound time to sendexpeditions to France in1475 and Scotland in1482, both of whichmet with success.Edward diedpeacefully in1483, aremarkableevent for theseeminglydoomed sons ofthe Houseof York.

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London, but did not stay long. He wassoon on the road north with his army,along the way he ran intoWarwick’sarmy at the small town of Barnet.

The Battle of Barnet took place in abank of fog on 14 April 1471. The twosides could not see each other’sdeployment properly, and consequentlytheir left flanks overlapped. Thatalmost proved disastrous for Edwardwhen the Earl of Oxford’s Lancastrianforces crashed into the Yorkist leftflank, sending them scattering to therear. Fortune favoured Edward,however, for when Oxford’s men beganto return to their lines, someLancastrians mistook them forturncoats, others mistook Oxford’sbanners for Edward’s, and they allpanicked. The battle quickly turnedinto a rout and Warwick was killedwhile trying to find his horse.

THE CHASE

If Edward thought he could rest on hislaurels, he was sadly mistaken. Almostat the same time as he was viewingWarwick’s stripped body and ordering

it taken back to London, news camethat Margaret of Anjou had landed witha significant force at Weymouth.Edward surmised correctly that shewould try to make it across the RiverSevern to join up with Jasper Tudor andhe had to stop her before that happened.

Margaret of Anjou may have landedfully confident in victory, but the newscoming out of Barnet gave her causefor thought. With Warwick dead, shehad to find support from Tudor and todo that she would have to avoidEdward’s victorious army.Nevertheless, Margaret was not thequitting kind and she drove her armyrelentlessly forward.

On 1 May, Margaret’s army reachedBristol, where she may have re-armedand replenished, but she had alsowasted valuable time. Edward washoming in from the northeast in thedirection of Cirencester. Margaretthrew a feint out towards Sodbury thenext morning, then hot-footed it duenorth. Edward took the bait, arrivingearly at Sodbury, where he waited forthe Lancastrians to come up and give

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Above: Yorkist archers, men-at-arms and cannon fighting under the Duke of Gloucester’s (the king’s brother) colours.

Below: The Earl of Devon’s troops look across the field towards Hastings’Yorkists.

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battle. He waited in vain; only nine milesaway to the west Margaret’s army wassliding past, unseen by the Yorkists.

A furious Edward soon realized hismistake. He sent word out to the town ofGloucester to close its gates againstMargaret, which they did just in time.Edward then set off north towardsCheltenham, reaching the town after ahike of 31 miles. On reachingGloucester, Margaret had the choice toassault the town and escape across theriver, but she did not know how closeEdward might be and could not take thechance. She pushed her already tiredarmy north to the next crossing of theSevern near the little Abbey town ofTewkesbury. Just as she began hermarch, the garrison of Gloucester sallied

out and attacked the Lancastrianrearguard, capturing some artillerypieces in the process. That damagewould prove disastrous for Margaret inthe fight to come. When she reachedTewkesbury, Margaret did not have timeto get her exhausted army overthe narrow fords and had no choicebut to draw her army up to fight offEdward’s force, which was now onlya few miles distant.

THE BATTLE OFTEWKESBURY

Edward’s army spent the night of 3 May1471 camped a few miles fromTewkesbury at Tredington. The Kingcould not afford to delay, however, andhe was in armour before daybreak,hoping to bring Margaret’s forces to

battle before they could escape acrossthe river and join Tudor. Edward split hisarmy into three battles under thecommand of his brother Richard, Dukeof Gloucester, Lord Hastings, andhimself. However, Gloucester, whonormally led the vanguard and wouldtherefore take up his position on the rightwing, was ordered over to the left insteadof Hastings who had been found wantingat Barnet. This was a wise move onEdward’s part because Hastings wasunlikely to stand up against EdmundBeaufort, the Fourth Duke of Somerset,who occupied the Lancastrian rightwing. Hastings took up his position onthe right wing with Edward’s battle inthe middle. As an extra measure, Edwardpeeled off 200 mounted spearmen(scourers) to investigate a small wood

Above: Somerset’s battle (left) clashes with King Edward’s.

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out to the Yorkist left. Their orders wereto trigger any Lancastrian ambush thatmight have been placed in the woods,and if there was no ambush to act ontheir own initiative in the coming battle.Finally, Edward brought his fieldartillery to the front, along with hisarchers and 300 Flemish handgunners.They would open the battle when thetime was right.

The Lancastrian army was also deployedin three battles. The centre was under thenominal command of the Prince of Wales,but in reality LordWenlock took charge.Somerset commanded the right wing, andthe Earl of Devon took the left. Margaret’swhereabouts in the battle are uncertain, butshe was kept out of harm’s way. TheLancastrians occupied a low lying ridgeabout a mile south of Tewkesbury abbey ina grassy area known as the Gastons. TheRiver Swilgate ran down the eastern edgeof the field, restricting any movement outto the Lancastrian left. A road ran down theLancastrian right and cut across the fieldbetween the two armies. Hedges and bankslined the roads and a small brook cut downthrough the field in front of Somerset’sdeployment. All of this should have beenan impediment to a Yorkist advance, butthat was not how events transpired and itwould be the Lancastrians who foundthemselves entangled.

