by Amy Licence
FIFTEEN: The Road to War, September, 1459
The Earl of Salisbury surveyed the men massing before him. He estimated there to be several thousand, perhaps a little more, spread across the field and into the lane beyond. They had been marching most of the morning, on their way across the autumnal countryside from Middleham to Ludlow, passing along the hollow ways and stubble fields as workers gathered in the harvest. Once or twice, a tousled head had lifted from its work to watch the men pass; mostly they carried on the gleaning, the threshing and sorting that were part of the ritual year.
For a moment, he had brought them to a halt on the heath between a tall hedge and the River Tern. They were tired and needed to rest. Most of them could do with a good meal too, but they would have to content themselves with cold fare, as this was not the place to be building fires and cooking meat. The air hung heavy with the scent of leaves and the gentle mist that spread across the valley but there was something else that did not quite sit right, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He scanned the horizon, as far as he could see, picking out the distant chimneys of a village, a church spire, the tall points of trees tapering away against the clouds.
A moving speck caught his eye. The scouts were on their way back and the first of them had reached the clump of bushes along the distant ridge. Soon he would know how the land lay. Salisbury had served with York in Normandy and as a warden of the West Marches; over the decades his long, hooked nose had become well tuned to danger. Yesterday, he had narrowly avoided the king’s army as it marched forward to meet him from Coventry. Now, a little over fifty miles separate him from York and Warwick at Ludlow, but he sensed he would not make it without a fight.
Since he had first received York’s letter, at Middleham that summer, he had known this moment was coming. His wife Alice had remained behind on their estate, with their two little granddaughters; they would be sitting down to eat about now, with servants lying out clean white linen cloths. He wiped the sweat from his brow and peered down the road. A figure was hastening towards him and he sensed that its urgency was a portent of serious news.
The messenger leaped off his horse and fell before him, panting on his knees.
‘Come, what news?’
‘The Lancastrians, a huge army, twice our size…’
‘The king’s army?’
‘No, another one, under the command of Baron Audley, they lie not half a mile away, across the brook.’
‘That close? You are certain?’
‘We saw the banners first, through the woods. When we got nearer, there were the men, ranks of them, waiting for the signal to advance.’
‘And where might I see them?’
The man pointed. ‘Along the ridge. They can’t be aware of quite how close we are.’
‘Good work, thank you. Spread the word among the men to keep quiet.’
Salisbury turned away, his face grim. With the king’s army close upon their heels, this new force stood between him and Ludlow: there was no choice but to fight. He was more than a match for any king’s army but now, as he approached the age of sixty and his hip kept giving him the old trouble, he had hoped these days would be passed in peace and contemplation. It seemed it was not to be.
A little way off, the generals awaited his command. At his signal, they rode over; three trusted and loyal men who had been in the service of his family for years. He had been fortunate to inspire loyalty among good men.
‘A Lancastrian army awaits us half a mile to the south. We have the advantage of being forewarned and we have the brook which lies between us, as well as the incline on our side. They outnumber us, perhaps as much as two to one, but we will be prepared for them and use the terrain to our advantage.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ agreed one.
Salisbury turned to him, his heart racing. It was time to think quickly.
‘John, you will lead the left flank with the woodland to your rear. Hide your archers among the trees, to pick off the Lancastrian advance. Robert, gather the supply wagons together to the right, to provide cover for your men there and block their approach on that side. Stack up the cannons along the ridge, pointing down the valley. Jack, you will take the centre. We will let the arrows do their work and then see how willing they are to cross the brook.’
‘It runs high with the autumn rains,’ added the first.
‘It may serve us well. We shall need to outwit this force and draw them towards us; do not let your men take fear at the size of the enemy, encourage them to be in good heart and all may still be well. God be with you.’
‘And with you, my Lord,’ they chorused.
