The Gaston field has been identified as the Battlefield. The Gaston field was the open field to the south of Tewkesbury, in strip cultivation in the middle ages.

The battle was fought on 4th May 1471 between the Yorkist and the Lancastrian armies: "The Kynge apprailed hymslfe, and all his hooste set in good array: ordeined three wards: displayed his bannars: dyd blowe up the trompets: commytted his caws and qwarell to Almyghty God, to owr most blessyd lady his mother: Vyrgyn Mary, the glorious Seint George, and all the saynts: and advaunced, directly upon his enemyes: approachinge to thier filde, which was strongly in a marvaylows strong grownd pyght, full difficult to be assayled." The Yorkists triumphed and 2,000 Lancastrians were slaughered. The location of the 2,000 bodies is unknown but is believed to be somewhere within the battlefield area.

The Battle of Tewkesbury

Catching the army of his longtime enemy, Margaret of Anjou, against the Severn River, King Edward IV tried to settle once and for all the dynastic struggle between York and Lancaster.

By David Alan Johnson

Even before the two opposing armies met each other in combat, the Battle of Tewkesbury in May 1471 had all the essentials for high drama. The prize at stake was nothing less than the crown of England, defended by a usurper king against the queen of the man he had deposed. Participants in the battle would include a future king (Richard, Duke of Gloucester--later Richard III); an heir to the throne (Edward, Prince of Wales); and several members of the most important families in the country. By 1471, England had been fighting a series of civil wars for 16 years. Those wars were a struggle for survival between Margaret of Anjou, who was head of the House of Lancaster, and the rival House of York. Because Lancaster's heraldic badge was a red rose and York's was a white rose, the long conflict came to be known as The Wars of the Roses.

It was Queen Margaret's ruthlessness and her manipulation of her weak and feeble-minded husband, King Henry VI, that precipitated the wars in the 1450s. She and her Lancastrian favorites excluded from power any lords who might prove a threat to their control over King Henry, since whoever controlled the king controlled the government.

Margaret's main rival was Richard, Duke of York, whom the queen had good reason to fear--he had a better claim to the throne than Henry VI. He was also much more popular than the arrogant Margaret or the despised Lancastrian nobility. She banished the duke to Ireland for several years, but by 1450 he had returned to England and was able to enlist a following of several thousand armed retainers as his personal army. Animosity between the duke and Queen Margaret grew until May 1455, when York and his army met the queen's forces at the first Battle of St. Albans. York scattered the Lancastrians and briefly took possession of King Henry. During the next few years, other battles between York and Lancaster were fought--Mortimer's Cross (February 2, 1461), second St. Albans (February 17, 1461) and Hexham (May 15, 1464)

The Duke of York was killed at the Battle of Wakefield on December 30, 1460, and his head was displayed above the gate of the city of York by vengeful Queen Margaret. But the Duke's son, Edward, claimed the crown and was proclaimed King Edward IV in Westminster Abbey on March 4, 1461. As for Henry VI, he had become "no more than the inert prize of savagely contending factions," according to the historian Paul Murray Kendall. In 1465, he was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Although Henry was now Edward's prisoner, his very existence was a threat to Edward. More important, Margaret of Anjou was also very much alive, and she was determined to restore Henry to the throne. The savage feud between Lancaster and York continued for the next decade. Margaret persisted in her attempts to restore Henry. She was always able to raise an army of followers, including Edward's cousin, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as "the Kingmaker," who had had a falling-out of his own with King Edward.

Warwick was a commander to be reckoned with. In September 1470, while Queen Margaret was in France, he and his army forced Edward to flee England to the Low Countries, and Henry VI was reinstated as king. It looked as though Margaret and the House of Lancaster had completely routed the Yorkists without fighting a battle.

Edward was not one to accept defeat gracefully, however. He returned to England in March 1471, looking to settle old grievances.

At the head of an army of mercenaries and loyal Yorkists, he met a Lancastrian force, led by the Earl of Warwick, just north of London at Barnet. In three hours on an Easter Sunday morning (April 14), Edward and his forces routed the Lancastrians and killed Warwick. One of Edward's main antagonists would not trouble him any longer.

On the same day as the Battle of Barnet, however, Margaret of Anjou arrived from France and began to rally another Lancastrian force. With her son, the Prince of Wales, she and her followers began to make their way toward Wales. Her plan was to join forces with a Welsh ally named Jasper Tudor and jointly attack Edward somewhere west of London. This time, she meant to force a final showdown with the Yorkists.