Both sides were approximately equal innumber, about 6000 men, with theLancastrians having the slightest edge inmanpower by about 500. Each battle,therefore, contained between 1500 and1800 men, depending on the size of anyreserve if there was one – the chroniclersmake no mention of reserves at the battle.Due to the previous sally from the townof Gloucester, however, the Lancastrianshad less field pieces and they wereoutnumbered in their archery contingenttoo. Given that circumstance, it wasunlikely that the Lancastrians could stayon the defensive for any length of timeunder the missile barrage that was likelyto come their way.

All across the battlefield, men waited inanticipation for the fight to begin. Themany multi-coloured banners flapped inthe morning breeze, and the sun glintedoff the men’s armour. A few birdsprobably flitted around the hedgerows,oblivious to the carnage about to envelopthem. On the given command, Edward’strumpeters blew the signal for the gunsand arrows to fire and the sound andsight of thousands of missiles flyingtowards the Lancastrian lines rippedthe sky.

There was little the receiving troopscould do to avoid the Yorkist barrage. Itwas soon evident in Somerset’s battle,moreover, that his men could not takemuch punishment and he did not haveenough firepower to deter the aerialassault. He therefore ordered his battle toadvance, an order he would soon come toregret. Somerset’s battle surged forward,but instead of driving straight forward,the advancing soldiers veered left beforecrashing into the join betweenGloucester’s and Edward’s battles. Mosthistorians argue that the change indirection was because of the nature of theterrain; particularly the hedges and asmall hillock on their right steered themthat way. That may have been the reason,but it also fair to speculate that the firepouring into the battle from Gloucester’sbattle may have pushed Somerset’ssoldiers away from the fire to the left.Also, the more they veered left, the morethey became exposed to the missileattack. Whatever the case, Somerset’sadvance had disastrous consequences.

The battles of Edward and Gloucestergave some ground to the advancingLancastrians, but soon pushed back.Somerset’s battle, assailed on two sides,began to bend then break in the savagefighting. It was at this juncture that the200 scourers in the wood suddenly boredown on the right and rear of Somerset’sbattle, which soon frayed thendisintegrated under the pressure.Lancastrian soldiers began running for the

rear, the Yorkist left flank in hot pursuit.Some say that a chagrined Somersetpaused in his flight to kill Wenlock, whohe blamed for not coming to his aid. It isdifficult to see what Wenlock could havedone, however, if Somerset’s battle hadslewed across Wenlock’s front. Wenlocktoo would have had to slew left to fightand that would have given Devon’s battleno room to his front. If Devon hadadvanced, then Wenlock would have hadno room to fight. It therefore appears thatSomerset’s dilemma was entirely of hisown making.

Wenlock’s battle collapsed at the sight oftheir routing comrades and Devon’s soonfollowed suit. Edward’s army pouredforward in victory, killingindiscriminately as they went in one ofthe hallmark routs of the Wars of theRoses. Thousands of Lancastrians died,many in the Bloody Meadow along theirline of retreat, others in the rivers thatblocked their escape. The most notoriousdeaths came when Edward pulledLancastrians out of Tewkesbury Abbey,where they had sought sanctuary, andhad them killed.

The Duke of Somerset was later beheadedfor his role in the rebellion and was buriedin the Abbey. The Prince of Wales died onthe field, some said while begging for hislife. That broke the spirit of his mother,Mary of Anjou, who retired to France ashattered woman. Edward returned toLondon, where he faced a brief rebellionfrom Lord Faulconberg to free Henry VI.That was the last straw for Edward and heordered Henry’s death in the Tower.

In the space of a couple of weeks, Edwardhad pulled off the remarkable feat ofdestroying two armies and putting an end tothe Lancastrian cause, for a short whileanyway. Other challenges would arise, butthey never reached the crisis levels of 1471proportions. On Edward’s death in 1483,however, theWars of the Roses would flareagain, this time ending up on Bosworth Fieldtwo years later, but that is a different story.

Below: The Prince of Wales (painted by Jim Bowen) and his men-at-arms

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The Battle of Tewkesbury would makean ideal club or group wargame for up tosix players, with perhaps an umpire tokeep the unruly nobility in line.Previously, the costs of doing that mighthave proven prohibitive to involve abunch of players in a one-off game.Now, however, with the release of thePerry Miniatures plastic Wars of theRoses figures, the expense for refightinga Wars of the Roses battle has lessenedconsiderably. That is even more the caseif each player bought a box to act as thecore of their “battle”; add a fewcharacter figures, field pieces,handgunners, and cavalry to that mix andyou are ready to fight – you can argueabout who gets to be the allegedly

hunchbacked, malicious Duke ofGloucester later!

