Battle of Towton | Wars of the Roses | Instruments of Death
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- In this episode of Instruments of Death we investigate how weapons and body armour were developed by taking a look at the impact of the Battle of Towton during the Wars of the Roses.
It’s Palm Sunday and the year is 1461. In a remote field in Yorkshire two massive armies are facing each other and preparing to go into battle. The weather is freezing, snow begins to fall, and men of both sides are praying to their God for victory and deliverance, but they both know that no quarter will be asked or given.
Suddenly the sky becomes dark with deadly arrows, soldiers scream as they are hit, but this is only the beginning. Soon men are in pitched battle, hacking into each other with their swords and axes, skulls are crushed, limbs are severed, and the snow runs red with blood - the Battle of Towton is in full cry.
It’s almost impossible for us to imagine the hell of medieval pitched battles, the bloodlust, the noise, the sheer brutality of the fighting. They were tests of strength, endurance, and of course raw courage. It was quite literally, kill or be killed!
No one really knows exactly how many men fought at the Battle of Towton but fifty thousand would be a fair estimate. It was just one battle in what history remembers as the Wars of the Roses, the long struggle for power between the houses of York and Lancaster, the white rose and the red rose.
In this documentary we examine why weapons such as the poleaxe and the longbow, were so deadly in the hands of medieval men-at-arms. We see the effects they had on the human body, and how the wounds they inflicted were treated. We’ll find out how the weapons were made, what men did to try and protect themselves, and try to get into the hearts and minds of the men who fought here at Towton more than 500 years ago.
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Knew that archer was familiar, what a legend Kevin is.
Kevins youtube channel is TheHistorySquad
@@Nozylatten been subbed since like 5k subs haha, I love Kevin Hicks
Kevin Hicks is a genius and incredible story teller. When ever I listen to his military history stories I feel like I am there transported back in time.
@MooseBattleGaming I drew his CZcams logo ;)
Seriously, @@fiend_gaming? You actually drew his channel logo?
Brilliant. The bowyer is called Richard Head. I can see why he doesn't use the shortened version of his name.
Hahaha!! 😂🤣🤣 my Grandad was called Dick.Im sure he'd have laughed at your comment too!
...it's spelled in lower case...
@@cbroz7492 ?
Your namesake I take it!
I once had a customer named Frank Wiener. Imagine being named after a sausage TWICE.
It's amazing to think that the last recorded use of long bows was in 1642 during a skirmish in the English civil war. A bunch of militia armed with a number of bows successfully overcame a group of un-armoured musket men.
No, actually the last recorded use of a long bow in war was WWII by Mad Jack Churchill. He also went into battle with a longsword and bagpipes.
czcams.com/video/t-1Ch02dmtY/video.html
czcams.com/video/KiEx40M3Vdw/video.html
😁
@LeoPlaw Yeah, I'm aware of him, but he was somewhat of an oddball (albeit with the greatest of respect).
Have you watched the scene from Apocalypse Now where the soldier on the patrol boat gets killed by a spear thrown from the jungle. His last words were, "A spear?"
@@PortmanRd yes, we with our modern weapons seem to forget that ancient weapons still kill. Let's not forget soldiers are still trained to an extent with hand to hand combat also. Apocolypse Now... there were arrows in that part also. =)
Seems a foregone conclusion really! That the people who had weapons beat the unarmed folks!!
@@phineascampbell3103dude what a stupid comment
My man Sir Kevin Hicks! Thehistorysquad is a brilliant channel!
In 1484, King Richard III had a chapel built in Saxton so the dead could be laid to rest there or on the grounds. Unfortunately, after his death in 1485, the chapel fell into disrepair and collapsed. The monument at 2:46 was erected in the 1920s. It is said to have been made from repurposed bricks from the collapsed chapel.
It’s interesting to see both sides being honored and remembered centuries after the war ended.
Interesting stuff
@@goodstuff8156 it is. At the end of the day, they were both British.
No different to the American Civil War. Apart from the body count.
@@beeeeeesbury English
Mr Kevin is one of the best historian in the country even tho he lives in Canada lol the way he bring history back to life through his very unique way of teaching his channel the history squad is amazing if you havnt already I can only recommend you give it a go
Yep love him, he’s so good at keeping us intrigued in history.
