In 1996 an incredible find was unearthed accidentally by workmen during the building of a modern extension at Towton Hall in North Yorkshire, close to the battlefield of the same name. It was, without doubt, unique, and I was lucky enough to be involved in unravelling the story behind it.
Originally some sixty-one bodies occupied a mass grave pit abutting the original manor house, although only a proportion of these were analysed in any great detail by experts. This multi-disciplined team was headed jointly by the staff of Bradford University and West Yorkshire Archaeology Service, and due to the trauma inflicted on the skulls of the bodies, criminal forensic methods were employed with the help of an expert from the United States.
The tests and conclusions carried out told a fascinating but brutal story of how each soldier died. Massive injuries had been sustained. Repeated blows to the skull told of frenzied attacks with heavy weapons such as poleaxes and war hammers. Daggers were thrust into the back of heads, throats were cut, and mutilation was carried out on the corpses indicating overkill and disfigurement. One man had been hit more than fifteen times, so great was the hate felt by his attacker.
Even though some of the cadavers had been reburied quickly in Saxton churchyard and therefore not examined, it became immediately obvious that the bodies in the grave had met their deaths while not wearing helmets. It is ironic that initially, the team thought that one of the soldiers had been tossed into the grave with his hands tied behind his back.
Although some opinions about how the victims met their deaths were formed in 1996, and these were presented in Blood Red Roses (a title translated into a book and television documentary called Secrets of the Dead), it was impossible to form an opinion about the wider significance of the find due to a lack of evidence. However, what I uncovered later in contemporary documents tells us a great deal about what happened in Towton and also the politics of those compelled to fight. In short, the grave at Towton may have held the victims of a massacre or mass execution.
Firstly, the bodies were found packed into a trench grave originally excavated to take as many bodies as possible. Variously orientated ‘like sardines in a can,’ it was clear that no religious or orthodox method of internment had been followed – the dead were literally just dumped in, and one individual had been turned ninety-degrees in the grave, indicating that space was at a premium. The original grave cut was approximately five metres by two metres, and its southern edge partially invaded the limits of Towton Hall, which in 2003 had its dining room floor removed to expose more bodies dating to the medieval period. Little in the way of artefacts were found in the original grave fill apart from a silver ring, a few copper alloy tags, a small armour attachment and a worked bone object with copper rivets; therefore, it is clear all the bodies had been stripped before internment.
Osteological analysis established that their ages were between sixteen and fifty years, fitting neatly with what we would expect from commissions of array and local musters of the time. The men were generally tall (some were six-footers) and in a good state of health, and most had suffered from a lifetime of considerable physical hard labour. Irregular bone formations in the arms and shoulders proved that some men used the bow (or that they had been trained in arms from an early age) which was hardly surprising.
Of the twenty-seven skulls examined, a total of 113 wounds (a ratio of four to one) were found on each, raising the question why so many blows were delivered to each individual in one specific area and how much time the various attackers needed to complete their task. Two individuals had received over ten head wounds each, and the skull of Towton 25 needed complete reconstruction before the level of trauma could be recognised, a clear indication that the attacker was not threatened by others while he struck. Most attacks were made from the front by right-handed assailants, but some cuts and blows to the head were delivered from behind and above while their victims were on the ground. Fifty per cent of the postcranial injuries were to the hands and arms, indicating that some men had attempted to defend themselves, and it is clear that multiple attackers with different types of weapons were involved in the assaults.
So, was this battle-related trauma, or something far more sinister and premeditated? Clearly, the killers were not disturbed, judging by the number of injuries, and since 1996 I have been trying to equate this type of killing with what the Towton remains are trying to tell us.
The conclusions reached provide an insight into the savagery that motivated an individual to fight in such battles and also commit atrocities in their aftermaths. The questions raised may be contrary to what we might expect in a world of chivalry, but then again, what exactly was chivalry in the Wars of the Roses? Are the injuries in the Towton grave totally consistent with the psychology of the code? Was there no room for ransoms or mercy in 1461? Whatever our conclusions about the mind-set of those who fought at Towton, it is clear that the wider context of the battle must be explored. What emerges is that intense feelings of self-preservation led to such savagery at Towton and that it was based on the most primaeval cause for war in the human psyche– the blood feud.
The man known as Towton 16 is probably the best experience to try and identify with, although there are other individuals who died with him that suffered greater injuries, including multiple acts of mutilation and overkill.
Shortly after experts reconstructed his face for the programme Blood Red Roses, this soldier immediately became an individual and a character who had a story to tell. In his late forties, he was tall, robust and had probably fought in previous battles of the Wars or in France. Alternatively, he may have been a thug who had received his distinctive healed blade wound to the jaw due to a local brawl in a tavern. Towton 16 may also have been an archer taking into account his size, proportions and the transformations apparent in his elbow, but he also could have been a yeoman or gentleman of some distinction, in other words, a leader of men. Most Englishmen had been ‘brought up to the bow’ at some time in their lives, and like his partners in death, Towton 16 was probably used to handling various weapons – one of the many reasons why he was recruited.
