Free Republic

Medieval warfare was just as terrifying as you might imagine. THE soldier now known as Towton 25 had survived battle before. A healed skull fracture points to previous engagements. He was old enough—somewhere between 36 and 45 when he died—to have gained plenty of experience of fighting. But on March 29th 1461, his luck ran out. Towton 25 suffered eight wounds to his head that day. The precise order can be worked out from the direction of fractures on his skull: when bone breaks, the cracks veer towards existing areas of weakness. The first five blows were delivered by a...

The Battle of Towton was one of the bloodiest battle to ever take place on English soil, with nearly 1% of the English population of the time killed during the battle. New finds on the site has produced the earliest evidence of the use of guns on the battle field. The Battle of Towton took place on a snowy 29 March 1461 on high ground between the villages of Towton and Saxton in Yorkshire (about 12 miles (19 km) southwest of York and about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Tadcaster). The battle was one of the key battles of...

Get onto the B1217 – the Ferrybridge-to-Tadcaster road – just after the M1 joins the A1M, and you’ve crossed that unmapped line where the north stops being grim and begins to be bracing. Go through Saxton, past the Crooked Billet pub, and on your left you’ll see rising farmland, green corn and copses – an old landscape, untroubled by poets or painters or the hyperbole of tourist boards, but handsome, still and hushed. The road is straight; it knows where it’s going, hurrying along, averting its gaze. Through the tonsured hedge you might just notice a big old holly tree...

Skeletons of bloodiest day By Nadia Jefferson-Brown SKELETONS bearing marks of horrendous sword injuries have been unearthed beneath a North Yorkshire hall. The victims of a medieval battle were discovered beneath the floor of the dining room of Towton Hall, between Tadcaster and Sherburn-in- Elmet, dating from the Battle of Towton in 1461. The discovery was made as part of a ten-year investigation into the archaeological evidence of the longest and bloodiest battle ever fought in England. Taking place on Palm Sunday, March 29, 1461, the Lancastrian army was handed an enormous blow with its leader, King Henry VI, forced...