He does seem to get very aroused by weapons which is slightly concerning 😅
No, you have him wrong. He just likes to add a bit of historic drama. Watch his channel and you'll understand.
This is a remarkable documentary. Excellent stuff. Thank you
they were shooting those arrows with a light power bow, into not real maille and fake armor. hardly excellent stuff.
I'm so glad to hear European armor being described correctly. As flexible yet protective. Too many times it's described as clunky and ineffective.
Have you ever watched knight fighting? There's a Russian league of MMA guys who fight 1vs1 in some type of armour with swords or axes, bit like gladiators I suppose it's on CZcams.
You should be able to ride a bike with it on. Give or take. When I was a kid I was told that the french knight was so heavy they needed to be hoisted onto there horses but I dont know if that was true.
European medieval history has been ridiculously mis-represented in popular culture.
I think you could generally be pretty nimble and well protected in armor, providing you had good (expensive) armor and it was properly fit to you (expensive).
It was extremely effective. Otherwise, the wildly wealthy would never have used it. Breaking new, metal is hard.
One of the most bloodiest battles of the Medieval period. The brutality
One of the most bloody* battles of the medieval period.
@@burnheretic3950 go away
Never previously properly understood what "searching" and cauterising a wound really meant. Mind-blowing!
Kevin has a good video that shows how an arrow was extracted from a dudes face in his channel the history squad. Great channel if you like this sort of thing
10:55 Hey it's Kevin Hicks from @thehistorysquad ! So cool, I love him and his content! Definitely an expert on longbow warfare and combat he is!
Every time I venture into CZcams to see these military and history videos, I end up spending 4 damn hours! I already know a lot of military history but I'm always ready for some cheesy videos😅
Fascinating history. The treatment of arrow wounds with no pain relief. It must have been horrific.
I could imagine a Yorkist archer raising a finger in the air.
"Winds in our favor lads."
Richard Head. Brilliant.
Pretty light longbow! The lads back in the day were pulling between 120 and 180 lbs - which would certainly have made a bigger mess 😮
The pig demonstration was seriously lightweight compared to reality.
Aaah, DAMMIT! ...I've been looking for this material for weeks. Thank You for the upload, mate!
A good book - The Lost Legend of the Thryberg Hawk by Jack Holroyd - also details the role of crossbow detachments, even in Towton.
I’ve never seen so many of the docs on this channel. Please more medieval and ancient history? Great stuff! Thank you
The bowman is called kevin hicks he now runs his own channel called "The History Sqaud" he's a truly amazing man and had a remarkable life with careers spent in both the british army and the metropolitan police.
My friend lives there and I’m privileged to have been there. What a wonderful story
That man with the mace is certainly menacing. It must be deafening being struck on the helmet. Chaos.
A longbow was found in 1991 in the Ötztal Alps with a natural mummy known as Ötzi. His bow was made from yew and was 1.82 metres (72 in) long; the body has been dated to around 3300 BC.
Kevins youtube channel is TheHistorySquad
Longbows are far older than this clip implies.
For example, disregarding the fact that that long bows were used in various places across the world for hunting, it was used as a weapon of battle by Numidian mercenaries in Egyptian pay during the New Kingdom more than 3000 years ago.
Even if the producers ment the English longbow as distinct from other longbows, the yew "English" longbow has been used in the British Isles since before there even was an England.
You deserve more subs. Great work.
I’d love to see a show with Kevin hicks, mike loads, and Toby capwell, Peter Woodward. And Tony Robinson
This is butchery and slaughter on a very personal level, just three feet. I wonder what percentage suffered what today is called PTSD
No kidding. And I suppose there was no such thing as veteran support services to help those poor guys.
Anyone who was unlucky enough to end up at the wrong end of an English hand cannon in 1461 but lucky enough to have lived, must have been absolutely traumatised by the experience because of it being such a new concept.
I myself, have questioned just how the English were so often, through history, able to win so often and so far around the world. And how they always seemed to be just a little bit better, smarter, better prepared, and seemingly destined for great feats around the world?
@@Floridaboi-Woody Do you have English ancestry yourself mate?
