600 years ago thousands of men lined up in a Shropshire field ready to do battle in the hot summer sun. By the end of the day the field was littered with corpses in one of the biggest slaughters England had seen.
Posted on 03/17/2003 1:26:31 PM PST by yankeedame
2003 sees the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Shrewsbury and a whole host of events to mark the occasion.
But what happened here? Who fought, who died and what was decided in the end?
The Battle of Shrewsbury wasn't one of those seismic events in history like the Hastings or Bosworth Field.
Instead it was a rebellion against Henry IV, a king who had his hands full putting down rebellions. And after the battle nothing much changed - because the king won.
However, some of history's more colourful characters were involved in the battle and Shrewsbury does have some notoriety, thanks to the attentions of William Shakespeare.
His play Henry IV Part One, which features the battle and the events leading up to it as its central theme.
Logo for the 600th anniversary commemorations The Battle of Shrewsbury also has significance for another reason. For decades the English had wreaked havoc on opposing armies - OK - the French - with their longbows - hugely powerful bows propelling arrows that could pierce the thickest armour - but Shrewsbury was the first time that English bowmen faced each other.
It's also regarded by some as the opening exchange of the Wars of the Roses, a civil war fought between rival factions of the royal family which raged until 1485.
Shrewsbury was fought to decide who ruled England. This battle was between the Lancastrian Henry IV and rebels led by Henry Percy, who is perhaps better known as Harry Hotspur.
There was also a large supporting cast, including the Welsh rebel Owain Glyndwr, Henry IV's predecessor Richard II, and Henry IV's son Harry, Prince of Wales, who would would become Henry V.
But before we get to telling the story, it should be remembered that the victors in a battle who get to write the history of it, and there is no definitive or impartial account of the events of 21st July 1403. Some accounts didn't appear until decades after the event, while the most famous, by Shakespeare, wasn't written until nearly 200 years after.
Background
The seeds of the Battle of Shrewsbury were sown four years earlier when the king, Richard II, was deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who was then crowned Henry IV.
Richard had been an unpopular king, and not a lot of people missed him when he was gone. Henry was better, but the way he seized the crown hadn't made him too popular and he didn't have to wait long before the first uprising by Richard's supporters.
Henry was a strong, energetic man, but once on the throne he never knew any peace of mind or body as he lurched from crisis to crisis.
Being king in the Middle Ages meant keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Powerful landowners had to be rewarded and kept onside - and chief among these were the the most important landowners in the whole of England - the Percys of Northumberland.
Harry Hotspur
The head of the family was Henry, Earl of Northumberland, who played an important role in fighting the constant border raids of the Scots. His son - stay with us here - was also called Henry, but better known as Harry Hotspur.
The Percys had helped depose Richard and were rewarded with various offices and lands. Hotspur was put in charge of north Wales and Cheshire, although by 1402 he'd had enough and gone back home.
In the months leading up to the battle in July 1403, relationships between the Percys and their king slid from trusted allies to all out war.
Plenty of explanations for this have been put forward, and it's unlikely we'll ever find out which of them is true.
Henry wasn't the only claimant to the throne. Hotspur was related by marriage to the Mortimers, who arguably had a better claim to the throne than Henry. When Edmund Mortimer was captured by Owain Glyndwr and then married the Welsh rebel leader's daughter, an alliance of Henry's enemies began to take shape.
Henry had tried and failed to deal with Glyndwr, while the Percys - with Hotspur in charge - scored a tremendous victory over the Scots at Homildon Hill in 1402. But relations between the Percys and the king suffered a blow when Henry failed to give them enough money to cover their considerable war costs.
In the end, maybe the Percy successes on the Scottish border went to their heads, and they wondered - especially given their new links with the Mortimers and Glyndwr, whether they had backed the wrong horse - and Henry would have to go.
At any rate, the stage was now set.
Next: The race for Shrewsbury
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