A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



Justice Gascoigne refused to pronounce sentence on the primate, pointing out that such a course 

 would be illegal, Sir William Fulthorpe undertook the task. Sentence having been pronounced, the 

 archbishop and the Earl Marshal were led out to a field near Clementhorpe and there beheaded on 

 8 June. Sir William Plumpton and other leaders of the movement were also put to death, and 

 fines levied upon the lesser offenders, most of whom soon afterwards received charters of pardon.* 

 On hearing of the disastrous failure of the Yorkshire rising the Earl of Northumberland and 

 Lord Bardolf fled into Scotland, but early in 1408 they re-entered England with a body of Scottish 

 troops, and, recruiting on their way, advanced as far south as Thirsk, where they issued a proclama- 

 tion calling upon all who loved liberty to take up arms and join them. Their design of seizing 

 Knaresborough was fhistrated by the vigilance of the sheriff. Sir Thomas Rokeby, who occupied 

 the town with the county levies. The insurgent forces moved down to Tadcaster, pursued by the 

 sheriff, and took up a position on Bramham Moor near Hazlewood, where on 19 February they 

 were completely defeated. Northumberland was slain and his hoary head was carried on a stake to 

 London and set up on London Bridge, in company with the head of Lord Bardolf, who had died 

 of his wounds. King Henry shortly afterwards came to York and condemned a number of the more 

 prominent offenders to death, forfeiture, or fine.^ 



Henry V visited York in 1 42 1 on his way with his newly crowned queen to the shrine of 

 St. John of Beverley, upon whose feast-day the battle of Agincoiu^t had been fought and won.* 

 His son Henry VI also passed through the city in 1448 on a pilgrimage to St. Cuthbert at Durham. ° 

 The whole of the first half of the 15th century was for York a period of unprecedented neglect, 

 and the city was so reduced by the absence of the court and Parliament that in 1449 the hundred 

 of Ainsty had to be annexed to the county or liberty of the city to enable the citizens to meet their 

 financial obligations.'" The county was at this time in a disturbed state, to which the unpopularity 

 of the archbishop. Cardinal Kemp, contributed ; outbreaks of violence were frequent, and one of 

 particular ferocity occurred in 1441. During the fair of Ripon the archbishop had policed the town 

 with a large force of hired soldiers from the Scottish borders. These men on their return home 

 had to pass through the liberty of Knaresborough Forest, and hearing that the men of that liberty 

 were assembled in arms at Boroughbridge they turned aside, either to avoid a conflict or, as the 

 Knaresborough men believed, to attack a small party of the foresters at Thornton. Sir William 

 Plumpton, Warden of Knaresborough, at once led his followers to Thornton, where they met the 

 archbishop's troops, and a regular battle ensued in which several were killed and many injured." 

 Yorkshire, however, was soon to see more serious fighting than faction riots. In 1460, when the 

 claim of Richard, Duke of York, to the throne had been admitted and himself acknowledged as 

 Henry's heir. Queen Margaret formed a strong party in the north under the Earl of Northumberland 

 and Lords Clifford, Nevill, and Dacre, who made York their centre. The Duke of York and the 

 Earl of Salisbury marched north, and reached Sandal Castle on 21 December. The Lancastrians 

 seem to have been at Pontefract, but they soon advanced to Wakefield, where they disposed their 

 forces on the common with their wings skilfully hidden. In spite of his great inferiority in 

 numbers the Duke of York, possibly compelled by a shortage of provisions, determined to take the 

 offensive without waiting for reinforcements, and on Tuesday, 30 December, led his forces to attack. 

 The battle was short and sharp ; surrounded on all sides, the Yorkists were cut down or compelled to 

 surrender. The Duke of York was slain and the Earl of Salisbury captured and beheaded ; with 

 them fell Sir Thomas Nevill, Sir John Harrington, Sir Edward Bourchier, Sir James Pickering, 

 Sir Eustace Wentworth, and many other persons of position, while in the pursuit after the battle 

 Lord Clifford, ' the butcher,' murdered with his own hand the young Earl of Rutland, son of the 

 Duke of York. Queen Margaret seems to have reached York soon after the battle was over, and 

 by her orders the heads of the fallen Yorkist leaders were set up on the walls of the city, that of 

 the duke being crowned in mockery with a paper crown.'' She is said to have ordered space to be 

 left for the head of the duke's eldest son, Edward, Earl of March. Edward, however, rapidly got 

 together a formidable army, and reaching London on 26 February 1461 was declared king. 

 Henry and Margaret now fell back upon York, and early in March Edward, with the Earl of 

 Warwick and the Duke of Norfolk, brought his troops to Pontefract and sent a detachment under 

 Lord Fitz Walter to secure the passage of the Aire at Ferrybridge. The Lancastrian army was 

 encamped on Towton Heath, a little south of Tadcaster, and Lord Clifford with a body of picked 



* Trokelowe, op. cit. (Rolls Ser.), 403-11 ; Hist, of Ch. of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 431-3 ; iii, 288-291. 

 Cf. Leadman, Battles Fought in Tork, 70-8. 



' Leadman, op. cit. 79—80 ; Cal. Pat. 1405—8, p. 405. 

 ' Ramsay, Lancaster and York, i, 290. 

 ' Raine, Hist. Towns— York, 85. 

 " Cal. Pat. 1446—52, pp. 221-2. 

 " Plumpton Correspondence (Camden Soc.), pp. liv-lxii. 



" Leadman, Battles Fought in Yorkshire, 81-93, and the authorities there quoted. 



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