Tewkesbury, 4 May 1471

The battle, stage by stage

1. 3 May 1471, evening

   A race for the Severn

   Queen Margaret of Anjou, her son Edward, Prince of Wales, the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Devon landed at Weymouth on 14 April, the day Edward IV won at Barnet. Gathering men in the West Country, they marched by Bath and Bristol for the Severn crossing at Gloucester, hoping to join Jasper Tudor in Wales. Gloucester shut its gates against them, and after a long, hot march up the road beside the river the exhausted army reached Tewkesbury in the evening. Unable to cross before Edward caught them, Somerset chose to stand, camping on the Gastons south of the town. Edward, who had shadowed them along the Cotswold edge by Cheltenham, camped about three miles off — by tradition at Tredington.

2. 4 May 1471, early morning

   A right evil place to approach

   The Lancastrians — perhaps 6,000 men by Historic England's estimate — drew up in three 'battles' with the town and abbey at their backs: Somerset on the right (west), Lord Wenlock with the young Prince in the centre, Devon on the left reaching to the marshy banks of the Swilgate. The Yorkist Arrivall calls their field 'a right evil place to approach', cut up with lanes, deep ditches, hedges and trees. Edward's army, probably a little smaller but richer in archers and horse, marched up from the south in its three battles. Seeing a park full of wood on his left, where an ambush might lie, Edward detached about 200 spears to watch it.

3. 4 May, morning

   Guns and arrows

   Edward arrayed his army south of and parallel to the Lancastrians: Gloucester on the left facing Somerset, the King in the centre, Hastings on the right. The Yorkist guns and archers — Gloucester's especially, by Historic England's reading — opened a heavy fire of shot and arrows into the Lancastrian line, which was badly placed to answer it. The 200 spears took post in Tewkesbury Park on the Yorkist left, about a quarter of a mile from the field. Margaret's Camp, a moated site in front of the Yorkist line, may have served as an outpost; its role is uncertain.

4. 4 May, morning

   Somerset goes round

   Rather than stand under the arrows, Somerset led his ward (or part of it) out of the line by what the Arrivall calls 'certain paths and ways' known beforehand — on Historic England's reading, down the lane through Lincoln Green, east of the park — and came out on the flank of the Yorkist army, falling on the end of the King's own battle. The route and the exact point of attack are conjectural; Somerset may have used the hillock at Southwick Park. Edward's men turned and met him hand to hand.

5. 4 May, morning

   The 200 spears

   The King's battle held, and drove Somerset's men back across a ditch and hedge and up the slope, where Gloucester's ward joined in. At that moment the 200 spears, seeing no ambush in the park, charged out of the trees into their flank and rear. Somerset's attack collapsed; his men fled in disorder, many toward the park and the meadow below it. Somerset himself got back to the main Lancastrian line. Wenlock's centre, which Somerset had apparently expected to follow him, had not moved.

6. 4 May, late morning

   The centre breaks

   Encouraged by the rout of Somerset's ward, Edward and Hastings pressed forward against Wenlock and Devon, and the whole Lancastrian line gave way. A story first told in Tudor chronicles (Hall, Holinshed) has Somerset, furious at Wenlock's failure to support him, calling him a traitor and dashing his brains out with an axe; no contemporary account says so, and Wenlock may simply have died in the fighting. Within a short time the Lancastrian army was in flight.

7. 4 May, midday

   The Bloody Meadow

   The fugitives ran in every direction. Many were funnelled into the narrow valley on the edge of the park, ever since called the Bloody Meadow, where they were cut down; others made for the Severn at Lower Lode, or toward the town, the mill and the Mill Avon, where many drowned, or across the Swilgate to the Abbey. The Earl of Devon, John Beaufort (Somerset's brother) and Wenlock died. Prince Edward, the last hope of the Lancastrian line, was killed — the Arrivall says in the field as he fled toward the town; later writers tell of him crying to Clarence for help, or being murdered after the battle in the King's presence. Perhaps 2,000 Lancastrians died; Yorkist losses were light.

8. 4–6 May 1471

   Sanctuary and the axe

   Somerset, the Prior of the Knights of St John, Sir John Langstrother, and other leaders fled into the Abbey. Edward entered after them; by tradition a priest holding the Sacrament barred his way, and he granted a pardon. But the Abbey had no formal right of sanctuary, and on 6 May Somerset and about a dozen others were brought out, tried before Gloucester as Constable and Norfolk as Marshal, and beheaded in the market place. Margaret was taken a few days later at a religious house nearby; Henry VI died in the Tower on the night Edward returned to London, 21 May. The Prince was buried in the Abbey choir, where a brass marks the place.