Battle of Mortimer’s Cross – 2 /3 February 1461*

While his father had marched north to meet the royalist army the young earl of March was sent to the Western March to raise men and contain any Lancastrian activity, a tactic particularly important following the events at Ludlow the previous year. The earl probably spent Christmas at Shrewsbury where he heard of his father’s defeat and death at Wakefield.  Perhaps the plan of the new duke of York was initially centred on retaliating against the Lancastrians in the north but he was threatened more immediately in the west by Jasper Tudor and the arrival in Pembroke of the earl of Wiltshire. Probably moving to either Ludlow or Wigmore, where he drew support from the lords of the Southern Marches, Edward may have had an army of between 2,000 and 3,000 men who had a vested interest in the area. Tudor’s army on the other hand could be described as a motley bunch with little experience of battle and augmented by foreign mercenaries. The Lancastrian army marched towards the Yorkists and the battle was joined about four miles south of the latter’s stronghold of Wigmore at Mortimer’s Cross. Geoffrey Hodges describes the site: ‘Two valleys, cutting through the limestone escarpment whose dip slope rises gently from the north Herefordshire plain, meet there at right angles.’ Close to their base the Yorkists were prepared for their enemy but the day before the battle, on the feast of the purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a natural phenomenon appeared – three suns known as a parhelion – and this was taken as a sign of victory. This ‘sun in splendour’ was afterwards adopted by Edward as one of his emblems.

There is no clear account of the battle but due to the steep escarpments either side of the battlefield site it has been suggested that the traditional ‘battles’ of van, centre and rear of both armies were each drawn up one behind the other with the Yorkists facing south and the river Lugg to their left. Because of the congestion caused by the Yorkists’ onslaught with their archers, followed by an infantry charge, the Lancastrian line broke and the probably superior forces of the Yorkists led to their victory after a possible last stand by the Lancastrians where Jasper’s father, Owen Tudor, and Throckmorton were taken prisoner. The victors moved south to Hereford where the captives were executed and York learnt of the Yorkist defeat at St Albans.

Shields of some of the participants

* There is controversy as to the date of the battle which could have taken place on either 2 or 3 February.

Link:

The Battlefield Trust Resource Centre Website

Further Reading:

‘Crowning Victory of Edward IV’ by CV Hancock. Fom the Birmingham Post. Brief account of the battle and of the battlefield as it is today

Ludford Bridge and Mortimer’s Cross: the Wars of the Roses in Herefordshire and the Welsh Marches and the Accession of Edward IV by Geoffrey Hodges. 1989. Booklet. A chronicle of both battles by a local historian who brings to life the military campaigns and analyses the complete change in Yorkist fortunes and leadership in the two years between the battles

‘The Civil War of 1459 to 1461 in the Welsh Marches: Part 2 The Campaign and Battle of Mortimer’s Cross’ by Geoffrey Hodges. From The Ricardian, June 1984