Battle of Radcot Bridge, 1387
Who Fought
History & Significance
The Battle of Radcot Bridge was fought on 19 December 1387 in medieval England between troops loyal to Richard II, led by court favourite Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and an army captained by Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Northampton. It took place at Radcot Bridge, a bridge over the River Thames, now in Oxfordshire, but then the boundary between Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
The previous year had seen increasing hostility between the young King Richard II and his magnates. This crisis reached a head in November 1386, when the Wonderful Parliament compelled King Richard to remove his chancellor, Michael de la Pole.
In 1387, King Richard II sent secretly to Robert de Vere, Duke of Ireland, who was levying troops in Wales, to come to him with all speed, to aid him with the Duke of Gloucester and his friends; and commissioned at the same time Sir Thomas Molineux de Cuerdale, Constable of Chester, a man of great influence in Cheshire and Lancashire, and the Sheriff of Chester, to raise troops, and to accompany and safe conduct the Duke of Ireland to the King's presence. Molineux executed his commission with great zeal, imprisoning all who would not join him. Thus was raised an army of 5,000 men. The Duke of Ireland, having with him Molineux, Vernon and Ratcliffe, rode forward "in statelie and glorious arraie." Supposing that none durst come forth to withstand him. Nevertheless, when he came to Radcot Bridge, 21 miles from Chipping Norton, he suddenly espied the army of the lords; and finding that some of his troops refused to fight, he began to wax faint-hearted, and to prepare to escape by flight, in which he succeeded; but Thomas Molineux determined to fight it out. Nevertheless, when he had fought a little, and perceived it would not avail him to tarry longer, he likewise, as one despairing of the victory, betook himself to flight; and plunging into the river, it chanced that Sir Roger Mortimer, being present, amongst others, called him to come out of the water to him, threatening to shoot him through with arrows, in the river, if he did not. "If I come," said Molineux, "will ye save my life?" "I will make ye no such promise," replied Sir Roger Mortimer, "but, notwithstanding, either come up, or thou shalt presently die for it." "Well then," said Molineux, "if there be no other remedy, suffer me to come up, and let me try with hand blows, either with you or some other, and so die like a man." But as he came up, the knight caught him by the helmet, plucked it off his head, and straightways drawing his dagger, stroke him into the brains, and so dispatched him. Molineux, a varlet, and a boy were the only slain in the engagement; 800 men fled into the marsh, and were drowned; the rest were surrounded, stript, and sent home. The Duke of Ireland made his escape to the Continent; and the King returned to London.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Radcot Bridge, 1387 lies on Kellaways Formation And Oxford Clay Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Oxfordian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
- Sir Thomas Molineux, Constable of Chester, was killed; some secondary sources describe additional royalist losses/drownings while fleeing through marshland, but figures are not precisely recorded in primary sources
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- Battle of Radcot Bridge · Wikidata
- Battle_of_Radcot_Bridge · Wikipedia