Qualla: Battle of Mortimer's Cross

Battle of Mortimer's Cross: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett, Public domain. Three suns rose over the River Lugg that morning. The eighteen-year-old commander watched his soldiers fall silent at the sight, watched the courage drain out of them in the freezing February air, and made a decision that would carry him to the throne of England. The phenomenon was a parhelion, a meteorological trick of ice crystals scattering sunlight into a triple image. Edward, Earl of March, called it the Holy Trinity. God, he told his men, was with the House of York. Within hours, the Lancastrians were broken, Owen Tudor was riding for his life toward Hereford, and the bloodiest civil war in English history had pivoted on a teenager's nerve and a winter sky.

Image: Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett | Public domain

Battle of Mortimer's Cross: A Son With Vengeance to Take

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett, Public domain. Five weeks earlier, Edward's father had ridden into a Lancastrian trap at Wakefield and been killed. The Duke of York's claim to the English throne, secured by the Act of Accord just months before, now passed to his teenage son. Edward had been gathering support in the Welsh Marc...

Image: Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett | Public domain

Battle of Mortimer's Cross: The Three Suns

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett, Public domain. Parhelia, sometimes called sun dogs, occur when sunlight refracts through hexagonal ice crystals high in the atmosphere on bitterly cold mornings. The result is two bright spots flanking the real sun, each appearing as a separate disc in the sky. To 15th-century soldiers waiting ...

Image: Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett | Public domain

Battle of Mortimer's Cross: Crossroads at the Lugg

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett, Public domain. The fighting itself was over by mid-afternoon. Sir Richard Croft of nearby Croft Castle had urged Edward to anchor his line at the meeting of Roman roads, archers positioned to rake the Lancastrian advance. James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, led the first assault and drove back Edw...

Image: Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett | Public domain

Battle of Mortimer's Cross: The Throne That Followed

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett, Public domain. Two months later Edward was crowned Edward IV in Westminster Abbey, the sun in splendour stitched into his vestments. Jasper Tudor escaped to fight on for another decade and to shepherd his young nephew Henry into eventual exile in Brittany. That nephew would return in 1485 to ta...

Image: Creator:Charles Raymond Booth Barrett | Public domain