The Battle of Towton | Was It Really the Bloodiest in English History? 

Hey guys, Part Two is now available here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-karKmvUbAdg.html

Did a reenactment at Towton once and camped on the battlefield for the night as part of it. The place has a very strange , sad atmosphere around it.. even now.

I re enacted this era of history, this and Tewkesbury are by far huge battles that so many don't know of today, fighting in armour in the summer when it's 30 Celsius is enough for me to realise how hard it must have been I can't imagine doing it in a snow storm

I've visited the Towton battlefield many times over the past 40 years. It always has a unique 'atmosphere'.

Worth mentioning that Long before The War of the Roses, The Towton Battlefield was a part of the Brigante's Frontline against the Romans and the Kingdom of Elmet's Frontline against the Anglo Saxons.

I will *never* not be grateful I was born in the modern age! Imagine being "raised" away from your farm and family, from everything and everyone you know, to wield a pike in a frozen field against your neighbour, for a King that considers you peasant chattle 😪 Incredible stuff

One of my 17th great grandfathers, Lionel de Welles, was killed at Towton. He was a Lancastrian, in fact, his wife at the time of the battle was the mother of Margaret Beaufort. His son and son-in-law led the Welles Uprising against Edward IV in 1470 and were executed for it.

This was so well done. Thank you very much to all involved.

Must of been absolutely horrific fighting in those times, hand to hand with bladed weapons. Big respect to both sides.

I’m American but British history fascinates me. The wars of the Roses in Particular. It amazes me that Brits can go visit Battlefields and Buildings from the Middle Ages. The Oldest buildings I have visited was from the 18th Century.

This seems like a great way to start my Sunday morning. Thanks!

Excellent documentary... well done!

Thank you. This is one of my favourite times in English history - thank you Dan Jones!! All battles must be terrifying, but Towton seems particularly brutal

I've cycled with friends to Towton Moor a few times, there is (or was) a monument to the battle by the roadside, and a small church where some of the dead leaders were taken. We stopped for lunch and a few beers at The Crooked Billet pub. As we pedalled over the hill Trevor (RIP) would shout out "Damn thee Towton Moor".

Very interesting and informative. Thank you

Wonderfully put together thank you

Love this channel, thank you!

I remember when The History Channel once told these. This is well done

I'm sure both armies would've know the river was there, nearest water source and all that.. horses and men need a water source! Great video though.. a truly fascinating battle that never fails to spark the imagination of what it was like..to see all those men and horses, to have felt the cold sting of the wind blown snow in your face, then the arrows fly.. truly brutal and bloody. 563 years ago this March 29th. What incredible history we have, albeit fighting and bloodshed most of the time!

A bridge of bodies is such a chilling thought

I love that there's so much significant history right on my doorstep.

History by all states of records is all we have to work with, really enjoy these video's.

Wonderful! You look great, Matt, and this is your cup of tea; it suits you. Thanks so much for your scholarship.

What’s amazing is the beck is a tiny little river today, I was working on its banks a few years back and my dog was playing in it, it was like a small ditch.

Fighting hand to hand with bladed weapons takes guts on a level that is hard to comprehend. I’ve seen demonstrations of such weapons on animal carcasses. The wounds that they inflict is horrifying.

Very good presentation, I loved the graphics.

Great channel,one of the best on you tube

Very interesting, thank you.

What attracts knights in shining armor even more than damsels in distress? Magnets

Love your work 👍

Fauconberg was the outstanding strategist for the Yorkists. John Neville was also a key commander. The Lancastrian commanders don't seem to have been as competent. And of course Edward IV was an outstanding warrior: 6'4 tall hugely skilled and at arms.

Haven't been able to find Part 2 yet. Well done Part 1, to be sure!

Informative. Horrific day for all. May sound silly but can’t help wondering if any of my ancestors were there (never know). I’m 🇨🇦 but my grandfather and by extension his family came from Lancashire (Blackburn).

Great content - the numbers are so small during that time but by percentage huge and creating a nation.

Local legend plus Edmund Bog I think, has it that the Yorkists losed their arrows with the snow behind them. Then the took 2 paces back and waited for the return volley. The Lancastrians, firing blindly into the snow, their arrows fell short and were of little use. Then the Yorkists stepped forward again, noted the angle of the Lancastrian arrows that had landed in the ground, and let lose another volley. Then again stepped back.

There’s just nothing like the excellence of History Hit!!!