I live in Wakefield Yorkshire not far from Sandal Castle where the surrounding area was the site of a major battle in the Wars of the Roses(Battle of Wakefield 1460)
The trouble with all this conflict was that it was Englishmen killing Englishmen.
Working from memory here,but I do believe Henry V used gunpowder weapons at Agincourt. They were cannon,but much smaller than anything we would think of as cannon. More than one Scottish James faced the English with gunpowder weapons. So specifically hand cannon moving about rapidly, perhaps not,but the bang of gunpowder was a sound of centuries.
Really loud sounds would have been comparatively rare until the late 19th C,and the smell and clouds of choking smoke really would have been battlefield only.
@@Anglo_Saxon1 I am English and American for more generations than I can discover, but yes. I am very proud of my English and American ancestors. To my knowledge they came to Virginia after ending up on the losing side of the English civil war. Cavaliers. I just hope I can visit england one day.
@@Floridaboi-Woody I'd hurry up, as much of it is being built over and many places are changing, if you want to see the quintessential England.
For those who are curious, the reason why a pig carcass is being used is because their skin is similar to our skin. So for the sake of demonstration, it's the closest these experiments can get to replicating the wounds these weapons and attacks could've caused without using a real person.
Scary thought, seeing a massive cloud of arrows plunging down on you and your comrades at arms!
Technically the lancastrians didn’t win the war. As both sides claimants had all been killed. So the throne passed to the house of Tudor which was a union of houses York and Lancaster. Pretty poetic end tbh.
Not quite - Richmond’s coup was achieved with Lancastrians embedded in SW and SE England, many of whom had waited long years in Edward’s service expecting him to reverse family attainders or restore estates - when Richard assumed the throne they gave him precious little time to do what Edward had not and immediately (as in June 1483) began plotting to overthrow him, first as Protector then as king. What is key here is that Richard moves both of Edward’s sons out of London before summer’s end, possibly before his own coronation, and once disaffected Lancastrians such as Bray and Cheney - possibly John and Richard Guildford as well - began the ‘flying tales’ that Edward V was dead (or both so s) the Lancastrian plotters did not immediately look to that vast stable of male options in the House of York - no - they ditched their ‘beloved’ master, Edward IV and his House and threw in with Bray’s exiled master, the Lancastrian Henry of Richmond.
It was the French under the Regent Anne de Beaujeu, acting for her very young brother Charles, who paid for the ships, armies, mercenaries, paid the upkeep for Richmond’s fellow exiles after their botched rebellion of October 1483, the Regent provided cover for their coup with a rare meeting of the Estates General with a scathing speech, in Latin, citing hideous English royal crimes (complied in the 1450’s) with bald accusation of Richard murdering Edward’s sons - clearly a return to Lancastrian rule was needed.
The Regent emptied out her Norman jails to fill Richmond’s army, and enlisted the Scots, under their own French-Scots unit (created by Charles VII after he was crowned - by the intervention and aide of Jeanne La Pucelle during the nadir of the French Wars). Even with French money and duplicity the plotters in England needed more to persuade people to Richmond’s cause - they did not want Edward of Warwick, nor any of Suffolk’s’ many sons, nor even the sons of the Duke of Buckingham, about as royal (and as Lancastrian as anyone of them could have wished), no they opted for an exile who spoke French. Had no military background, whose claim to the throne was as transparent as a cobweb - and worse, from his mother.
The plotters such as Bray were in fact acting in accordance with their master: Lady Stanley, countess Richmond, who had been caught see in the plots to overthrow the king in 1483. But this is not yet the Tudor age so Lady Stanley was not beheaded. She lived to plot again, and with the dowager Queen Elizabeth Wydville, brokering a marriage between the exiled son and the Queen’s daughter, all of whom at the time were in sanctuary.
Curious events do happen. In March 1484, despite all of Richmond’s proclamations to marry Elizabeth of York, the dowager Queen came to terms with Richard, agreeing to leave sanctuary - her daughters to be raised by him, that he would provide suitable marriages and she would live quietly - she also contacted her eldest son, first marriage, in exile with Richmond, to come home, and make peace with the king who would protect him as well )Dorset was married to Richard’s cousin) - Dorset did indeed get the message and left Richmond’s camp, getting just far enough away to almost take ship before Richmond’s spies caught him and he would spend the next years under tight surveillance and never trusted again for the rest of his life under Henry.