He pulled on the reins of his horse and galloped away up to the ridge. Reaching the top, he advanced slowly, until the plain came into sight. For a moment it seemed misty, shifting, then the scene resolved before his eyes. What he saw there sent a shiver down his spine, in spite of all his experience. The whole field was alive with men, standing quietly en masse, awaiting instructions. Brightly coloured flags betrayed the arms of the king and queen and those of their Lancastrian commanders. The sun glinted on one sword, then another. So it had come to this: York had been right.
It seemed that the old certainties of right and wrong, peace and war, were being redrawn. Somewhere, further than these men could see, perhaps ten miles down the road, the queen sat in her tent, swathed in French silks and English jewels, listening to the reports of her messengers. In all his years of service, Salisbury had fought against men in close combat, been able to look them in the eye as he struggled for his life. The image of the queen, a woman, whispering in the ear of the king, was quite another matter. He could do his best on a battlefield but this was an enemy he lacked the weaponry to defeat.
He turned his horse around. There were prayers to be said before the opposing armies clashed.
*
In the gatehouse of Ludlow Castle, York shaded his eyes against the noonday sun. With each passing hour, he had expected to see Salisbury approaching with his men, but the streets of Ludlow and the distant hills lay quiet. The last information he had received was a brief note written from The Sun Inn at Stoke, where the earl had been recruiting more men. That had been two days ago; two days of cold early dawns and long sunsets. Since then, nothing.
He knew the king was on the move with a sizeable army. Now it was a tactical game; waiting, planning and choosing a route carefully to avoid meeting the royal forces before the three armies came together.
‘No sign?’
Warwick had climbed up the tower steps behind him. He had arrived the previous night, marching up from the coast with a group of Calais soldiers. The line of his square jaw betrayed his concern for his father.
York shook his head. ‘Nothing yet. Perhaps they have been forced to take a longer route; I had hoped to hear of their arrival in Shrewsbury by now.’
‘Then we can do nothing but wait. There is no point wondering, until we hear news. Come down, we are about to eat.’
‘In a moment. You go down, I want to watch for a little more.’
‘All right,’ Warwick conceded with a shrug, ‘but your boys will put away the best cuts of meat.’
York laughed, ‘So be it. I will join you presently.’
He turned back to the road, the long mud and stone track that stretched north through the woods and ran on through Shrewsbury, Crewe and on to York. What secrets were concealed among those blue distant hills?
*
The wind was blowing from the east. As the archers loosed their arrows, Salisbury’s grey eyes watched them rise on the breeze, turn and fall in a rain on the distant men. A number of figures crumpled and fell; he estimated perhaps thirty or forty. The archers stretched and drew back their long bows a second time. With a terrifying rush, almost deafening to those in their midst, the arrows flew from their hands again. They soared high into the sky, a flight of thin, deadly sticks mocking the path of birds, then paused, curved down and built up momentum as they fell. This time, they hit the central and lef
t flank, causing a silent, distant panic as man piled upon man.
Salisbury nodded. ‘One more.’
All attempts at parley had failed. Reading between the lines, it seemed the queen’s commander, Lord Audley, was bent on destroying his force before it merged with the Yorkists.
The third round of arrows flew up and arched back down towards the enemy lines. This time, the wind had dropped slightly, letting them fall right into the centre of the men, spreading them out across the ground like flies. Would this force them to advance, or would they fall back?
The answer came from a new body of soldiers, rising up behind the pile of bodies, drawing out their long bows and waiting for the command.
‘Be ready. Draw another round!’ Salisbury commanded.
The archers acted at the same moment. He saw the exchange of arrows mid-air, crossing in a hail of sticks, like some strange omen, rising and falling. In a second, they had struck home. A man beside him fell, and three more in front. One arrow lodged by his foot and another grazed the armour of his flank. Looking around, he quickly surveyed that they had lost several dozen men.
There was a terrible moment of waiting. He knew the men were shaking in their boots, their hearts pumping, as the dying lay groaning at their feet. One man with his face covered in blood writhed about on the earth, calling out to God.