Shortest answer to spare you: no. End of winter battle done in haste by Edward IV at speed through country already passed twice by the Lancastrians. They would have to bring fodder and ale and food, for the area was foraged out. Edward probably had no artillery, but logistics rule against the titanic battle that wasn't. Towton's size is legend based on one letter by the Kingmaker's bishop brother to a papal ⚖ that's it. It was a very important high casualty battle, but probably fewer troops than at Bosworth. Alway look at the time of year and the logistical restrictions thereof. My thanks to Matt Lewis and Chris Barendt for challenging the standard exaggerated numbers. The actual commander of Norfolk's troops was John Howard, Norfolk's cousin, who would eventually be made Duke of Norfolk by Richard III. Howard received a message from Edward to leave the baggage train behind and to race up the Great North Road as quickly as possible, so less of an accident than first appears. Thank you. Cheers to you all.

a very atmospheric place, always eerily quiet, regardless of any passing traffic.

I detected on here many years ago, the atmosphere is so eerie especially when the weather is bad , you can almost feel and smell what happened that day 😢

I've been fascinated with the Wars of the Roses and the Battle of Towton and the Battle of Bosworth Field since I was a small lad. I had ancestors at both engagements.

very nicely done! part two not yet uploaded I guess?

Those men who died trying to escape the rout,it really must have been truly terrifying . Never mind general plate armour,once their gambesons underneath were wet, they literally must have been 'dead weights'.

Let's all make sure that we've had our dinner before Part The Second then! Nice one team. ⚔️❤️🤣🌟👍

I saw a " Secrets of the Dead " episode called "Blood Red Roses" about Towton the facial forensics team reconstructed a skull and on that skull was a previous wound on his bottom jaw it came from a sword or full on Axe attack right on the bone ,he survived that attack from a previous battle but he died at Towton , nobody knows which side he fought for , a great documentary to watch about this battle.

Am I the only one who noticed it looks like Matt has a Dark Angels logo from 40K on his jacket pocket? An excellent documentary about a time most of my fellows in the US don't tend to learn about.

The Chairman of the Battlefield society is brilliantly articulate. The graphics are very good to show the army movements & the weather that day, but stop short of showing the river which played a key role. The camera flattens the landscape a bit. Even if the numbers are exaggerated and so it was half that claimed, 50,000 men hacked to death 14,000 on a cold snowy windy evening as the sun went down.

While I certainly appreciate a historic battleground left close to it’s original state, I’m surprised there aren’t at least a few markers. For example on the hill with the tree, the flank attack location, or the killing field slope. I mean like a plaque on a stack of stones.

I've just subscribed to History Hit, best money I've spent in a while. Excellently done team, its sobering to think of the brutality that occurred on that field

Duke of Norfolk: "Sorry I'm everyone! Anything I can do?" Everyone: "Attack the flank!...no!...the flank!!!"

C est une grande bataille qui a fini en une grande boucherie pour beaucoup de soldats ... Voir le champ de bataille en vrai doit surement creer un coup au coeur

My 16th great grandfather was Lionel De Welles was born in 1406 in Well, Lincolnshire, the son of Maud and Eudo. He had four children with Joan Cicely De Waterton and one child with Cecily Fleming. He died on 29 March 1461 in Towton, Yorkshire, at the age of 55.

So little beauty. So much Suffering!

The wounds on the skeletons are grim testimony to this.

More men hacked to death or killed by arrows in one short day than at the battle of Gettysburg which lasted much longer.

Was just there today.

Don't forget the weather. Even if you had got across the river, imagine being soaked through with icy water and then enduring snow and wind. I would have thought a lot died through hypothermia.

There was a lot of trouble happening at that place and many people suffered ... hope they were ok at the end

Even by the Napoleonic wars battles are won / loss with 10% losses. This being bloodier still would find the retreating would've lost more running off and being cut down by Cavalry when morale drops. A lot more of the wounded die from injuries over the next few days by infection and blood loss. But still 28,000 is too many

Tragic!!

Q: How do you solve medieval wars? A: Marriage between royal families.

Sir Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, my 15 x grandfather, died in the battle of Towton

One thing to kill your enemy at a distance, but close combat? I can’t imagine the injuries, the tales of rivers of blood after a battle is not far from the truth.

Part two, chop chop

I think the Scottish loses at Flodden (1513) were comparable in terms of numbers of dead …

Here in the US I have visited several sites of the horrific civil war fought here 150-ish years ago. At a number of sites the battlefields remains relatively undisturbed, serving as memorials. At the dawn of industrial scale warfare and fought with particular vehemence, the death toll of the US civil war was truly horrific. While I personally am by no means 'spiritual,' standing on the battlefields of Gettysburg or Vicksburg at sunset, I defy anyone to not feel the presence of those who died there. It is truly a haunting experience.

A massive routing army trapped against a river is basically the extreme worst case scenario.

Edward was a warrior. And a teenager. 17 I think. And I believe he won every battle he fought.

Sad to consider that fellow Englishmen were slaughtering each other like this less than half a century after the glory of Agincourt.

