2nd Battle of St Albans – 17 February 1461

Warwick had been left in London with the king while Richard, Duke of York, marched north to meet the Queen’s army and Edward, Earl of March, was sent to the Western March. On learning of the fate of Duke Richard at Wakefeld, Warwick began recruiting a large army drawn from London, Kent and East Anglia and prepared to meet the Lancastrians who were marching south. Warwick chose the battlefield - St Albans. He approached the town through Ware and the duke of Norfolk led his force through Barnet. A small detachment of Yorkists was stationed at Dunstable and the remainder of the Yorkist army, which was well equipped with artillery, took up entrenched positions along an eastern stretch of the town that would enable them to intercept the Lancastrians travelling either from Luton or Wheathamstead. At the southern end of the deployment, in the town itself, were the Yorkist archers. Warwick had four days to prepare for the assault and Paul Murray Kendall writes that Warwick constructed ‘elaborate defence works, the like of which had apparently never been seen in England before. The bowmen were given large mobile shields with swinging “doors” which the archers opened to deliver their arrows and then clapped to. These “pavises” were studded with threepenny nails so that when the enemy rushed forward, the archers could throw down the shields as mantraps.’

The Lancastrian army, however, unexpectedly changed route, swung to the west from Luton and approached St Albans from the south on the Dunstable road, arriving in the town in the early hours of the 17th. They had outflanked Warwick and, led by Sir Andrew Trollope, marched up Fishpool Street but after they passed the great abbey church and approached the Eleanor Cross they encountered the Yorkist archers whose deadly volleys repulsed the Lancastrians and drove them back to the mill. This gave Warwick valuable time to try to swing the centre and right wings around to meet the enemy but the former deployment of the troops made this a cumbersome manoeuvre and communication was difficult. The Lancastrians meanwhile attacked again a little further north and the archers and left flank of the Yorkists, under Lord Montagu, were hard pressed to maintain their position. Treachery then took a hand when the commander of the Kentish contingent, Lovelace, defected. Montagu was captured and his flank crumbled and retreated towards Warwick’s newly positioned centre which now engaged with Trollope and Somerset’s men. Much of Warwick’s artillery was innovative, such as the Burgundian handguns which proved useless as the matches needed to fire them could not be lit in the wind and snow. Warwick held his position as long as he could but some of the raw recruits were running away and as the afternoon wore on Warwick retreated north to re-form what was left of his army around the Sandridge area and continued to fight until dusk when he finally admitted defeat and withdrew to the north-west in the hope of being re-united with his cousin, Edward of York. The king, who had accompanied Warwick, was found in a tent nearby guarded by Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who were both executed a day or so later.

Shields of some of the participants

Further Reading:

 ‘Whirlwind from the North: the Campaign and Second Battle of St Albans 1461’ by Anthony Clipson from Wargames World, No 3, January 1989. Detailed account, good on tactics and the lack of them – includes bibliography and notes for wargaming.

St Albans and the Wars of the Roses by Gerald Sanctuary, 1985