From Wakefield and Towton: the Wars of the Roses

Richard III has come to be the most famous figure to emerge from Britain's War of the Roses, largely due to the play by William Shakespeare, but this 30-year conflict (1455-1485) had a large cast of heroes and villains, and saw the biggest and fiercest battles ever fought on English soil. This new book in the format of the popular Battleground Europe series concentrates on two major battles fought during the pivotal years of 1460 and 1461. As 1460 drew to a close, Edward, Duke of York (white roses) was in open revolt against the Lancastrian (red roses) king, Henry VI. A superior Lancastrian force ambushed Edward and killed him and many of his men; Edward's head was subsequently displayed over the main gate of his own city of York.

Thirsting for revenge, the Duke's son, also named Edward (who later reigned as Edward IV), gathered a force and sought out the Lancastrian host. On March 29, 1461 the two armies collided in a blinding snowstorm near the town of Wakefield in what was to be the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. The prevailing wind blew in the faces of the Lancastrian archers and the Yorkists were triumphant after a six-hour battle. As was often the case during the War of the Roses, the defeated army was mercilessly pursued and prominent leaders were executed when captured. This heavily illustrated account uses the Battleground Europe format to describe in detail these historic parts of Britain both then and now, an approach particularly important for medieval battles which must be more painstakingly reconstructed than more modern ones. Those seeking background material on Shakespeare's four plays on Henry VI and Richard III will also find this book useful.

Philip Haigh is joint-editor of the nationally distributed journal Battlefields and Chairman of the Yorkshire Battlefields Society. He has made a lifelong study of the military aspects of the Wars of the Roses and his first book on the subject. His Military Campaigns of the War of the Roses was published in 1995. He is married with two children and works in West Yorkshire.