The second reason gamers argue for notplaying the Wars of the Roses is that thebattles appear to be turgid ‘slugfests’ andvery static. In short, there is littlegeneralship required in crashing your meninto someone else’s then throwing dicefor the next half hour to see who wins.There is some merit to that argument: theWars of the Roses were not for the daintyor polite. Nevertheless, examined moreclosely, victory in the Wars of the Rosesrequired good tactical positioning and akeen sense of timing, and yes, good luck.All of those elements come into play atthe Battle of Tewkesbury.

ForcesThe refight was fought using Field ofGlory rules and the Storm of Arrowssupplement, but neither is essential insetting up the wargame as long as you userules pertinent to theWars of the Roses.

There were six ‘battles’ involved in theBattle of Tewkesbury, three Yorkist andthree Lancastrian. They were allapproximately equivalent, so we canequalize the forces using a Perry box tomake up a ‘battle’ with a ratio of 1:1longbowmen to billmen. The basic forcescan be supplemented with metal figuresfrom the Perry Wars of the Roses andtheir Agincourt to Orleans ranges, orfrom other manufacturers dealing in28mm Late Medieval figures. Theimportant differences between the sidesare as follows (see also Table 1):

TEWKESBURYON TOUR

The Perrys put on a Battle of Tewkesbury displaygame at this year’s Salute show, using the game totrial a set of rules designed for the period by fellowGames Workshopper Jervis Johnson.

WHYDOES THAT TABLE LOOKDIFFERENT?

As with a number of battlefield sitesfrom this period the exact location of theBattle of Tewkesbury is a point of somedebate. The Salute table shown here wasset up based on an alternative site to theone we have gone with in our scenario.At Salute the Perry’s opted for setting theaction nearer to Gobes Hall, which canbe seen near the centre of the table. Onebattle - two table options, can’t be bad!

WARGAMING TEWKESBURYWARGAMING TEWKESBURY

Prince of Wales’archers byChris Adcock.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

A.W. Boardman, The Mediaeval Soldier in the Wars of theRoses (Sutton, 1998)

A. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses: The Soldiers’Experience (Tempus, 2005)

Christopher Gravett, Tewkesbury 1471 (Praeger, 2003)

P.W. Hammond, The Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury(St. Martins Press, 1990)

English Heritage Battlefield Report: Tewkesbury 1471(English Heritage, 1995)

Type Armour Quality Training Shooting Close combat

Men-at-Arms Heavy foot Heavy Superior Drilled - Heavy weapon

Retinue bill Heavy foot Armoured Superior Drilled - Heavy weapon

Retinue bow Medium foot Protected Average Drilled Longbow Swordsman

Scourers Cavalry Protected Average Undrilled - Lancerswordsman

Handgunners Light foot Protected Average Drilled Firearm -

Artillery Lightartillery - Average Undrilled Light

asrtillery -

• The Yorkists should have an extralongbow base for each battle: theLancastrians receive an extra base ofbillmen to even out the sides.

• The Yorkists should field three lightartillery pieces: the Lancastriansfield one.

• The Yorkist army should contain threebases of handgunners: the Lancastrianscontain one.

• The Yorkist army can field up to threeScourers (light cavalry) either on thefield or in reserve as a flank attack.

Of the commanders, only Edward IV isconsidered Superior. The rest are Fieldcommanders with the exceptions ofHastings and Somerset, who we canregard as inferior on the day.

DEPLOYMENT

Deployment can be historically based asin the scenario map, or players candeploy as they see fit, as long as the three‘battles’ are in line abreast formation.

The table is 6'x4' with a river edgerestricting any movement on the westernedge. The northern edge is Lancastrianand the Yorkists advance from thesouthern edge. The ‘battles’ arrive on thetable simultaneously and may bedeployed anywhere in the deploymentzones as marked on the scenario map.

Any ‘battle’ attempting to move acrossthe brook near the western edge becomesimmediately disorganized upon contactwith the brook. This local rule does notapply to cavalry or stationary forces.

The ambushing force will come as nosurprise if you have read theaccompanying article, so to add that

element to the game the flank attack mayenter from any point on the Yorkist sideof the table, including the western edgeup to the level of the most advancedYorkist units.

Victory:Victory in Wars of the Roses battles wasabsolute, with the routing army sufferingsevere casualties as they tried to flee thefield. Therefore, whichever side is leftstanding on the table at the end is thewinner. It might be a bit too realistic to setup a post-battle chopping block on yourtable for the 28mm execution oftreacherous nobles, but that is your choice.

Happy slogging!

Table 1: Field of Glory Unit Designations:

Opposite page: The Prince of Wales’ battle looking towards King Edward.Below: The table with the Lancastrians on the left and Yorkists on the right.