Thwarted and disconcerted by the unexpected arrival of the king in the vicinity of Shrewsbury, Hotspur and his commanders must have spent the night of Saturday 21 July anxiously debating their next move.
The withdrawal to Berwick on the previous evening may have been an attempt to obtain word of Glyn Dwr, although it is difficult to believe the rebels entertained any hope of his arriving in time to assist them. The village was also close to the ford over the River Severn at Shelton, but a retreat into Wales never seems to have been seriously considered.
Hotspur must have known that, with the exception of his former Cheshire Guard archers and his own small household force, the morale and commitment of the remainder of the rank and file was suspect.
By dawn it seems that the rebels had decided to retreat north up the Whitchurch or Wem road. They would at least be moving towards the reinforcements the Earl of Northumberland was supposedly mustering, although the prospects for overall success were not good.
However, Hotspur’s scouts must soon have reported that the main body of the king’s army had crossed the Severn that night, and camped around Haughmond Abbey – on the flank of any rebel attempt to retire northwards. Such a retreat was likely to result in the piecemeal destruction and disintegration of the rebel army.
The only feasible option seemed to be to find a good defensive position on which to stand and fight, hoping that the greater experience of many of Hotspur’s men would offset the numerical superiority of the enemy.
There is some debate regarding the actual site where the battle took place. It is usually agreed that the rebels withdrew northwards through the village of Harlescott. Approximately 1 mile to the northeast of the village, the rebels would have seen a distinctive ridge running east from the Whitchurch road to the hamlet of Allbright Hussey. In the circumstances, a stand on this defensively advantageous ground seemed to offer the desperate rebels their best chance of success.
Contemporary accounts – as so often is the case – do not identify the site of the battle with precision. John Waurin, whose account of the battle is, at least in part, imaginary, says only that: ‘the Lords Percy chose the best and most advantageous position possible, which was near Shrewsbury’. Adam of Usk, who probably had more local information, commented that the battle took place ‘in the field of Berwick, where the king afterwards ordered a hospice for the souls of those who there fell two miles from Shrewsbury’.
As the college of St Mary Magdalen, popularly known as Battlefield Church, was built so that prayers could be offered up for the souls of those killed in the battle, and the charter of its foundation in 1406 states that it was built on the site of the battle, this might seem to fix the location of the fighting with some accuracy. But some uncertainties remain. It is commonly stated that the foundations of the church rest on the mass grave of those killed in the battle. Quite apart from the unsuitability of such a site for the foundations of a massive building, recent archaeological surveys have found no evidence of such a grave, although bones have been found in large numbers nearby. It may well be, as some sources infer, that fighting eventually extended over a fairly wide area. This may explain the variety of field names associated with the battle. Berwick Field, Bull Field and Hussey Field are all names mentioned by contemporary and more modern writers in this context. Stephen Maxwell, a modern historian of the battle, places it further west than most other writers, suggesting that the area to the north of the present church, traditionally cited as the approximate area of fighting, was wooded or heathland in 1403. He suggests that various allusions, notably to the rebels’ knotting together of pea plants, as an obstacle to the enemy, indicate that the bulk of the fighting took place on cultivated ground. Extant field names, which seem to postdate the battle, do little to resolve the issue. But the contemporary Dieulacres Chronicle, compiled at a Staffordshire monastery by a writer with demonstrable local knowledge, makes it clear that the rebels drew up on Harlescott Old Field, to the north of Shrewsbury and, effectively, on the traditional site of the battle. However, the use by contemporaries of other names can be explained by an encounter that eventually concluded in scattered engagements across a wide area.
A minor caveat to this is that, traditionally, a spot 1 mile to the west of the church is claimed to be the location where Hotspur was killed. Assuming he fought in the centre of his own army, this might appear too far west from the Whitchurch road for the traditional site to be correct. But we do not know quite how far the fighting may have shifted in its later stages.
What might have been helpful is a reference made by the well-known scientist Charles Darwin, who lived in Shrewsbury in the 1820s. He referred to a large number of arrowheads being unearthed in a field to the north of Shrewsbury when it was being ploughed. Unfortunately, no detailed location is given, but it is not inconsistent with being the traditional battlefield site.
