All about history book of the tudors 27

Battle of Towton 03 A carpet of corpses 07 Bridge & Bloody Meadow It’s a brutal slaughter as tens of thousands of heavily armed men batter one another with polearms, maces, war-hammers and swords So many die that the freezing ground is soon carpeted with corpses and men slip and slide dangerously amid the gore If a man stumbles, his chances of survival are slim It has been said that Edward ordered his men to give no quarter, and not even the commoners are spared A patch of land on the battlefield’s western edge becomes such a killing field it is dubbed Bloody Meadow, while the Cock Beck is littered with so many corpses that men can cross the water on a bridge of bodies 07 04 Giant against the red More of the nobility fights for the red rose than the white, and with their fulltime warriors and heavier numbers the Lancastrians begin gaining ground, possibly forcing back the Yorkist left and wheeling the battle lines on their axis Edward strides around the battlefield like a mythical giant, but the Yorkist line still waivers 02 03 04 06 06 Norfolk’s arrival The arrival of Norfolk’s men proves pivotal and Lancastrian leaders such as Somerset along with ‘the Flying Earl’ of Wiltshire, as well as Exeter and Devon, gallop from the field When the Lancastrian troops see their leaders’ standards withdrawing from the fray, they break line and run 02 A storm of arrows With Fauconberg’s arrow storm causing heavy casualties – men-at-arms no longer carried shields – the Lancastrians are forced to cede their strong defensive position and move down the slope to attack The Yorkists move forward to meet them 27