Edward did not plan to allow Margaret the first move. As soon as he received word of her movements, he and his army pursued the queen across western England. Scouts informed him that the Lancastrians were planning to cross the Severn River at Gloucester on their way toward Wales. Edward ordered the governor of Gloucester to prevent the Lancastrian army from entering the town; the governor obeyed the order. With Gloucester closed to her, Margaret led her army north toward Tewkesbury, the next crossing of the Severn.

Scouts kept Edward informed of Margaret's every move. He was advised that the Lancastrians had not crossed the Severn at Gloucester, and that they were heading toward Tewkesbury. Edward drove his troops after the enemy; the Yorkist force covered 31 miles on what a contemporary described as a "right-an-hot day," with no stops for food or water.

The Lancastrians reached the outskirts of the abbey town of Tewkesbury at about 4 p.m. on Friday, May 3, 1471. Margaret wanted to keep moving and cross the Severn before Edward could reach her force, but the troops had been pushing themselves for days and were exhausted. The queen's commanders told her that neither the men nor the horses could move another step. Margaret had no choice but to turn and face her pursuers. Edward was now right behind her--only a few miles away--and she did not want to be caught with her back to the Severn.

When Edward learned that the Lancastrians had stopped at Tewkesbury, he made plans to attack on the following morning. Some of his officers advised him to wait until reinforcements arrived, but Edward was afraid that the enemy might escape across the Severn if he waited. Before nightfall, he and his army moved to within three miles of Queen Margaret's camp and settled in for the night. The opposing armies could see the other's campfires. In the morning, each would be doing its best to annihilate the other.

The soldiers who faced one another in the meadow south of Tewkesbury enjoyed the reputation of being the finest in northern Europe. It was a reputation earned by the brilliant victories against the French in the Hundred Years War: at the battle of Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415). English tactics had not changed very much since the days of Crécy and Agincourt. Troops still fought on foot. The main body of the army consisted of two or three divisions, or "battles," comprised of armored men-at-arms carrying swords, battle-axes or spears. On the left and right of the battles stood groups of archers, armed with their formidable longbows.

Also present on the battlefield were cannons, which were nothing new--artillery had been in use for more than 100 years. But the field cannon had made considerable strides since the Battle of Crécy, where it was more of a curiosity than a weapon. King Edward had a keen interest in artillery, and he personally supervised the readiness of his ordinance. The cannons of the latter 15th century were usually cast iron--although some were brass--and fired stone cannon balls. Most of the guns were given pet names, such as "Messenger," "Edward," "Megge" and "Fowler of Chester." Artillery could have a profound psychological effect upon the enemy in the field; at Lose Coat Field on March 12, 1470, the first salvo of Edward's guns turned a group of Lincolnshire rebels into a panicked mob that ran from the field in terror. But the temperamental pieces could also burst and kill their own gun crews, as well as anyone else in the vicinity.

On the morning of May 4, Edward led his army onto the field south of Tewkesbury. According to a contemporary chronicler, "The King appareled himself; and all his host set in good array; displayed his banners; did blow up the trumpets...and advanced directly on enemies." The Yorkist army was deployed in three battles: Edward himself commanded the center; his brother, the 19-year-old Richard, Duke of Gloucester, commanded the left wing; and William, Lord Hastings, led the right. It must have been quite an impressive sight--lords in shining armor; archers on the flanks wearing the livery of their town or their lord; and cannons probably emplaced in the gaps between the divisions. Banners and flags waved above the troops--town flags and personal coats-of-arms of various lords and officers, and the red-and-white Cross of St. George banner in the center.

On the other side, several hundred yards away, the Lancastrian forces offered a similar spectacle. Although Queen Margaret was present at Tewkesbury--"among her troops promising them booty and honors," according to one writer--the commander of the Lancastrian forces was Edmund Beaufort, fourth Duke of Somerset.

