Second Battle of St Albans
| date | February 17, 1461 |
|---|---|
| place | St Albans , Hertfordshire |
| output | Victory of the House of Lancaster |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| unknown | unknown |
| losses | |
|
unknown |
unknown |
St Albans - Blore Heath - Ludlow - Northampton - Wakefield - Mortimer's Cross - St Albans - Ferrybridge - Towton - Hedgeley Moor - Hexham - Edgecote Moor - Losecote Field - Barnet - Tewkesbury - Bosworth Field - Stoke
The Second Battle of St Albans was a battle of the Wars of the Roses and was fought near the town of St Albans on February 17, 1461 . The battle ended with a victory for the House of Lancaster and the liberation of King Henry VI. from the hands of the House of York .
Background and course of the battle
Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York , had been defeated and killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460 , and his eighteen-year-old son, Edward of March (later King Edward IV ), was employed in the west, where the battle twenty days earlier from Mortimer's Cross . This cleared the way for the Lancastrians, who were led south towards London by Queen Margaret of Anjou .
The Lancastrians were held up near St Albans by a Yorkist army led by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick . Warwick had his men build a ring of defense with ditches and spikes, but was surprised that the Lancastrians were coming from a different direction - instead of Luton from Dunstable - and was defeated.
The Lancastrians obtained King Henry VI. , Margaret of Anjou's husband, returned from York captivity, who had sat singing under a tree during the battle, but they did not take the opportunity to march on to London. The reasons are not clear; perhaps their reputation as looters had preceded them, and that would have led the Londoners to keep the gates closed.
literature
- Philip A. Haigh: The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses . Sutton Publishing, Stroud 1995, ISBN 0-7509-1430-0 .
- John A. Wagner: Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses. ABC Clio, 2001, ISBN 1-85109-358-3 , p. 242.
- Alison Weir: Lancaster and York. The Wars of the Roses . Jonathan Cape, London 1995, ISBN 0-224-03834-6 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 45 ′ 18 ″ N , 0 ° 20 ′ 10 ″ W.