File:The counties of England, their story and antiquities (1912) (14578182150).jpg

Identifier: countiesofenglan01ditc (find matches)
Title: The counties of England, their story and antiquities
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson), 1854-1930
Subjects: Great Britain -- History England -- Antiquities
Publisher: London : G. Allen
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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lebrated Cheshire bowmen for him; andthough Henry IV. was Duke of Lancaster, and as suchtheir chief lord, yet so fond were they of the father ofRichard II. that they clung to the son, with all his faults,when their chief lord, Henry IV., rebelled against himand had him cruelly done to death at Pontefract. But Henry V. was the Prince Hal of Falstaff, andnow coming to the throne he determined to act firmlyand yet to show mercy. So the offenders got off. Forwar with France was coming on, and the turbulent spiritswere needed there. All, therefore, began to go well againfor a time. Yet the local feeling remained, and it wasimpossible but that the Wars of the Roses should bekeenly felt here. Indeed, one of its battles took placeon Staffordshire ground. The Audleys owned HeeleyCastle as their principal stronghold. It was only a fewmiles from Eccleshall Castle. In the sad tragedy ofBlore Heath, September 3rd, 1459, the Lancastrian queenfled, after the battle was lost, to the protection of the
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Staffordshire 225 bishop at Eccleshall. But Lord Audley, her com-mander, and very many of his 10,000 men were left deadon the field. They had endeavoured to stop the progressof the Yorkists under Lord Salisbury; and although thelatter had but half as many men, he contrived to leadthe Lancastrians into the deep valley of a brook, pre-tending to fly before them. Then he returned uponthem and crushed them as they scrambled up out of thehollow. No wonder the Sowe ran blood that day. But the Lancastrian cause had another tower ofstrength in the county. The Stafford knot had longbeen formidable as the badge of the Stafford family;and when Humphry, Earl of Stafford, married Anne,daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, brother of John ofGaunt, and both of them sons of Edward III., Staffordallied itself with Tutbury, and both eventually madecommon cause for the Red Rose. But Humphry fell inbattle, and his son, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham,after prevailing on the citizens of London to offer thec

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