Over in England, just as the dowager Queen released her daughters from sanctuary into the king’s care, along with that of Queen Anne Neville, the king sent one of his northern retainers, from a family long held in trust, to a small Devon manor and park, to take up his new ‘office’ there. It was a place called “Coldridge” and belonged to Richard’s cousin, Cecily Bonville, who had lost her father, grandfather, uncles, cousins etc, in the disaster of 1460’s Wakefield ambush that also killed Richard’s father, brother, uncles, cousins etc - the Bonvilles were massively affluent in the SW of England and Cecily the reinvent heiress of her day, at 6 months old. Repairing the schism with the dowager queen and her son Dorset was likely the result of Cecily Bonville’s connections and intervention - and as for Coldridge …
Henry Tudor wasn't even in the line of succession or if he was he was so far down to be irrelevant as long as their was a yorkist heir he had no claim to the throne he spent his reign exterminating. Any one who could claim descent from the house of York..his son Henry V111 continued the practice arresting nn anyone with a possible claim on trumped up charges
Holy hell. Nice to see Kevin hicks from the history squad
Civil war is totally brutal, far worse than any war..cousins, brothers, fathers sisters, wives, they all knew each other, so very cruel.
I heard recently that Englush Civil War of Parliament and King Charles had more casualties than WW1, not sure if that was absolute number or proportion of population
Impressive when you think that Edward was just 18 years old!
Absolutely He proved the best tactician in the Wars of the Roses and deserves a far higher military rating than is often accorded him Also a Yorkists talisman The Lancastrian equivalent of that and an excellent strategist and coordinator herself was Queen Margaret Sadly for her side she remained in York with her husband and son The weather too may have had a bit to do with that
18 years old, and 6'4. The average height in England at the time was 5'7. So Edward was towering over most men. In his full plate golden armour and wielding a two-handed war axe, he must've been quite the sight and terrifying to come up against.
@@Hugh_Morris He was in fact the grandfather of Henry VIII, but apparently a much more amiable King….or at least for the time, and it is shame he didn’t live longer to make sure that his son Edward grew to be able to take his rightful place on the throne instead of being murdered by his uncle Richard!
@Tawny6702 it was his own doing as well, sadly. Robert Baratheon in Game of Thrones is based off of Edward IV, in that he was better hunting the crown than he was ruling as king. And also like Robert, Edward ate and boozed himself into an early grave.
@@Hugh_Morris sounds like his grandson followed in his footsteps at least on the over indulgence side! Interesting though to hear thats what probably finished him off, although I read that he habitually used emetics ie gorging himself and then throwing up and starting the process over again, so what was going off there idk!
Just as an interest, what do you believe happened to the boys in the tower, to be honest the way the Richard III society tries to absolve him from blame of anything in almost cultish obsession I find amusing, they even tried to claim that he had any spinal defect…..until they found his remains that is!
Very informative, well done. 👍
Most people know of agincourt and some about Crecy and the war of the Roses but the longbows also took a terrible toll of Scottish spearmen in numerous battles like Dupplin muir , homildon hill , Flodden etc etc but most of the Scottish soldiers only wore a quilted jacket without even chain mail ….ouch !!
Maybe that's why the only pitch-battles that the Scotts were able to win, within the period, were the ones in which they managed to neutralize the English/Welsh archers - either by using the terrain, or with rapid - flanking cavalry manouvres, wiping them out before they were able to deploy their bows and use them "en masse" ...just like at Bannockburn. Even though there was no better target for the bowmen, like slowly-moving, massive infantry-formations, used by the Scotts.
The longbow could Not Pierce Plate though
@@vinz4066 actually according to recent experiments it can. Although this is very much dependent on range and the type of arrowhead used.
A bodkin tip at under 75 yards was quite capable of this feat
@@alexanderoddy4916 The video doesn't seem to suggest this. What was different about the "experiments" and what was shown here?
@@pearsonbrown6740 if you look up Todd workshop and lindybeige they both ran a series of experiments with accurate heat treated reproductions of the armour of the time (including gamberson etc) and shot at various ranges with various weights of bow with multiple different arrow heads. The results were interesting to say the least. I would give you a link but I don’t know how to
But if you search for lindybeige channel or todds workshop you can see for yourself and make up your own mind
Oh man. Poor guy’s name is Richard Head. Wonderful craftsmanship, Dick.
