Page 44 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

BooKs
EDGCOTE 550
Graham Evans
Graham Evans is the Secretary of the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society, and also edits their quarterly newsletter,‘The Wild Rat’.
A graduate in Modern and Medieval History from the University of Sheffield, he wrote the Society’s book on the Battle of Edgcote, published to coincide with the 550th anniversary.
In late July 1469 two armies, one from Wales and the West Country, and one from the north of england, fought in the south Western corner of northamptonshire in what was one of the blackest days in Welsh history.
With 2019 being the edgcote campaign’s 550th anniversary the northamptonshire Battlefields society developed a plan to commemorate and raise the profile of this important but not very well known battle. Many books on the period cover it in a cursory way. Part of this is because the sources are diverse and difficult to reconcile and partly because, broadly speaking, no one famous is in charge of either army. neither King edward IV nor his overmighty subject, Richard neville, earl of Warwick and Kingmaker are present. All this may be true but the society felt that the many men who fought and died, whether willingly or reluctantly, deserve more than a single sentence in books that will otherwise spend pages on why the earl of Warwick wanted his daughter to marry the Duke of Clarence. What the society’s researches discovered was that another look was way overdue. generally speaking history books get the date of the battle wrong, along with its location and the number of people involved.
the back story to the battle is the difficult relationship between edward IV and the man who helped to put him on the throne, Richard neville. edward came to the throne young, propelled to the position of Yorkist claimant by the death of his father at the Battle of Wakefield in late 1460. He relied heavily on Warwick in the early years but also started to develop followers who were dependent upon him, rather than the other way round. He also showed an independent streak when he married elizabeth Woodville at a time he knew Warwick was attempting to negotiate a French marriage.
Relationships became increasingly strained as edward continued to promote his own men and also members of his wife’s family. this came to a head in 1469 when edward refused to sanction the marriage of his brother george, to Warwick’s eldest daughter.
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