Battle of Blore Heath

Date	23 September 1459
Location	Blore Heath, Staffordshire, England
Result	Yorkist victory

Belligerents

House of York

House of Lancaster

Commanders and leaders

Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury

John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu

Thomas Neville

James Tuchet, Lord Audley †

John Sutton, Lord Dudley (POW)

Strength

5,000 men

10,000 men

Casualties and losses

1,000

2,000

The Battle of Blore Heath was one of the first major battles in the English Wars of the Roses. It was fought on 23 September 1459, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire. Blore Heath itself is a sparsely populated area of farmland, two miles east of the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire, and close to the towns of Market Drayton and Loggerheads, Staffordshire.

After the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, an uneasy peace held in England. Attempts at reconciliation between the houses of Lancaster and York enjoyed but marginal success. However, both sides became increasingly wary of each other and by 1459 were actively recruiting armed supporters. Queen Margaret of Anjou continued to raise support for King Henry VI amongst noblemen, distributing an emblem of a silver swan to knights and squires enlisted by her personally, whilst the Yorkist command under the Duke of York was finding plenty of anti-royal support despite the severe punishment for raising arms against the king.

The Yorkist force based at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire (led by the Earl of Salisbury) needed to link up with the main Yorkist army at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. As Salisbury marched south-west through the Midlands the queen ordered Lord Audley to intercept them.

Audley chose the barren heathland of Blore Heath to set up an ambush. On the morning of 23 September 1459 (Saint Thecla's day), a force of some 10,000 men took up a defensive position behind a 'great hedge' on the south-western edge of Blore Heath facing the direction of Newcastle-under-Lyme to the north-east, the direction from which Salisbury was approaching.

...
Wikipedia