Love kevs enthusiasm
Whoa! I was not expecting to see the Man himself, Mr. Kevin Hicks! #thehistorysquad
Fauconberg was the outstanding battlefield tactician of the first half of the Wars of the Roses. He had an instinctive understanding of how to get the best out of an army of the period.
Edward was a pretty terrifying figure. Estimated at 6ft 4 and by the age if 18 was already a highly acomplished man at arms. Facing him, armoured from head to toe in finest Milan plate, would have been a scary and short lived experience before his poleax brained you.
I don't see rivets in the chainmail. The chain is very open and doesn’t look forged. This 'test' is like shooting a nato round into a body armour made out of layers of cotton. Sure it gives the grand idea, but with a lot of inaccuracy.
I love these documentaries. English history is so interesting. The real Game of Thrones. Betrayal, intrigue, a mad king and war. All cool stuff!
In the map which is presented, England stretches to the north of Scotland, as if that independent country had been actually a part of England - which it never was at any time of its history. Bad mistake there, even I as an Englishman must point out.
I prefer to think of it as North Britain ..! It annoys them more .
Northumbria went up into modern day Scotland - quite a way.
Reever country border moved a lot, don't know what it was then. Quite likely, Scots would have drawn the line south and Anglo-Norman Duke of Northumberland drew it north. Overlap and anarchy, hence fortified mini castles
Love Kev, has a great channel all the way in Canada now
keep in mind, when Mr. Head was demonstrating weapons, he’s swinging at 30% and he’s of older age. imagine a 20 something year old man swinging that war hammer with everything he had through adrenaline. yikes
In a crowded melee, probably more shoving and poking and thrusting with little room to swing which leaves you open to being stabbed by a thrust. Swinging more suitable for more open situation or for second rank to bash heads of enemy front row
Also something that I wonder. When Kev's using the pollaxe, he's waving it about alot. You can't do that in a compact melee. There's just no room. So I'm assuming they used it more like a pokey stick than a whacky hammer. Right?
Yes
They would most likely treat it as a first phase weapon then toss it and switch to either a mace or a warhammer.
I'm by no means an expert but medieval battles could get so dense that people would die from being crushed in the crowd of soldiers. Wielding a 2+ meter long weapon would be impossible.
Well I'll be damned "long bow" has nothing to do with size of the bow
No mention of swords or lances or maces. At what range did the archers shoot? I would imagine people would die having the broad arrowhead removed - the pain must have been unbearable. An excellent video Thank you.
Swords were generally sidearms, backup weapons to the primary weapon. As cool as they are, they're generally not that effective against armor., which is why knights and other men at arms tended to favor weapons' like the pollaxe which, generally speaking, were better against armor as demonstrated in this video.
As for lances, historically the English liked to fight on foot. While they probably had some cavalry at this battle, the majority of the English forces would likely have been infantry, soldiers on foot. This would have applied to both knights and armored men at arms.
Thank you for posting this excellent piece of English history....
If there was hand to hand combat still in effect, it might curb war somewha!
An even better deterrent would be to have the heads of state in the vanguard as well
Cool channel, subscribed!
The armour used for testing on this documentary is pitiful. They must have raided their local theatre
The proof that Plate Armor worked is that they continued to use it regularly for about 300+ years. I am sure that even poorer Knights and professional men-at-arms could move very well for long periods in nearly full plate Armor suits that they had made or modified for them. Training, sidearms and especially Armor, were like their super power. Only advancements in gun powder weapons finally make plate armor obsolete.
Richard is a great man , excellent craftsman
Very interesting indeed. 👍
Bad luck to be a man then or a pig now. None of which were actually injured in the making of this epic.
The pig wasn't injured, true. It was killed instead.
I watched this about 10+ years ago on T.V., channel 4 I think, great documentary.
Was in MND-B CIC when they hit the house Zarqawi was in. That was one of the few days to celebrate in that tour.
Waterloo gettysburg the carnage in this battle never gets mentioned
well done... The Allues learned a lot from the Falklins & Grenada. Both showed weakness in a joint environment, holes in equipment deployed, Air Defense planning and redundancy. Both were won due to the men on the ground their ingenuity, ferocity and training.
