Sunday 31 October 2010

Battle of Worksop 16 December 1460-Now on Wikipedia

I'm still trying to hack into the history of the Battle of Worksop and have now added a Wikipedia page.  This is how it's going at present: 

'''Battle of Worksop''' is a skirmish during the [[Wars of the Roses]], near the town of [[Worksop]], [[Nottinghamshire]] on December 16th 1460 which became the precursor to the [[Battle of Wakefield]] on 30th December 1460.

There is very scant evidence of what happened during this event and the only contempory account comes from [[William of Worcester]] in his book [[Annales rerum Anglicarum]] where he states “The Duke of York, with the Earl of Salisbury and many thousand armed men, were going from London to York, in December 1460, when a portion of his men, the van, as is supposed, or perhaps the scouts… were cut off by the people of the Duke of Somerset, Edmund Beaufort at Worksop” (2). Is is worthy to note that Edmund at this time was not the Duke of Somerset, this position being held by his elder brother [[Henry Beaufort]] (1436-1464) who was one of the principal commanders at the [[Battle of Wakefield]] (5).

It is not known why Richard of York's men decided to come to the Lancastrian stronghold of Worksop. It could have been to get food for the Yorkist army marching north, to check on the forces situated around the town or retribution towards [[Worksop Manor]] where the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury/3rd Earl of Waterford (Ireland), [[John Talbot]] (born c.1413) and his younger brother Christopher Talbot had been killed at the [[Battle of Northampton]] on 10 July 1460. Revenge was certainly in order as John had been given Richard's land in Wakefield in 1459(4).  Also Richard had a personal vendetta against the Earl's of Somerset, possibly due to Edmund's father [[Edmund Beaufort]]'s disastrous campaigns which ended the [[Hundred Years War]]. 

There is no physical evidence of the battle except perhaps a section of skull in [[Worksop Priory]] with a bodkin arrowhead lodged firmly in it.  This is visible to members of the public and located in the north aisle of the church towards the west end.


== References ==
(1) The Battle of Wakefield Revisited: A Fresh Perspective on Richard of York's Final Battle, December 1460  by Helen R. Cox
(2)Annales rerum Anglicarum by William of Worcester
(3) Battle of Worksop-A Personal Interpretation by David Cook. Priories Historical Society January 2010 Newsletter
(4) luminarium.org/encyclopedia/johntalbot2.htm
(5) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Beaufort,_3rd_Duke_of_Somerset

No comments:

Post a Comment