Battle of Wakefield

The 'Battle' of Wakefield has traditionally been said to have taken place in Sandal Magna near Wakefield in northern England, on 30 December 1460. Recent research demonstrates that it was not a battle in the proper sense of a word, but a small-scale skirmish that resulted in the capture and subsequent deaths of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury. For several years before the battle, the Duke of York – a descendant of two (both the second and fourth) of Edward III's surviving sons – had become increasingly opposed to the court of the mentally incapacitated Lancastrian King Henry VI (descended from Edward III's third surviving son) and his Queen, the formidable Margaret of Anjou. After open warfare broke out between the factions and Henry became his prisoner, he laid claim to the throne, but lacked sufficient support. Instead, in an agreement known as the Act of Accord, he was made Henry's heir to the throne, displacing from the succession Henry and Margaret's 7-year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales. Margaret of Anjou and several prominent nobles were irreconcilably opposed to this accord and massed their armies in the north. Richard of York marched north to deal with them. As the King’s Lancastrian supporters held Pontefract Castle, York made for his manor at nearby Wakefield. Later Yorkist and Tudor accounts claimed he took residence in Sandal Castle, but the manorial accounts show that he stayed in the town itself, probably at the Moot Hall. The traditional accounts give several unlikely reasons for him leaving the supposed safety of Sandal Castle to engage a larger Lancastrian army, but the earliest accounts, documentary and chronicle, are in agreement that the Duke and his followers were ambushed, captured and murdered on 29 December, probably as they left Wakefield for York.