What really happened at Tewkesbury?

There are a handful of Mediaeval buildings along the high streets of Tewkesbury that house taverns and pubs, and the town itself feels homely. I often find myself wondering, while I’m drinking at The Black Bear, whether the people who frequented the taverns during the Middle Ages were that different to us, and whether they talked politics in the same way we do today. Did the ale taste roughly the same then? Were the streets that different? If we take a lifetime to be roughly a hundred years, the Mediaeval period ended only six lifetimes ago. Long enough for the world, technology and society to change, but a short enough time for something of that period to survive.

It was only during last year’s visit that I learned Robby and I were literally camped next to a field on which an important battle took place, that the abbey was reconsecrated because of something that happened immediately after, and that the dining area of The Black Bear was once a stables that, apparently, served as an infirmary for soldiers injured in the battle. Heraldic banners, replica weaponry, armour and suchlike, are a common sight along the high streets. I was intrigued. The whole town just begged the question: ‘What happened here?’.

The Battle of Tewkesbury happened in May, 1471. It’s difficult to summarise what led up to it, because I’m not an historian, and it’s not easy to make sense of the confusing saga of conflicts between multiple factions driven by nepotism and corruption that, centuries later, came to be known as ’the Wars of the Roses’. As best I can make out, the houses of York and Lancaster could be described as mercenary, with people frequently switching sides, hoping to get whatever from whichever battle. Some of Richard III’s most trusted chooms, though, preferred a relatively quiet life in the north.

But anyway, what happened at Tewkesbury started as a skirmish between Edward IV and Henry VI’s wife and son. Basically York and Lancaster.

Edward IV was renowned for being very tall (6'4), remarkably good looking in his younger years, quite loud, charismatic, and a highly experienced soldier who was, by some accounts, handy with a battle axe. No wonder he had several mistresses!

The Lancastrians had the idea of taking an army of foreign mercenaries into Wales, where they would recruit Jasper Tudor’s army. Being refused entry into Gloucester, they needed to attempt a crossing elsewhere, which meant they needed to camp outside Tewkesbury for a night.

They set up camps roughly 800 metres south of where the CMC site is today, and also a shorter distance South-West of the site, using the terrain - the thick hedges, lanes, rivers, streams and ditches that divide the fields - as defences. Maybe they figured the Yorkists would decide an attack there would be more trouble than it’s worth, and maybe it occurred to them that the broken terrain would make it harder for the enemy to discern their movements. It was a good defensive strategy.

Most the terrain, features and demarcations are still there today. The CMC site would have likely been a vineyard belonging to the abbey at the time.

Excerpts of various eyewitness accounts of the battle itself, and analyses of them, can be found on the Web.

Edward IV’s army showed up in the early morning, and moved in for a direct confrontation anyway, while his brother Richard (later Richard III) had his army shower them with artillery and arrows, and even primitive firearms, before luring many of the Lancastrians into an ambush in a nearby field that’s known today as ‘Bloody Meadow’. Edward also had several hundred soldiers wait in a nearby woods to ambush any Lancastrians who tried using that as cover. What followed was (well-documented) chaos, with thousands of soldiers on a relatively small battlefield, and no obvious routes of escape or attack.

What happened to the Lancastrians who did manage to escape? That’s where the abbey and The Black Bear come in.

Edward was generally quite civil and lenient towards most the enemy soldiers and lower-ranking commanders. A number of them apparently found their way to the makeshift infirmary at The Black Bear, roughly a mile up the road. I use the word ‘apparently’, because it’s something I read on a plaque there. Assuming the basic layout of the stables (now the dining area) remains unchanged, it would have accommodated 60 injured, at a stretch.

Then we have Tewkesbury Abbey. I’m always drawn to that place, because it’s breathtaingly large and pretty, and it has such a friendly atmosphere. There aren’t many cathedrals to rival it. To think I had recently passed through the same entrance, walked the same path and stood exactly where Edward IV did 540-odd years ago!

Just over a dozen Lancastrian commanders - likely the ones mainly responsible for the attempted uprising - claimed sanctuary there, and accounts of what happened afterwards also vary. One was written by an anonymous member of the House of York, who was present at the battle. Another, likely more reliable account, was written by a friar of the abbey.

It’s unknown whether Edward entered the abbey with the intention of celebrating Mass and thanking God for his victory, or whether he went in with the intention of flatlining a few Lancastrians. The History of War page on this says:

‘All accounts agree on a basic outline of events - Edward IV went to Tewkesbury Abbey, where he issued a pardon to at least some of the Lancastrians who had taken refuge in the Abbey. Somerset and other Lancastrian leaders were then seized and removed from sanctuary, tried and executed.’

Some of those captured were executed at the junction at the abbey end of Tewkesbury, several days later, after being tried by Richard.