For Somerset, the impending battle had special significance. His father and his elder brother, the second and third Dukes of Somerset, had been killed by Yorkists (at the first Battle of St. Albans in 1455 and at Hexham in 1464). Tewkesbury would be his chance for revenge against Edward and the House of York. The Lancastrian order of battle also was formed in three battles. Somerset commanded the right wing; the left was led by the Earl of Devonshire; the center had Edward, Prince of Wales, as its nominal leader, but the real leader was John, Lord Wenlock. Wenlock had changed parties twice during the wars--he began as a Lancastrian, became a Yorkist, and was now a Lancastrian again. Edward's Yorkists numbered between 5,000 and 6,000 men--about 3,000 infantry and between 2,000 and 3,000 cavalry. The Lancastrian force consisted of about 7,000 men. The Lancastrians were numerically superior, but the Yorkists had more cannons. Edward's army also had a psychological edge--his soldiers had met and routed the Earl of Warwick's Lancastrian force at Barnet only a few weeks before and were full of fight.

Edward himself was not entirely at ease, however, especially regarding the field of battle. To the left of the Yorkist army stood a wooded area known as Tewkesbury Park. Fearing that a Lancastrian ambush party might be waiting under cover of the park's trees to attack his left flank, he sent 200 horsemen (some accounts say spearmen) into the woods to look for any Lancastrians. If none were found, the horsemen were instructed to employ themselves wherever an opportunity presented itself. It would turn out to be an extremely fortuitous move.

The battle opened while the armies were still some distance apart. The Lancastrian artillery fired first. Edward's gunners returned fire, and his archers loosed a shower of arrows toward the enemy. In most battles of the Wars of the Roses, that opening salvo would have been followed by a charge by both sides. For the next few hours, men-at-arms would have chopped away at each other with swords and battle-axes until one side or the other broke. The losing side would then have run from the field of battle, their lines shattered, with their enemies in pursuit. At Tewkesbury, however, a series of trenches and drainage ditches covered the field between the two armies, making it difficult for the opponents to close with each other. As a contemporary writer put it, "In the front of their field were so evil lanes and deep dikes, so many hedges, trees and bushes that it was right hard to approach them near, and come to hands."

While the armies groped their way over the drainage ditches and trenches, the cannons and bowmen continued to fire. Edward's force included a small corps of German arquebusiers (the arquebus was a heavy matchlock weapon, an early form of musket that was usually fired using a support). The cannons and small-arms fire did their share of damage, both real and psychological; the sight of a stone cannon ball bouncing in their direction must have been a terrifying spectacle to the troops. But just as during the Hundred Years War, the archer and his longbow dominated. The bow itself was about 6 feet long and was frequently made of yew wood. Archers kept their supplies of iron-tipped arrows, capable of piercing armor at 250 yards, in a leather spacer hung from their belts; that "ammunition clip" allowed bowmen to fire about 12 arrows per minute--one about every five seconds. The results brought havoc to the ranks of the enemy.

Arrows and cannon volleys slowed the advancing armies still further, but they continued to advance toward each other in spite of all obstacles. During that long, slow march, the Duke of Somerset noticed that Edward's left flank appeared to be unprotected. From his position, it seemed that the Duke of Gloucester's division was open, with no one covering the gap between Gloucester's left and the woods of Tewkesbury Park. That seemed like a golden opportunity--an attack on the left flank would put Gloucester's division in peril. If the left division broke and ran, the entire Yorkist army would be in a difficult if not untenable position. It was a gamble, but Somerset decided that the stakes were worth it.

While hand-to-hand fighting was developing all along the front, Somerset led his men in the surprise attack on the end of the king's battle in a clearing in Tewkesbury Park. The trees helped to conceal Somerset's attack, which certainly came as a surprise--his men crashed into the left side of Gloucester's division with flailing swords and battle-axes. The Yorkists, however, quickly recovered from the shock and fought back.

At that crucial moment, King Edward IV showed one of the characteristics that made him an outstanding commander: He was able to size up the situation at once, even in the middle of a battle, and quickly take countermeasures. He personally led an attack by troops from his own household against Somerset's Lancastrians and succeeded in pushing the enemy troops across a dike and a hedge and back toward the close "with great violence."

At that point, the 200 men that Edward had sent into Tewkesbury Park saw their chance. They burst out of concealment and began battering Somerset's men with spears and lances. This time it was Somerset's turn to be taken by surprise. His force quickly began to disintegrate, and his men broke and ran.

Wounded in the counterattack, Somerset mounted a horse and rode back to confront the Duke of Wenlock, who commanded the Lancastrian center. Wenlock had taken no action in the battle so far, even though he could see for himself that Somerset was in need of support. Somerset accused Wenlock of having changed sides once again; after cursing him as a traitor, he cracked Wenlock's skull with a battle-axe, killing him instantly.