Should I be concerned that Kev derives such joy from hacking up pigs with his pole axe?
“Smells nice!” 🙃
So awesome to see a young Kev!
Reading a book on the military aspects of the War of the Roses, I was surprised and disappointed to find out that hardly anything is known about the battles themselves, even the major ones like Towton. The chronicles mention only wildly exaggerated strengths of armies, i.e. 200,000 men at Towton - on the Yorkist side alone! Obviously ridiculous, from these reports we also have the alleged 28,000 killed during the battle, which must honestly be taken with a massive pinch of salt.
Death toll was very high because the retinues facing each other were of local warlords who were competing at local level. It was an opportunity to wipe out the local opposition. Another factor was that the escape routes were cut off by the Lancastrian leaders, on horseback, breaking the bridge at Tadcaster. The bridge over the river behind them had been destroyed prior to the battle to stop yorkist horse attacking their rear. The foot soldiers had no line of retreat. The darkness just made it worse. They funnelled down the valley by the thousand and tried to climb the banks of the cock beck, which was in spate. It was a massacre.
Ugh idk my friend as far as I've been able to find out for myself the total number of warriors was between 60K-80K an about 28K dead. Obviously we will never know for a certainty, but does seem much more believable then some 200K
Totally agree. Towton actual numbers were probably smaller than Bosworth: logistics. Lancastrian army, in winter had just gone nearly to London, then back to York on the Great North Road. Edward follows quickly, it's still late winter, very early spring, going up the same road. Long supply train would be necessary for even an army of 10-15 thousand. Even water might be a problem, as many wells may have been dried up by the passage of the Lancastrians just before, and the climate. So he had to bring salted meat, biscuit, ale with him. Also the worst time of year to have ships augment him on the way. So no big army for Yorkists. The Lancastrians were recovering their numbers and supplies slowly. Logistics again late winter. Lancastrians 15,000, Yorkists 12, 000 more like it. The numbers of dead from the total 3 battles, smaller Ferrybrige and Dinting Dale and the main event at Towton may have reached 7,000, most killed in the retreat, as usual. May have been a lot of exposure deaths as well. We depend on the later chronicles of Hall for many of the incidents and the snowstorm and dialog. Also, he gave a wider voice for the grossly exaggerated numbers. He claimed to have seen 'the muster rolls'. Look again at the speed of the campaign. You don't get high numbers at speed. And even the King of France took years of planning to put a big army in the field. So, yeah, they push the legend to this day, based on exactly one letter written by the Kingmaker's bishop brother to a papal legate. He wanted the battle to sound apocalyptic and decisive like Cannae.
And even with the very much smaller numbers, this battle was decisive and terrible.
The 28k came from systematic counting by professional heralds whose job included the counting. Depends on how their numbers came down to us, undoctored or modified. Battles with French were different as French only counted upper classes (like only counting officers in later eras)
The multilayer combination of good quality plate armour, chain mail & the dense wadding underlay beneath it was more effective at stopping arrows. But only a small minority had that quality of protection.
Love this show, it's one of the best.
The savagery of the combatants was truly horrific, literally hand to hand fighting for ones life amid a sea of men doing the same!
The means of inflicting death by penetration, slashing, stabbing, hacking, war hammer and axe blows, blunt force trauma and hand cannon were all around them.
I would imagine that those initially involved would have been slaughtered and that only the latter ranks would have survived.
The experiences of the survivors would have been unimaginable, and being soldiers, there would always be future battles in which to risk their lives.
Having now seen what was involved in cauterizing wounds, injured survivors faced the horrors of mediaeval medicine, with red hot irons being plunged into deep, open wounds, and that was after the agonising experience of having a projectile removed, and all without any anaesthetic or pain relief.
I'm extremely thankful that I wasn't born into those incredibly brutal times...
