Trinity (51 page)

After that desertion, the ‘battle’ of Ludford Bridge was practically bloodless. The king’s army had surrounded a much smaller force and barely skirmished with the defenders. York, Salisbury, Warwick and March made an extraordinary decision to leave. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the idea of slaughtering York’s wife and children would not have seemed likely. York went to Ireland and Salisbury, Warwick and March escaped back to Calais, arriving in November 1459. By any standards, it was a complete disaster and should have been the end of their cause. It must therefore be some testament to their energy and abilities that it was not.

When researching historical fiction, one of the joys is occasionally coming across scenes that are simply wonderful – and even better when they are not well known. In an action that could have graced any Hornblower story, Warwick stole a royal fleet from Kent, roping ships together and sailing them back to France, in January 1460.

On the 2nd of July, he used that fleet to land an army on the English coast at Sandwich. With his father and Edward of March, they marched seventy miles through Kent, picking up around ten thousand Kentish men as they went. Some of them would certainly have walked that path before, with Jack Cade.

It is a matter of historical record that Lord Scales commanded the royal garrison at the Tower and that both cannon and wildfire were used against the London mob as they rioted. A royal arms depot across the river was raided and cannon were brought to bear on the Tower’s outer wall, smashing it down. It is true that Scales managed to barricade the broken wall and survived long enough to surrender. He was then murdered in custody.

Leaving a small force in London under Salisbury, Warwick and March raced north. Their speed paid off as they intercepted King Henry with only five thousand men, before the main royal forces could reinforce the king’s position. The attack was aided by the sudden betrayal of Baron Grey of Ruthin. He changed sides at a vital moment, abandoning King Henry and supporting Warwick and March in exchange for a promise that he would be made Royal Treasurer.

Just eight days and a hundred and fifty miles after the landing in Kent, Henry was captured and Margaret forced to run into Wales with her son, Edward of Lancaster. It was an extraordinary feat of tactics, arms and endurance. It is true that Warwick and March found Henry alone in his tent.

It was interesting to include Owen Tudor in this story, mostly because of his more famous descendants. He had married Catherine de Valois, widow of Henry V. His two sons, Jasper and Edmund, would both play their part in the Wars of the Roses – and the Tudor period after it.

It is true that King James II of Scotland died in August 1460, when a cannon exploded during a siege. His son was ten years old and Queen Mary of Guelders would have had to meet and negotiate with Margaret without him, her grief still fresh. Margaret gained her support, perhaps because she was dealing with another foreign queen who had suffered great loss.

The exact number of Scots who returned south is unknown, though it must have been thousands to make it worth doing at all. The agreement was for Prince Edward to marry a princess of Scotland – and for Berwick-upon-Tweed to be handed over as payment. Margaret had her army and a huge force gathered that winter, by the city of York. It is true that the cold months usually made battles impossible. Only the extreme circumstance of Henry being captured could have brought so many to the field as the year ended.

In late December 1460, York and Salisbury found they were vastly outnumbered as they arrived in range of the Lancastrian forces. The best estimates are that they had around 8,000 men, compared to 16–18,000 under Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford. All three of those men had lost their fathers at St Albans.

York and Salisbury holed up in Sandal Castle to await reinforcements, packing men into the small fortress. The reason they sallied out is not known. Given the small size of Sandal, it might have been because they were running out of food, or because they were drawn out by the sight of a small hostile force and then ambushed. However it happened, they left the castle and were defeated on 30 December 1460. York was killed in the battle. Salisbury was captured and beheaded, and York’s son Edmund was killed by Lord Clifford as he tried to flee the field.

No one knows if Margaret was truly present at the Battle of Wakefield, but there is something very personal about York’s head being made to wear a paper crown. Shakespeare chose to place her at the battle in
Henry VI, Part 3
.

Margaret of Anjou had won her revenge. She had survived against the odds to see her two most powerful enemies beaten and beheaded. Yet I was struck by the tragedy of York. For all York’s ambition, King Henry was helpless and in his power for months, held at Fulham Palace, the residence of the Bishop of London. We will never know York’s most private reasons, but the fact remains that he did not make Henry disappear, when doing so would have won York the crown. He was a complex man and no clear villain. I could not escape the strong sense that neither York nor the house of Lancaster particularly wanted the struggle. Each house was forced into war, out of fear of the other.

With the deaths of York and Salisbury at Sandal Castle, Margaret seemed to have won. Yet in the end, what she had truly done was unleash their sons.

The phenomenon witnessed by Edward of March, then Duke of York and heir to the throne, in February 1461, is known as ‘parhelion’. It involves the reflection of the sun, so that three suns appear to rise. They are also known as ‘sundogs’. At the time, Edward convinced his men it was a sign of the Holy Trinity and a good omen for the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, where Owen Tudor was killed. Edward would later take the symbol as his own, surrounding the white rose of York with the flames of the sun.

Conn Iggulden

London 2014

Acknowledgements

I am intensely grateful to the staff at Michael Joseph, Penguin, for producing such beautiful books – and then persuading people to ‘try a bit of medieval’. If you have picked this up to read it, I thank you too. Finally, I must mention my son Cameron, who helped me come up with the title at the eleventh hour.

THE BEGINNING

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MICHAEL JOSEPH

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First published 2014

Cover illustration by Vince McIndoe, Author and title type by Carol Kemp, Series title type by Charles Stewart

The moral right of the author has been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-718-19637-0

Table of Contents

Maps and Family Trees

List of Characters

Prologue

Part One: LATE SUMMER 1454