Battle of Towton 1461
Outline: officially registered battlefield boundary. Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1461 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | England | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Wars of the Roses | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 53.8397, -1.2683 | Wikidata P625 |
| Official record | Historic England list entry 1000040 | OGL v3 |
| Registered area | 659.3 ha | OGL v3 |
About the battle
The Battle of Towton took place on 29 March 1461 during the Wars of the Roses, near Towton in North Yorkshire. Yorkist forces decisively defeated Lancastrian supporters of Henry VI, securing the English throne for Edward IV. Fought for ten hours between an estimated 50,000 soldiers from both sides in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday, it was "probably the largest and bloodiest battle on English soil".
Henry VI succeeded his father, Henry V, when he was nine months old in 1422, but was a weak, ineffectual and mentally unsound ruler, which encouraged the nobles to scheme for control over him. The situation deteriorated in the 1450s into a civil war between his Beaufort relatives and his wife, Queen Margaret, on one side, with those of his cousin Richard, Duke of York, on the other.
In October 1460, Parliament named York as Henry's successor, but the Lancastrians refused to accept the disinheritance of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. In December, their army defeated and killed York at Wakefield. His eldest son Edward now declared himself king, and marched north with his own forces. On reaching the battlefield, the Yorkists found themselves heavily outnumbered, since levies under the Duke of Norfolk had yet to arrive.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Towton (revision 1380895540), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Battlefield boundary © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. See also this battlefield on Battlefields of Britain.
Nearby battles
- Battle of Sherburn in Elmet · 5 km
- Battle of Tadcaster 1642 · 5 km
- Battle of Bramham Moor 1408 · 6 km
- Battle of Seacroft Moor 1643 · 9 km
- Battle of Marston Moor 1644 · 14 km
- Battle of Ferrybridge 1461 · 14 km
Other battles of the Wars of the Roses
- Rout of Ludford Bridge 1459
- Battle of Northampton (1460) 1460
- Battle of Sandwich (1460) 1460
- Battle of Wakefield 1460
- Battle of Worksop 1460
- Battle of Ferrybridge 1461
- Battle of Mortimer's Cross 1461
- Second Battle of St Albans 1461
- Battle of Piltown 1462
- Battle of Hedgeley Moor 1464
All 20 battles of the Wars of the Roses →
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