Actually, no! Medieval battles were very brutal, but they were also fought by human beings. People won't ever fight if they know for certain they'll die, and every formation melee was a lot less bloody than it's made out to be in popular culture - which accentuates the brutality even further, when it's only happening to a few men
Most organised infantry formations would not mix with the enemy, but would keep a few paces apart, and fight in pulses of close combat, rushing together and then pulling apart with casualties. Unless you had very foolhardy or indisciplined troops, casualties were dragged back or limped through the lines themselves, and 99 times out of 100 conflicts were won by Morale, not losses
Specifically, all pre industrial warfare is fundamentally based on spreading shock through enemy formations - when one man flees, his comrades are more likely to - and Towton is an exceptional battle because both sides clung so fiercely to the field
Marvelous presentation
So the casualties at this battle may well be the highest of English and Welsh in any battle, remembering that the 1st day of the Somme was the Imperial army, Scots, Irish, Canadians, Indians, Antipodeans as well as English and Welsh.
The carnage is all the more terrifying because of the nature of the weapons used.
Harald Godwinson at Hastings and James IV of Scotland at Flodden both died similar deaths. Both were wounded in face by an arrow and then mercilessly hacked down.
Long live the glorious red rose!. 🌹
War of The Roses? Oh, I thought that this was every year in Anaheim CA!
Disneyland? Alice in Wonderland?
Painting the roses red
Tudors weren’t great! Evil usurpers. Richard only lost bc he was betrayed on the field.
Betrayed? He hadn't gained devoted support. Almost all kings and lords were self-seeking chancers with no loyalty to anyone except themselves, even to extent of seeing close relatives as rivals. No good and evil Tudors or pre-Tudors, almost all nasty.
I was wondering how old this documentary was and then we see a young Kevin Hicks. This must've been a little while ago.
Surely there must be hundreds of arrowheads to be discovered by metal detectors on the battlefield
I’m no expert but I can’t imagine there’d be that much left of a ferrous arrowhead after 550 years in a muddy English field. It would be wonderful to find one though!
Britain's deadliest battle. Almost like an English Busido Code.
The two sides certainly did hate each other.
This documentary propagates old legends about the longbow. In 1461, the longbow was an outdated weapon. The proud English archers had been crushed by French knights at the Battle of Patay in 1429 (since dubbed the "English Agincourt") and then rendered helpless against French field artillery in the final battles of the Hundred Years' War.
Lol, be quiet
And then got crushed again by English guns in 1815.
Then crushed by German guns in 1940.
The French aren't good at modern warfare it seems.
@@deece1482 The French have a deserved reputation as elite artillerymen.
It dates back to the Middle Ages when the Bureau brothers organized a formidable field artillery that defeated the English (and their vaunted archers) in the Hundred Years War.
Of course, this tradition of military excellence continued for many centuries, for example with the artillery of the Napoleonic army or the legendary 75mm gun of the Great War. Even today, the French continue to innovate in the field of artillery, in particular with the ultramodern CAESAR weapon system, envied by the Americans.
Try again.
@@nicolasvanhorton5043 keep coping.
😂😂😂 Shut up Muppet you obviously know nothing about anything.
Brilliant documentary!
Hes in a field with a tree, you know it's going to be about a battle...!!
Armour and chain mail were expensive to make so were probably worn by the nobles and better off men such as local squires. The ordinary soldiers, including archers would have worn maybe a helmet and a thick leather jerkin over a wollen padded jacket.
Its important to not forget that the oridnary soldier of this period was a retained man, armed and outfitted by their retaining lord. Not to mention looting was the norm after battles, with many retainer's pay assuming some level of battlefield plundering.
At the start of the conflicts many retained soldiers were veterens of the hundred years war and would have had a lot of money for their station, or brought home loot. As archers had a far higher survival rate in this period they often would have access to more armor than you might think, though not uniformaly.
Leather jerkins wouldnt have been common, leather was expensive and it would be more cost effective and common to have a coat of plates (brigandine) made rather than having thick leather fitted.
Most evidence suggests that billmen, spearmen, and bowman would all be similarly armored with some wearing at most a helmet and aketon while more veteran, rich, or lucky ones may have bits of plate armor, a brigandine, visored salet, etc.
