Hi my name's Kevin Hicks, welcome to my YouTube Channel The History Squad. Now today's video is
about the Battle of Shrewsbury 21st of July 1403. It's part of our 100 Years War series,
we've included it in that series because it's pivotal. If you've missed any of our previous
episodes about this subject you'll find a link in the description. Now this battle of Shrewsbury,
it wasn't just a battle there's one heck of a lead up. It's a complicated issue so stand by.
So we start off with our King, there he is Richard II. He started off all
well but he became distrustful, he actually ran from 1377 to 1399 when he was deposed.
The problem we had was he just didn't trust his noblemen, now there's a surprise, so he became
a bit of a tyrant and surrounded himself with his favorites. He also had a bodyguard of some
2,000 bowmen from Cheshire, his beloved County of Cheshire, each one of those bowmen was actually
given a livery badge of the white hart of the King, so they belonged to the King, and boy were
they loyal to Richard II. Now the noblemen around the country got more and more distrustful of this
tyrannical King 1387-1388 the ‘Lord Appellant Rising’ when the lords basically rose up against
the King and forced him to change his favorites in court. So the king is forced to do so,
however 1397 he regains his strength and one by one he has those who rose up against him arrested
and ruined. Now one of those was the grandson of King Edward III of England Henry Bolingbroke,
he was exiled for 10 years. Revenge. And then in 1399 Henry Bolingbroke’s father
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster dies. So the king extends Henry's exile to life, he's gone,
and he then seizes all of the land and chattels of the Duke of Lancaster. This move, this move
of a tyrant is treachery, but what it will do is it will set our Henry on the course of his enemy.
So what happens now is really exciting you see the King Richard II he's off
to Ireland on campaign. This gives Henry Bolingbroke the opportunity to return from
exile in France. He lands at Ravenspur July 1399 in Yorkshire and he is met by none other
than Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland and his son the famous Hotspur. He is surrounded by
Lancastrian knights, they greet him and in no time at all there is knights rallying to the cause of
Henry Bolingbroke . Meanwhile Richard II, the King, returns from Ireland but his support is
evaporating so he takes refuge in Conway Castle in North Wales, but he is guaranteed safety by Henry
Percy the Earl of Northumberland. So he leaves the castle and he's ambushed and captured and conveyed
down to the Tower of London. This is the beginning of the end for Richard II, King of England.
So Richard II, the anointed king of England is denounced on the 1st of October 1399. This is a
long and complicated story and I must emphasize that if it wasn't for the power and the support
of the Earl of Northumberland the Percy family I doubt if Henry Bolingbroke will have ever been
crowned King of England. He was crowned Henry IV just two weeks after Richard II was denounced.
What happens to Richard now is sad, he ends up in Pontefract Castle, the poor King was pretty much
just sealed up. Apparently he is starved to death now he died on the 14th of February 1400. What an
incredibly sad end . So Henry Bolingbroke, he's now the anointed King of England,
he is Henry IV and because of what they did, Henry Percy the Earl of Northumberland,
his son Hotspur and here we have Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, they have rewards heaped
upon them. Not just financial, land, title, land in Wales. Manorbier Castle, Anglesey,
there's all these different places that they now have, and the King is grateful and all should
have been fine except for greed, jealousy, because the king also rewarded Ralph Neville with title.
Problem with that is the Neville's were the rivals of the Percy family so their nose is slightly out
of joint. Now on top of that so the Percys win the Battle of Homildon Hill capturing the Scots leader
Archibald Douglas, he is now their prisoner . Now the Earl of Dunbar, George Dunbar, was actually
one of the masterminds behind that victory at Homildon Hill, he though is against Douglas.
What happens now is pivotal because the Percys refuse to hand over Douglas for ransom,
this is going to be a problem. Meanwhile there is a rebellion in Wales, you have Owain Glyndwr,
he captures Edmund Mortimer who happens to be in the line that has rights to the crown of
England also they are related to the Percy family. Owain Glyndwr simply says you can have him back,
just ransom him. And the Percys applied to the King to have their relative by marriage returned
to them for ransom and the King goes ‘No’, because the best place for Edmund Mortimer to be is in
captivity as far as the King is concerned. And Owain does a brilliant trick, he marries Mortimer
to his daughter they are now in-laws and joined. This whole business is building until the final
bit of insult. Along comes Henry Prince of Wales. He and his advisors are given Welsh commands which
did actually belong to Hotspur and, have I got him here? Yes Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester. They
now lose their Welsh commands, noses are well and truly put out of joint. So October 1402 there is a
meeting between the King Henry IV and none other than the famous Henry Hotspur, the hot bloodied
knight, the son of Earl of Northumberland. This meeting is heated, it becomes an argument, it's
over Archibald Earl of Douglas about the ransom and it is said that the King drew his dagger and
called Henry Hotspur traitor. Henry Hotspur though replies, “Not here, on the field of battle.” Now
we don't know if that's true but what we do know is in July 1403 Henry Hotspur appears in Chester,
the city of Chester there in Cheshire, with an army and he proclaims a general uprising against
Henry IV and his Lancastrian government. So it's begun, let's move on to the Battle of Shrewsbury.
