Transcribed from the 1857 John Russell Smith edition by DavidPrice, Many thanks to the Bodleian /British Library for the scans of the book.
VISITS
TO
FIELDS OF BATTLE,
IN
ENGLAND,
OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY;
TO WHICH AREADDED,
SOME MISCELLANEOUS TRACTS AND PAPERS UPON
ARCHÆOLOGICAL SUBJECTS.
BY
RICHARD BROOKE, ESQ., F.S.A.
LONDON:
JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,
36, SOHO SQUARE.
LIVERPOOL:
J. MAWDSLEY AND SON, CASTLE STREET.
M DCCC LVII.
London;F. Pickton, Printer, Perry’sPlace, 29, Oxford Street
p.vPREFACE.
In the course of the fifteenthcentury, England experienced, in a lamentable degree, the sadeffects of internal discord, and the miseries caused by theconflicts of adverse factions.
It is scarcely possible, for historians to point out, in theannals of any country in Europe, in the feudal ages, deeds ofviolence and bloodshed, of a more appalling nature, than thosewhich the chroniclers have recorded, as having occurred inEngland, during the period which intervened between the years1400 and 1500—a period memorable for the sanguinary wars ofYork and Lancaster. During the continuance of thosedisastrous conflicts, thousands of brave men perished in arms,the axe of the executioner was seldom idle, great numbers of thenobility and gentry lost their lives in the field or upon thescaffold, property was usurped in consequence of wholesaleconfiscations, numberless innocent lives were sacrificed, andmany happy homes were outraged.
This misery was the result of contests for a crown, whichperhaps neither of the claimants merited, nor does it appear,that it was of great importance to the nation, which of the rivalcompetitors wore it.
Of those destructive wars, the battle of Shrewsbury in thereign of Henry IV., in 1403, may be considered in some degree asthe first; because it was the earliest attempt by an appeal toarms, to remove from the throne a monarch of the House ofLancaster; [v] and the last was the battle of p. viStoke, foughtin 1487, in the reign of Henry VII.; that of Bosworth, in which,by the death of Richard III., the Plantagenet dynasty terminated,being often erroneously called the last; but, although the lattercertainly placed the House of Tudor upon the throne, the crownwas secured to it by the battle of Stoke, when the parti