It does heavily depend on the location and who commanded them but in most battles the "Archers" were expected to fight in combat too. Often on muster roles Archer was used to describe any man of ignoble birth that was not a land owner. Often half or more of these men came with bills or spears rather than bows fit for the battlefield
Excellent video, thank you. I think the bodies of dead men would float downstream and get snagged on low branches of trees partially submerged as the stream had burst its banks and then others would get caught on them, and building up, obstructing the water even more. I was a fisheries manager on the Dorset Stour and I saw debris carried downstream during winter floods get snagged as I describe and very quickly creating large obstacles that further broaden the river flow. The bodies would also get entangled together and along with river debris river create dams that could resemble 'bridges' The river bed should prove to be a rich source of archeoligical finds that were washed off of the combatants and that were quite quickly buried in the silt.
@@lifesforliving4929 I'd love to take my magnet fishing gear up there, just to see what I could find!
Fantastic…amazing…
7:34 Richard Head...that's an unfortunate name, sir.
His son's name is Craven
Grow up child.
Groovy episode.
Kevin Hicks! Hell ya
I traced one line of ancestry to a nobleman who was killed at Towton.
I have a very weak stomach. The only thing I can imagine myself being employed doing back then was picking fruit or sewing clothes. Cripes.
In all fairness to yourself, you'd have had a totally different childhood and upbringing. You wouldn't have had the luxury of being allowed to grow up squeamish.
In your defence, you'd have had an immensely different childhood and upbringing so you wouldn't have had the luxury of a squeamish side.
excellent doc thank you :)
When doing the arrow test you can clearly see the mail is not riveted or welded links, not trying to be to critical but this is a bit of an oversight for how effective the bow is.
Fascinating documentary
excellent video :) I would have hated to have the name Richard Head though, being living in the states.
That early "Blunderbuss" looks mean. Imagine getting a face full of nails or gravel from a few feet away...😳😳
It's obvious that the English didn't know their history.Turtel formation is the lesson from the Romans.This was the solution at Towton but the lancasterian didn't learn from their own history, Queen Boudica one of the biggest example. Long shield's a must against arrow's.✌️☘️
For York and England!!
Can you post the episode about Boudicca
Bloody meadow would be a good site for a cheese rolling contest.
Kev has his own YT channel - thehistorysquad, and it's brilliant! 👍
I always wondered why they gave up on the old roman testudo tactics with shields during battles like this considering the threat of arrows- or whether it was simply lost to time (at the time)!
Great comment! 👍
Wouldn't that just make you a bigger target for cannons?
@@going1917 yes indeed! But remember they used musketeers with pikemen, in slow moving squares during battles in much later centuries, when cannons were used.
They actually didn't completely! Contemporary people had this exact thought, and in the era of pike and shot, reformers like Maurice of Nassau experimented with shield-bearers. Eventually, they were abandoned for practicality: shields worked, but they weren't really worth their weight on campaign and tactical inflexibility
It's always a little difficult to understand, but it's important to remember that in a pre- industrial battle the goal is not to keep your men alive, or kill the enemy's, it's to shock the enemy enough that a mass rout of fleeing men begins. It seems silly to fight guns without cover or shields, but when you view the unit as more important than the soldier, you see the tactical use.
The bowyer really reminds me of the actor who plays in underworld lol
Having watched another documentary on the battle which dealt specifically with the bodies of some 45 men buried in a shallow pit, I am of the opinion that these men had been singled out for execution after the battle. Nearly all had horrific wounds and signs of mutilations, which would hardly have been evident upon the skeletons of normal battlefield casualties. Therefore I think that those men were in fact higher ranking individuals who may, because of changing sides beforehand, have been specifically tortured and executed.
These 45 men from a single burial pose another question. Where are the remains of the rest of the 20,000 killed that day? You'd think that evidence of mass burial pits would have been found on or near the battlefield, but as far as I can tell, no such burials have been found. Did Richard III rebury the dead under a chapel that has not been located?
That’s what they said in the video?🏴
@@boydgrandy5769
Same thing as happened to the casualties of Waterloo.
A decade later local farmers dug them up and sold the bones to make fertilizer. Seriously... I thought it was a joke too, until I researched it 💀
@@residentelectdidn’t people talk about Waterloo teeth, reused as dentures as well?
bloke with the polearm is a psychopath
I think from watching loads of film battles it's easy to imagine little 1v1 bouts with awesome moves but I bet it was more just hacking and slashing until the numbers dwindled
I wonder how many fell to 'friendly fire' in these battles? In all the confusion it must have happened a lot I reckon.