‘Stand firm!’ Salisbury shouted. ‘We still have the advantage of them.’
‘They seem ready to advance,’ his commander called from behind.
‘Right! Men in the centre, we will fool them. Fall back, fall back towards the road, quickly but do not go too far, stay close and wait for the call to return.’
‘Fall back!’ his man repeated. ‘Fall back but wait to return, spread the news.’
The earl watched as the enemy regathered. The archery volleys had shaken them but they still outnumbered his troops so that hand-to-hand fighting would likely go against them. The only way now was to outwit them.
‘Fall back,’ he called again. ‘Fall back to the road.’
Salisbury pulled his horse around and galloped back a little way, keeping the figure of his opponent in view, mounted in full armour in the glare of the sun.
His men began to turn from the scene, as if under retreat. They came in a wave, some hobbling, others defiant, towards the place where he waited. Surely Audley would take the bait?
‘Slower,’ he called in a low voice. ‘Make it seem definite but move more slowly, pretend to be wounded.’
There was a moment while the enemy considered their position. Then, just as Salisbury had hoped, he saw Audley lift his arm in the signal to charge. Thinking themselves victorious, the larger army thundered forward, heading for the brook, intent on cutting down their fleeing opponents.
‘Wait! Wait!’ Salisbury counselled his men. ‘Wait until they are mired in the mud, then we attack with all haste.’
As the Lancastrians pushed forward, a sense of secret camaraderie ignited his men; he could see it in their eyes, their glances to each other, the cast of their heads. Their earlier fears were turning to confidence.
‘A little longer,’ he urged. ‘Then we will have them.’
And then, the opposite ranks broke and a few men came tentatively forward. They seemed unsure. Salisbury watched them with sidelong caution. Suddenly they were followed by a rush and the enemy were charging. Audley’s men pitched headlong into the waters of the brook, still swollen with recent rain and began to scramble up the other side.
‘At the ready!’ Salisbury shouted. ‘We have them! Cut them down as they struggle up the bank! Now, fast as you can!’
With glorious speed and determination, he rode forward and his men kept apace. As they drew closer, the faces of the enemy loomed large; it was going to be a fight to the death and Salisbury knew that confidence counted: he must look them in the eye as he cut them down. He picked his focus. A group of three men was slightly ahead of the others, urging them on, their leader was tall and broad, a fighting man, but he was floundering in the mud.
Salisbury’s pollaxe cut into the man’s stomach before he had a chance to react. Blood spilled down his side as the earl lifted his arm and brought the deadly blade down into his skull. It embedded with a sickening crunch. The figure crumpled, first onto its knees, and then down onto his side, groaning as the fires of life made their last flicker. Salisbury turned, swinging into the torso of the next and the hip of the third, leaving them prostrate in the mud, bodies convulsing in death. His army was engaging around him. Already the chorus of metal on bone was ringing out on all sides.
Now the men struggled together, locked in a deadly combat. Fingers scrabbled for bare flesh, chinks in the armour, for targets in which to press a weapon. Bodies thundered together, bruised and bloodied with impact. The hot sting of fear and pain made men fast but it also made them vulnerable. One man fell, rolling in terror, before the thud of an axe blade severed his head. Blood pooled in the footsteps, printed in the mud. Others clawed desperately at their opponents, shrieking in agony as metal sliced through their skin, striking against bone. The familiar stench of death was already rising from the earth.
Suddenly, from the left, a man hurled himself at Salisbury. He saw him just a fraction too late, caught the movement and turned to feel the weight of a blow to the shoulder. Luckily, his reaction had lessened the effect of the attack and the blow glanced off him. His attacker was briefly off balance. Quickly, he swung back his weapon and buried the blade deep in the man’s back. The figure sank to his knees. A second strike against the back of the head sent him face down into the mud.