"Plans are useless, but planning is everything"

Throughout history its quite staggering how many 'ordinary' people died because one individual wanted to be king. Their arrogance is astounding. In England alone, there were hundreds of small and large battles all over the country almost all the time. The War of the Roses, the Barons wars, Hastings, the Vikings, Romans, Anglo Saxons, French. I'm surprised there are any people left today.

Age, infiirmity and cunning defeats youth and might!

I see back then the battle cameras only recorded in mono chrome....

They allude to a follow up program about the weapons & injuries but there is no video I can find? Anyone know anything?

My concern relative to the total numbers quoted in many battles of this era is the numbers involved. If you consider the landscape occupation of say 50,000 times twice, men all armed from a fairly small population. Could this number include camp followers of women and children who would be adrift of the battlefield? A number such as 50,000 of any item, men horses and armaments is huge concerning the actuality of accounting and reporting of such a period. The advance of the archers is interesting for what is the capacity of an advancing archer to carry arrows onto advanced battle position, 25 say or 50? I have no doubt the concourse of the battle was as bloody as described but if you think that today we have more horses in Britain than in Victorian times according to some computations one can see the difficulties in accommodating many of our historical numbers especially in in medieval periods. If we divide the numbers by ten and look at the availability recoverable archeological evidence would we be nearer the truth. Above all how do you feed that many people en mass in a medieval winter when most bar breeding stock has been killed and harvest is becoming a distant memory? As is suggested in interview the numbers compounded could well be to make a conqueror more kingly so should we be quoting these numbers so freely? I am not discounting the act or fact or dreadful conditions but wonder in these days of factual propriety why we still rush to school book numbers?

Watching YOU examine bones seeing what we want to see.

So much for the Battle of Malplaquet (1709)

Apparently, the dead are still there. There is a video of "spirit box" use at this battlefield, at night. The 'replies' given by the dead are astonishing. I'm a sceptic, but even I was convinced. Looked for that YT video, but cannot find it. 😕

Man has found some lovely spots to hack each other or blow each other to pieces Fair play

My ancestors, our heritage, don't forget it at a time it's being pushed aside

❤️

It's just beggars ones belief when thinking of Waterloo ,Gettysburg, Somme, etc, as how high the death toll was at Towton. Even if one forgets about the carnage the Yorkist longbows must've wreaked in the Lancastrian ranks, the bloodiest engagement in the battle had to be when it came to hand to hand. If done with respect to history the War of the Roses would make an absolutely, excellent tv drama.

We need our history back

As a percentage of the population, I would say yes.

Winter is coming

Medieval hell on earth.

The most bloody battle ever fought in English soil (Edmund Bogg). More men hacked to death or killed by arrows (no quarter given), in a single day, than were killed and wounded at the 3 day long battle of Gettysburg, where most of the slaughter was with firearms. The Cock Beck Ran Red with blood for the SECOND TIME in its history. The first being the battle of Whinmoor (sources differ on the spelling) where the last pagan King in England was defeated. Some say just local legend. Hey! Check out nearby street names and estate names. And of course Edmund Bogg. I have a first edition lol. 😜 Also, if folks are interested in The WarS of the Roses, check out one of the events that led up to this. Where Edward and his father were in Sandal Castle. A foraging party went out and took a long time to return. So Edwards Dad went out with a few others to find them and got ambushed by Lancastrians in the surrounding forest. Hard to imagine Wakefield being surrounded by forest these days. Anyway the Lancastrians chopped his head off. Possibly within full view of Sandal Castle. Edward may well have witnessed his own father's execution.

Considering the amount of Camp Followers then I can easily accept the Higher Casualty Estimates if the Non Combatants are included and the Lower Estimates as also being Accurate, If they were just counting Combatants. The Cock Beck has seen several High Casualty Battles, Could even call it the Bloodiest Beck in Britain!!

I lived in Towton my house use to back on to farm fields and when the farmer use to plow the field they would plow up bones all the time the police would come and tent it off and remove the body .

2:26 I thought the house of York is based in York city and the house of Lancaster is based in Lancashire.

Were arrows expensive ammo?

One wouldn't want to be on the loosing side

Put it this way...If you were around at the time and had the choice of being in the thick of it, or staying home in bed...I think most of us would have stayed home that day 😂

Question... How did they know Who's who on the battlefield? Did they wear patches? Where is the River?

How do they know it was snowing ... did they ask someone who was there

I thought the lancastrians were based at Tadcaster.

Definitely don't want to get hit on the top of the head with a Falcon's Beak.

The Stalingrad of England sans the T34's!

Actually there were only about seven guys fighting that day. Ned and Phil were kilt and Fergus had a nasty break. The rest were fine.

20 percent of the human population of England fought at this battle 🧐

Imagine it. The morning of such a battle. I think I would be a brave person if I was to react to something. I think I would be a coward if I had to think about it. If you get my point.