The Wars of the Roses even involves that much loved Yorkshire emblem – the white rose.  Wakefield seems as good a place to start as any.  Besides, I was curious about Sandal Castle.  

Sandal Castle

The signpost led us into a residential area.  Had we taken the wrong turning?  Apparently not.  There it was, a sudden expanse of green between two detached houses.

The back ground to the Battle of Wakefield which took place on the 30^th December 1460, is convoluted and revolves around who should be king. Henry V, the king who won the Battle of Agincourt, married Catherine of France.  They had a baby boy who they called Henry.  The following year King Henry V died leaving the baby Henry VI.   

English nobles, especially the ones closely related to Henry VI, began vying for position and power.  It didn’t help that as Henry VI grew up it became clear that he was unsuited for kingship in that he was a quiet and pious man.  He had also inherited his French grandfather’s poor mental health.  Nor did it help that the House of York had a stronger claim to the throne than the House of Lancaster.  Government was faction ridden and often ramshackle, the English were driven out of France (not great for PR) and Margaret of Anjou behaved with unbecoming determination.  In 1454 Richard Duke of York was made Protector of England during one of Henry VI’s bouts of illness. He was dismissed the following year by Margaret. This dismissal ultimately resulted in the First Battle of St Albans. 

It is safe to say that Henry VI and his wife Queen Margaret of Anjou did not get on with their relations, the Yorks.  Equally Richard, Duke of York, wasn’t wild about them.  There had already been many years worth of family feuding, name calling and violent death by the time the Battle of Wakefield took place.

Richard managed in October 1460 by the Act of Accord to have himself named Henry VI’s heir.  This did not go down terribly well with Queen Margaret who, quite understandably, wanted her son -Prince Edward of Lancaster to be king.

Queen Margaret gathered her army at Pontefract. People could discuss and agree things as much as they wanted but in those days having a strong army and good military tactics were more important than anything else.

Richard of York hurried north to his castle at Sandal near Wakefield.  The two sides, about nine miles apart, agreed an armistice over Christmas.  At some point during the celebrations Richard discovered that he was short of food and there wasn’t enough space for his army (we’ve all had that feeling at some point over the festivities).  Despite this he knew that his son Edward, Earl of March was coming from Shrewsbury with an army and help was being sent by Lord Neville.  Logic said that despite the lack of food and cramped quarters Richard should have remained on the top of his hill behind his castle walls. 

A variety of sources tell tales of treachery though.  One version has it that a Lancastrian and his men insinuated themselves into Sandal Castle and then lured Richard out.  The English Chronicle places the blame firmly on the shoulders of the treacherous Lord Neville, who it has to be said did rather well out of his swift change of sides.  There are also suggestions that the Yorkists- actually a bunch of southerners- were ill-disciplined and rowdy. The Lancastrians – the Northerners- united as a consequence.

Whatever the truth, the Lancastrians realised that if help arrived for the Yorkists that they would be outnumbered and outflanked, so set about drawing Richard away from Sandal.  They were careful to hide the size of their army from Richard so that he thought that his was the stronger force.  When a foraging party returned to the castle empty handed after a fight with the Lancastrians, Richard decided to attack. Or at least that's the story.

He came down from his hill towards Wakefield Green, a pleasant walk through suburbia these days, where he discovered that the Lancastrians had far more men than he supposed.  Things went from bad to worse when Lord Neville arrived with a force of 8,000 and promptly betrayed Richard by joining up with the Lancastrians.  The odds were overwhelming.  Men began to flee.

Memorial to Richard, Duke of York

Richard died with his back to a willow tree and another of Richard’s sons, the Earl of Rutland, was slaughtered on Wakefield Bridge while trying to escape.  He pleaded unsuccessfully for his life and was hacked to death by Lord Clifford.  Clifford’s father had been killed at the first battle of St Albans so Rutland’s death was almost certainly part of a blood feud. It was an act of revenge but the death of a twelve year old boy illustrates the bitterness that existed between the two sides. To crown matters, quite literally, Margaret had Richard’s head stuck on Micklegate Bar at York, facing into the city and wearing a paper crown.

The ruins of Sandal Castle, knocked about a bit by the Parliamentarians at the end of another civil war, are now sandwiched behind a row of well-appointed houses with neatly manicured gardens but there’s no disguising its strategic advantages.  On a clear day you can see for miles. The thought that I had as I climbed back up the hill from the path by the tranquil River Calder- and I’m pleased to say that I wasn’t wearing chain mail or fighting a battle at the time- was why didn’t Richard wait?

There’s a monument to Richard where he’s said to have been killed.  It’s supposed to be haunted but the only apparitions I saw were a group of girls in fluorescent pink rehearsing baton twirling in a nearby village hall.  Threading through housing, a semi-derilict industrial landscape and by the main road its hard to imagine the chaos and slaughter of retreat despite the name Fall Ings which refers to the heavy losses sustained by the Yorkists at this point on the battle field. 

There’s not much left of the castle apart from the earthworks for the motte and bailey and some fragments of masonry but it’s a grand place for an afternoon stroll.  There's even a little visitor centre that tells the full story of Sandal Castle. I wonder what the neighbours think.

View from Sandal Castle motte towards Emley Moor

 Our walk followed the route described in:

 Clark, David. (2003). Battlefield Walks in Yorkshire. Wilmslow: Sigma Press  (Walk 9)

The history of York is the history of England.

There’s so much history in Yorkshire that it’s difficult to know where to start.  King George VI said “The history of York is the history of England.” It’s true of the whole county. 

Yorkshire is the largest county in England.  In the past it was divided into ridings- North, East and West.  The word riding derives from a Viking word meaning ‘third parts’  Even today, after the 1974 boundary shifts North Yorkshire retains the title with 3212 square miles. 

There’s plenty to explore, it's on my doorstep and I want to find out more about the history of the county I now call home.