Now, the next wave of men was clambering up the bank. Salisbury prepared himself. Charging forward, he brought the axe head down with force on the shoulder of a slow-moving man in old armour. A bubble of thick, dark blood appeared under his helmet and ran down his chest. Salisbury pushed him aside: there were dozens more after him, who would lie caked in their life’s forces before the day was up. With God’s blessing, the earl hoped he would not be among them.
*
The day had long since faded and the lamps were burning low around the castle. Outside, the sky was deepening from violet into grey. Warwick scanned the map that was spread out on the table. York was at his side, whilst Edward and Edmund were seated on the opposite end, lit by the dying hearth.
‘The messenger said they’d been intercepted here,’ York pointed, ‘just south of Drayton, on the River Tern.’
‘So they were probably taking the Shrewsbury Road,’ Warwick nodded, ‘and on to Ludlow, through the hills.’
‘How long do we wait,’ asked Edward, ‘before we send out scouts to look?’
The older men were silent.
Cecily appeared in the doorway, her eyes drawn and tired. ‘The young ones are asleep now, is there any more news?’’
York shook his head and extended his arm to her. ‘Your brother knows how best to guard himself, we must have a little faith.’
She nodded and went to him, taking his hand.
‘If, as the message suggests, there has been some sort of skirmish, what next? We will have taken arms against royal forces. Where does this leave us when the king arrives?’ asked Edward, rising from his chair to his full height, head and shoulders over the others.
There was an awkward silence. All that could be heard was the crackling of the logs. Edmund shifted his position in his seat uncomfortably.
‘It depends upon the outcome of today,’ said Warwick slowly, preparing to face the question head-on. ‘We have been under attack too often, it is only a matter of time before one of us is killed.’
‘Don’t worry yet,’ reassured Cecily. ‘The worst may not have happened, Salisbury won’t…’
Her voice trailed away and Edward hurried to fill the gap.
‘There was an attack on you at court last year, and the men awaiting us in an alley as we rode from Baynard’s to the council.’
‘And I was set upon in Coventry too,’ added York. ‘Had
it not been for the mayor, who opened his home to me, I would have been overcome.’
Warwick struck the table with his fist, making the candles jump. ‘It must end.’
‘But how?’ snapped York. ‘We know all this. We do need to list these moments again. Edward’s question remains unanswered. We may have to face the king, having been defeated by his forces. But even if Henry grants us an audience, he will not listen, or else it will not matter, because of the she-devil who rules this country in his place. And if we stand against him, even to defend ourselves, we are guilty of treason. If I would, I’d go back to Normandy. Things were clearer then, in the days when we still held Rouen.’
In the flickering light, York’s face was lean and troubled, his eyes clouded. Such action went against his better nature but he knew that they had finally reached an impasse, that there must be some dramatic change and the next few weeks would be decisive.
‘Where is the king?’ asked Edward.
‘I believe he is in, or near, Worcester. We must go to him, it is the only right thing to do.’
‘Damn your obsession with the right thing to do,’ raged Warwick. ‘No one else is doing the right thing and we may well die in the attempt to walk the noble path. We must do the only thing, not the right thing: we must fight and win.’
York returned his fire. ‘And fight as traitors? What if we are killed, what happens to our wives and children then?’
‘Exactly the same as what will happen to them anyway, as the she-devil is set on this course! But at least if we fight, there is a chance we might win.’
‘But to fight against an anointed king?’
‘Which we have already done!’ Warwick cried in exasperation.
There was a pause, whilst each of them thought.
Edward spoke first, in measured tones. ‘But who exactly is our king? Who really rules England?’
‘The boy’s right,’ nodded Warwick. ‘Henry has proved he is not to be trusted and his rule does the country more harm than good. We have fought to free him from his evil councillors, been damned in the council for doing away with old Beaufort, and yet Henry remains unmoved. He may be corrupt, but he is allowing himself to be corrupted. It is an intolerable situation for us, and for the common good. We have a duty to fight.’
