Qualla: Battle of Northampton (1460)

Battle of Northampton (1460): Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1], Public domain. Rain blew sideways across the meadows by Delapré Abbey on the afternoon of 10 July 1460, and the soldiers slogging through it knew the weather had a vote in what came next. The Earl of Warwick's Yorkist column was advancing in column order, faces streaming, longbows half-useless in the wet. Across the field, behind earthworks ringed with a clutch of newly cast cannon, King Henry VI sat in his tent while the Duke of Buckingham waited to defend him. The cannon had been a serious problem in the planning stage. Now they were waterlogged and silent. Within half an hour the field would be Yorkist, the king would be a prisoner, and the Wars of the Roses would have one of their sharpest pivots.

Image: James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1] | Public domain

Battle of Northampton (1460): The road to the meadow

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1], Public domain. The Yorkists arrived at Northampton because they had nowhere else to go. After their army melted away at Ludford Bridge the previous autumn, the Duke of York had retreated to Dublin, while his teenage son Edward, Earl of March, ran for Calais with the Earl of Warwick and the Earl...

Image: James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1] | Public domain

Battle of Northampton (1460): The wet field

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1], Public domain. Henry's commanders had chosen ground well. They dug in south of the town on a loop of the River Nene, with the abbey at their back and a deep ditch in front, and they mounted artillery on the bulwarks. On paper it was a position to break an army against. Then the heavens opened. ...

Image: James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1] | Public domain

Battle of Northampton (1460): The black ragged staff

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1], Public domain. The thing that actually decided the battle was a deal made before a single arrow flew. Lord Grey of Ruthin, commanding the Lancastrian left, had quietly sent word to the Earl of March that he would change sides in exchange for Yorkist help in a long-running property dispute with ...

Image: James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1] | Public domain

Battle of Northampton (1460): Thirty minutes, four lords, one king

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1], Public domain. What followed lasted about half an hour. The Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Egremont, and Lord Beaumont all died trying to hold the line at the king's tent. Around three hundred other Lancastrian soldiers died with them, many drowned in the ditch as panic broke ...

Image: James Henry Ramsay (1859–1925)[1] | Public domain

Battle of Northampton (1460): Walking the ground today

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Serial Number 54129, CC BY-SA 4.0. The battlefield south of Northampton is a registered historic site, and you can walk parts of it across what is now Delapré Park. In 2015 a cannonball was found here that is considered the oldest surviving from a British battlefield, a stubby iron memento of the artillery that di...

Image: Serial Number 54129 | CC BY-SA 4.0