The two places where I’ve lived the longest are Bristol (where I’ve lived since graduation) and Market Drayton (where I grew up). These 2 places are ones I’d call home.
It’s therefore quite a surprise for me to find the two of them brought into close contact by a writer who lived 6 centuries ago.
I’m currently reading ‘The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar’ by Richard Ricart, who became clerk to the Mayor of Bristol in 1478 in the reign of Edward IV, (re)printed in 1872 by the Camden Society and available from the Internet Archive.
Ricart recorded Bristol’s history from 1217, mentioning the name of the mayor and other chief officers of the town (Bristol did not become a city until the reign of Henry VIII. Ed.), along with major national or local events.
Imagine my surprise at the following text – in the original Middle English – appearing at the end of the entry for 1459:
And the Sondaye by fore Mighelmas, James Lorde of Audeley was slayne at Blourehethe besides Drayton in the countee of Stafford.
In modern English: “And the Sunday before Michaelmas, James, Lord of Audley was slain at Blore Heath near Drayton in the county of Stafford”.
The Battle of Blore Heath, which was fought on 23rd September 1459, was an echo from my childhood: as a child I’d looked for Audley’s Cross – marking the spot where Audley allegedly fell – from the tops of buses, whilst a popular childhood haunt was Salisbury Hill just outside Market Drayton, so called because it was where Lord Salisbury’s troops had apparently spent the night before the battle.
Besides exhaustive detail, the Blore Heath 1459 website has a brief introduction to the battle, as follows:
In September 1459 the armies of the House of Lancaster and the House of York met on a damp Sunday morning at Blore Heath and fought the battle which would begin the English Wars of the Roses. Thousands of men from across England fought and died in a bloody battle, which lasted for the rest of that day.
Legend has it that Queen Margaret of Anjou watched the battle from the nearby Mucklestone church tower, only to flee when she realised her army had lost. A stone cross still stands on Blore Heath to this day, to mark the spot where the Lancastrian leader is said to have been killed.