Siege of the Tower of London (1460)
Who Fought
History & Significance
The siege of the Tower of London was an episode of the Wars of the Roses, in which adherents of the rival Plantagenet houses of Lancaster and York were pitted against each other. In June 1460, several Yorkist nobles, who had unsuccessfully rebelled against King Henry VI the year before and had fled to Calais, invaded the south east of England at Sandwich. They enjoyed widespread support through popular discontent with the ruling court among the populace of Kent and the merchants of London, and were greeted by enthusiastic crowds when they entered London on 2 July.
The Lancastrian garrison of the Tower of London, commanded by Lord Scales, opened fire indiscriminately into the surrounding streets with cannon and wildfire, causing many deaths and injuries. While most of the Yorkist army marched north into the Midlands to engage the King's Lancastrian army, 2000 men were left under the Earl of Salisbury to besiege the Tower. They were aided by many of the city's aldermen and armed militia, who used bombards secured from a royal depot to demolish part of the Tower's curtain wall, and blockaded the Tower to prevent supplies reaching the garrison.
On 10 July, the Yorkists won the Battle of Northampton and captured King Henry, who they treated respectfully for the time being. On 19 July, the garrison of the Tower were starved into surrender. Scales attempted to escape in disguise by boat, but was recognised and butchered by a mob.
King Henry VI of England, of the House of Lancaster, was a weak monarch, unable to control the squabbling nobles who made up his Council, and also prone to periods of insanity. In the late 1440s, there was a quarrel between two of the most powerful and influential nobles, Richard, Duke of York and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Both had claims to the throne should Henry die without a direct heir. York maintained that Somerset had mismanaged the Hundred Years War against France through treachery or self-interest, and that he himself was unfairly excluded from the King's council. He also supported those who complained against the lawlessness resulting from weak royal control and abuse of authority by the King's closest advisors. The King lapsed into madness in 1453 with the final loss of the English lands in France. York governed the country as Protector for about a year, but relinquished the office when Henry recovered and restored Somerset to royal favour.
In 1455 York and his chief supporters, the Nevilles (York's brother in law, the Earl of Salisbury and Salisbury's son, the Earl of Warwick, later known as the "Kingmaker"), rebelled. Somerset and several other supporters of the King were killed at the First Battle of St Albans. After the battle, York reaffirmed his loyalty to the King and was reappointed Protector. However, he had earned the implacable hostility of Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, who suspected York of wishing to supplant Henry's new born son, Edward of Westminster, as heir to the throne. The successors of the nobles killed at Saint Albans remained at deadly feud with York and the Nevilles, who also provoked resistance from many who resented their wealth and presumption to offices of state.
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of the Tower of London (1460) lies on Thames Group, bedrock that formed in the Eocene. The rock here is clay, silt, sand and gravel.
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- Siege of the Tower of London · Wikidata
- Siege of the Tower of London (1460) · Wikipedia