In the latter stages of the rout at Towton, we have seen that many of the Lancastrians fled back to York and ultimately to the river crossings that lay between. As previously detailed, contemporary accounts indicate that some of these men had been captured and made prisoner by the Yorkists. It is extremely unlikely that the Towton grave contained battlefield dead that had been transported there to be interred or that these were bones reburied in the Tudor period. Therefore we must assume that the grave was dug in the village to bury those men that had been killed in the rout. I believe that Towton 16 was one of these soldiers. I also suggest that he was not a common soldier and that he was killed, along with others of equal status, because of who they were and the threat they posed to the Yorkist regime. This scenario is made even more plausible if we consider how and where Towton 16 died. A total of ten blade, blunt and puncture wounds are to be found in his cranium, which is consistent with those inflicted on others present in the grave who were clearly not wearing helmets when they died. Injuries were delivered from both the front and back, all were to the skull, and most were delivered by several different weapon types. The killing took time to complete – time that would not have been available under normal battlefield conditions. Therefore, it is clear Towton 16 was killed, with repeated blows, close to Towton village and that the defence wounds to his comrades' forearms and hands are proof that he too was not bound. Indeed, many men in the grave may have been expecting to be freed or ransomed. It is interesting to note that there was not a single wound in the chest/ribcage or back, although there are cuts to the neck area amounting to approximately fifteen per cent of the overall postcranial perimortem trauma.
What are we to make of these forensic facts? Why did all the men in the grave die from repeated blows to the head? Why were there no helmets in place when they were attacked? Why were some of the soldiers mutilated after death? Who were they to deserved such treatment and overkill? The author of Gregory’s Chronicle may reveal the answer when trying to account for the Towton dead. After listing the nobles killed on the field, he admits that the amount killed was,
…many more than I can rehearse; but with these and other that were slain in the field is a great number, besides forty-two knights that were slain thereafter.1
The executions didn’t stop there:
For many a lady lost her best beloved in that battle. The Earl of Devon was sick, and could not flee [from York] and was taken and beheaded. And the Earl of Wiltshire was taken and brought to Newcastle and the king. And there his head was smitten off and sent to London to be set upon London Bridge.2
Later we learn from Edward Hall, the Tudor chronicler, that before the battle Edward IV:
…made a proclamation, that no prisoner should be taken, nor one enemy saved…the taking of prisoners was proclaimed a great offence.3
Could the forty-two knights mentioned in Gregory’s Chronicle and those ‘that were slain thereafter’ include those who were captured, made prisoner and executed at Towton? Were they killed in some kind of enclosure, unarmed and overwhelmed by their enemies? And even more critically, are we seeing the extermination of a warrior class of captains that posed a threat to the Yorkist military machine? In short, did Edward IV condone a massacre of unarmed men just because they were Lancastrians?
We are told that few Lancastrians of note escaped from Palm Sunday Field, although a proportion of the peerage did manage to flee the battlefield. Like Henry V after Agincourt, Edward IV was probably in no mood for mercy or appeals for ransom after such a bloody day. In fact, he had a blood feud of his own to reconcile and had to establish himself as a strong monarch in English shires where unrest, infighting and rebellion were endemic. In short, there had to be a final solution, and the political answer to this transferred to the battlefield was to annihilate his enemies will to combat, remove their leaders and teach his subjects a lesson they would never forget.
Towton 16 was a man typical of his breed, and many like him were useful in war and hunted in defeat. In the peak of fitness and ready to kill to claim wages and booty, there can be no doubt of his will to combat. It is certain that many thousands like him paid for their master’s ambition in blood at Towton and in the Wars of the Roses. However, the evidence proves that it was essentially those of note who suffered summary execution after battles had ended and not their tenants. Therefore the grave is a sad reminder of this and the death of chivalry in England.
So, was it the memory of these men that urged Richard III to build a chapel at Towton to re-inter the unnamed dead and account for a war crime? Did Richard know of the executions carried out there by his brother Edward? Or was this a political act of reconciliation directed at those northerners who still held bitter memories of the massacre at Towton?
Perhaps we will never know.
I will expand on this article and more aspects of ‘Britain’s Bloodiest Battle’ in my forthcoming and extensively updated book to be re-launched by The History Press later in the year.
J. Gairdner, ed., ‘Gregory’s Chronicle’ in The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, 1876, p.217.
Ibid.
H. Ellis, ed., Edward Hall’s Chronicle, 1809, p.255-56.