The training of the loyalist yeomanry was probably a decisive factor against the rebels who were quickly defeated after Lord Bardolph was mortally wounded in the early stages - very few escaped back to Scotland. The Earl himself, at the age of 66, died in a rearguard action. Judging from the original site of the Percy memorial cross he is believed to have died in the small hollow that lies between Oglethorpe Hills and Old Wood some 250 metres to the north of, though hidden from, Toulston Lane, where he was either killed fighting or was captured and summarily executed. The earl’s head was cut off, fixed on a hedge stake, and carried with mock procession to London where it was set up on the bridge “as a monument to Divine justice” and the four parts of his torso were exposed at Newcastle, Berwick, York and Lincoln. After his head and quarters had been displayed for several months, the Earl’s remains were buried at the right side of the high alter in York Minster beside the grave of his son, Hotspur, on 2nd July 1408.
Bardolph’s head with one of his quarters was also sent to London. Sixteen others were beheaded and quartered and, when King Henry arrived in York, many more were condemned to death and many heavily fined. A number of the unknown dead from the battlefield now lie in two communal graves at the east end of Bramham churchyard where the cherry trees stand today.
The fortunes of war are illustrated by the fates of the Abbot of Hailes and the Bishop of Bangor both of whom were with the rebel army. The former, taken in complete armour, was executed whereas the bishop, not appearing in the vestments of war was spared. In the early years of the nineteenth century a ring and seal were found that were supposed to have belonged to one of these ecclesiastical warriors.
THE AFTERMATH
For this victory Sir Thomas Rokeby received a grant for life of Spofforth, one of the largest Percy manors in Yorkshire, from a grateful King Henry. With the threat of rebellion in the North of England removed, King Henry was able to direct all his forces against the Welsh and, when Harlech Castle fell in the following year, Glendower fled to the hills never to return. Thus it can be said the relatively small engagement at Bramham Moor effectively secured the position of the Lancastrian monarchy for the next half century.
Nevertheless the usurpation of King Henry IV continued to rankle, ultimately giving rise to conflict between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses. On Palm Sunday 1461 at the battlefield of Towton, only 3½ miles to the south east of Bramham Moor, in the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil (and where incidentally Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland was among the slain), the Yorkists took their revenge when in a field of about 90,000 men some 28,000 were killed, defeating the forces of King Henry VI and securing a victory for Edward Duke of York, 7th Earl of March who became King Edward IV
THE ROYAL FAMILY TREE
The Yorkists |
The Lancastrians |