That spectacle did not help to bolster Lancastrian morale. Somerset tried to rally his troops, but the men were shaken both by the failure of Somerset's attack and by his killing the Duke of Wenlock. When Somerset's flank attack failed, King Edward and the Duke of Gloucester launched a fierce charge against the Lancastrian front. The Yorkists began to push the Lancastrians back toward the town of Tewkesbury and the Avon River, which flows into the Severn just south of the town. Edward's troops pursued the fleeing Lancastrians with relish and turned the already disorderly retreat into a rout. The luckier men escaped into the town and sought sanctuary in Tewkesbury Abbey. Some were slaughtered during their attempt to cross the Avon River in a field still known as "Bloody Meadow," or drowned in the river itself.

But Edward did not intend to kill the common soldiers. The maxim of the Wars of the Roses was, "Spare the commons, kill the lords," and the Yorkists certainly carried out that credo.

Among the nobles who were killed was Edward, the 17-year-old Prince of Wales, who was cut down after having been captured, even as he begged for mercy. Yorkist soldiers entered local churches, as well as Tewkesbury Abbey, and dragged out the Duke of Devonshire along with other Lancastrian nobles. When Edward learned that the Duke of Somerset and several of his field commanders were inside Tewkesbury Abbey, along with several of his field commanders, he personally entered the sanctuary in spite of protests by the abbot. Somerset was seized and taken out of the abbey, to be tried for treason.

The prisoners were tried by a hastily convened court on May 6 (no proceedings were held on the day immediately following the battle, since that was a Sunday). The Duke of Gloucester, as Constable of England, presided and handed down predictably harsh sentences. The Duke of Somerset, along with other Lancastrian nobles, were beheaded in Tewkesbury's marketplace immediately following the trial.

Edward's victory assured peace for the rest of his reign--the battle and its aftermath virtually wiped out the House of Lancaster. After the battle, Margaret of Anjou fled Tewkesbury in a carriage but was captured in a nearby church. She spent the rest of her life in France and caused no more mischief for Edward. Henry VI, a prisoner in the Tower of London, was said to have died of "pure displeasure and melancholy" when he learned of the death of his son, the Prince of Wales. But when Henry's tomb was opened in 1910, his skull was found to be "much damaged," and a piece of it was stained with something that might have been blood. He was probably put to death by order of King Edward. The demise of both Henry and the Prince of Wales effectively put an end to any serious challenges to his authority as king.

The Battle of Tewkesbury had lasted about three hours. A contemporary writer claimed that 3,000 Lancastrians died in the fighting--an exaggeration, since that would have constituted 50 percent of Margaret's army. Losses were probably closer to 1,000 dead. According to Sir John Paston, who fought with the Lancastrian side at the Battle of Barnet, 1,000 Lancastrians were killed in that battle. The fighting at Tewkesbury was just as fierce, so losses were probably comparable.

Although Edward left for Coventry following the battle, "to deal with new risings there," he no longer had any real rivals for the crown. The Battle of Tewkesbury made Edward IV undisputed king.

David Alan Johnson is a freelance writer from England who now resides in Union, N.J. For further reading, he recommends: The Yorkist Age, by Paul Murray Kendall; Edward IV, by Charles Ross; and This Sun of York, by Mary Clive.

At Tewkesbury, the placement of 200 men-at-arms in Tewkesbury Park was fairly typical of Edward--trying to anticipate a surprise flanking movement by the enemy and, in doing so, take the enemy by surprise. At Tewkesbury, Edward placed his forces in a position where battle could not have been declined by the Lancastrian commander. By challenging the enemy, Edward was able to force battle and fight on terms that gave him the advantage.

The Gaston field was the open field to the south of Tewkesbury, in strip cultivation in the middle ages. By the end of the seventeenth century the Gaston field had been divided into seven enclosures. Then, in the eighteenth century, a turnpike road was constructed through it. This is now the A38, Gloucester Road. Just two enclosures remain of the old Gaston field. The first exhibits the marks of medieval agriculture. The hedge to the west, which is against the old road to Gloucester and King John’s deerpark has been dated back to the high middle ages.

There are currently plans to build upon the field, though this has been met with strong opposition.