Battlefield Church
In 1406 King Henry ordered the construction of a church and college dedicated to St Mary Magdalen, to be constructed on 2 acres provided by Richard Husse, on what is generally accepted to be the site of the fighting. The new establishment was placed under the charge of the rector of Allbright Hussey, who was to be master of the college, which was to have five chaplains. The building work was mostly completed by 1409, with the college buildings situated to the south of the present graveyard, and marked now by the remains of their fish ponds. It seems that the area was originally surrounded by a bank and ditch, possibly intended to surround the burial area.
According to tradition, the church was built on top of the largest of the mass graves and there were reports of a large number of bones being uncovered on the north side of the church during nineteenth-century construction work. A mass grave directly beneath the foundations of the church seems unlikely, although a few of the dead may be buried there. Archaeological surveys have found no trace of such a grave in the churchyard, so the location of the mass grave, assuming it to be in the vicinity, remains unresolved.
It is therefore reasonable to assume that the Percys deployed their forces along part of the ridge extending from the modern Shrewsbury-Whitchurch road to just east of Allbright Hussey. The extent of the position depends in part on the strength of Hotspur’s army and on this the sources are not consistent. Waurin, and the author of the Dieulacres Chronicle, both credit the king with the wildly inflated total of 60,000 men – more than were present on one side in any English medieval battle. They give Hotspur a mere 7,000. Both estimates, one almost certainly derived from the other, are clearly incorrect. Henri Quarti (The Annales) gives King Henry a more likely 10,000 ‘excellent men’, though the chronicler, John Capgrave – probably having confused his source – gives Hotspur the same number.
Neither total seems entirely credible. Given that Richard II saw the figure of 2,500 archers as being a realistic muster from Cheshire in case of emergency, it is unlikely that Hotspur would have levied as many as 7,000 men from a county divided in its loyalties. He was, however, joined by an unknown number of men from North East Wales and Shropshire, as well as his uncle’s men from Shrewsbury, so perhaps a total of 5,000 may not be far off.
Similarly, the royal army is unlikely to have mustered anything like 14,000 men. It appears that King Henry had around 2,500 men with him when he learnt of the Percy rebellion. To these should be added those who remained loyal to Prince Henry in Shrewsbury, and such levies as joined the king on his line of march. A grand total of 10,000 seems likely to have been his maximum strength.
Details of the deployment of the opposing armies are also incomplete. There is an ongoing debate among historians regarding the precise formations in which archers were deployed in the medieval battle line, with some evidence being interpreted to suggest that they were formed into ‘wedges’ jutting out from the flanks and at intervals along the frontage of an army. This may have been the case at Shrewsbury. However, it is equally probable – and supported by the evidence of contemporary illustrations – that archers formed a continuous chequerboard formation along the front of an army, withdrawing behind the men-at-arms just before physical contact was made with an advancing enemy. Other evidence, such as the knotting together of pea plants, suggests that this was indeed the formation adopted by Hotspur’s archers, and the royalist forces may be assumed to have conformed. A contemporary account describes the royalist formation:
When the king found himself in the country he made his dispositions of vanguard, main body, and rearguard, of whom he delivered command to those whom he thought proper and worthy to undertake it. He in person led the main body, the Duke of York, his uncle, being with him, and the young Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of Rutland, and many other great lords. In the vanguard were the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Exeter, the Earl of Somerset, the Lord de Ros, and many other great lords, and in the rearguard were the young Duke of Surrey and many wise and distinguished knights. And when they were all assembled they numbered fully twenty-six thousand archers and three thousand men-at-arms.
The vanguard is described in some accounts as being led by the Earl of Stafford, although he is also said to have been with the king in the main battle. This, on balance seems more likely, with Warwick or Exeter commanding the royalist right, and Prince Henry leading the left once he and his troops from Shrewsbury arrived.
On the rebel side we have fewer details. It may be that Hotspur’s men also formed three bodies, despite their inferiority in numbers. Hotspur and Worcester almost certainly led two of them. Douglas was with Hotspur, so one of the Cheshire leaders may have commanded the left wing.