So two enormous armies one coming from the north the other coming from the south we don't know for
sure how many men were in each army, I've read a few different accounts, some say there were
fourteen thousand men in each army, uh some that there were ten thousand in the Kings,
8,000 in Henry Hotspur's army so let's just rest assured they were quite large armies. But how come
they met at Shrewsbury, right in the west of the Midlands of England? I've got a map, may help to
explain it. So here we have me map. Scotland, England, Wales and it's interesting because if
you look at April 1403 Henry Hotspur with his army is about here, laying siege to the Tower
of Cocklaw near Hawick. Now this is in response to the King, who's down in London, having granted the
earldom of Douglas to the Percy family and they are there trying to claim it. So the Percys are
here in April, they move south to Lancaster and then by the 9th of July they're in Chester and
proclaiming an uprising against the King. Now one thing I did learn was there was supposed
to be a relieving Army coming in to Cocklaw and that Hotspur and his army simply moved away. I
don't buy this, I reckon that this is a long time in the planning this uprising. Meanwhile the King
is coming north with his army to aid the Percys in their conquest of the earldom of Douglas,
or is this a lure? Is it a trap to bring the King North? However come Nottingham the King learns of
the betrayal, he moves west through Lichfield and onto Shrewsbury where the two armies meet. This is
more than just an accidental clash, the Percys are bringing the King to battle. What they have with
them is thousands of those Cheshire and Welsh bowmen, this is going to be a fight and a half.
So as you can see I've been very busy, I've made another model. In fact that's why I've been so
long in making another medieval film it's because I've been painting and assembling soldiers,
so this is the Battle of Shrewsbury in miniature I haven't got 28,000 men I've got a few hundred.
Henry Hotspur has his men arrayed just on a on a rise you would call it, but it's a pea field and I
love this, a field full of peas, and what he's got his men to do is intertwine them, all the tendrils
of the plants of the peas he says so they will trip any advancing army. Now when they do arrive
on the battlefield they're reluctant to engage in combat, there are negotiations and they go on all
afternoon to the point where the men themselves are ready to go, they're ready to have a fight,
and it's about two hours before dusk when the King's Army starts their advance up the hill,
but waiting for them are the famed bowmen of Flint and Cheshire, those English and Welsh
bowmen. They were the elite and they had an axe to grind, don't forget it was those bowmen who
were the personal bowmen of Richard II so there is definitely an edge to this battlefield. But
another thing is they reckon there was anything up to four thousand bowmen on each side,
so if each bowman could lose approximately 10 arrows per minute that's collectively 40 to
50,000 arrows from each side. This is where we get the saying an arrow storm. In fact when the bowmen
let fly, an eyewitness said the men fell like leaves in autumn after a hoar frost. It must have
been devastating. Now on the King's right flank, the Earl of Stafford I understand was in command,
it began to crumble away. The Earl of Stafford, one account says, he was killed in this arrow
storm and the right flank simply melt away and rob the King's baggage train as they go. Consequently
the left Flank under the Earl of Douglas they actually advance and chase off some of these men,
so even before the battle has truly got underway there is a little bit of chaos. Now Henry Hotspur
who commands the center, the Earl of Worcester is on their right, he sees an opportunity
go for the King because they can see the King commanding his own centre. Go for him.
So I've changed the model around, you see what Henry Hotspur decided to do is make an all-out
charge. Part of his army his left flank has disintegrated a little bit in pursuit of the
royalists who run away, so he thinks that if they can advance, charge straight into
the center and kill the King, kill Henry IV, it will be a victory, the battle will be over. So
he charges and he leaves a swathe of dead with his 30 knights charging forward then of course
the rest of his men are all being sucked into this action. Now I've got an original quote here and it
goes as follows: “When Sir Henry Percy, saw his men fast slain he pressed into the battle with 30
men and made a lane in the middle of the host where he came to the king's banner, and there
he slew the Earl of Stafford and Sir Thomas Blount the King's standard bearer and others
and at last he was beset about and slain. I've got the rebel forces charging into the center
of the King's army, we have a real hand-to-hand melee here we also have the Earl of Douglas there,
he is in the center because some accounts say that it was him who killed Thomas Blount
but the fact is somewhere around here Henry Hotspur is actually killed. One account is he
raised his visor and an arrow went straight through his face, others that he was simply
overwhelmed. But the enemy don't know he's dead, what happens next is a brilliant counter move by
the Prince of Wales. He had advisors there, the Earl of Warwick was amongst them, now they're
going to outflank the enemy they have seen a chance they are going to charge but then something
happens. What's happened is as Archibald Douglas and Henry Hotspur have gone for the King's life,
the Young Prince of Wales together with his advisors have swung their royalist left flank,
Henry IV’s left flank, and they're out flanking the rebel army Henry Hotspur.
Nobody knows at this stage that Hotspur is dead, but unfortunately the young prince
receives a stray arrow straight to the face, it's at this crucial moment that he is wounded but he
doesn't leave the field. Apparently he breaks the arrow or the arrow is broken and he continues to
lead his troops. How inspiring is that? And they actually outflank the rebel army, Hotspur’s army,
and it's at this moment that the King himself gives up the shout “Percy is dead. Percy is dead.”
As soon as that ripples through the rebel army they have no cause to fight for, it disintegrates.
There will be a pursuit and there will be many, many men slain as they try to leave the field but
it's almost dusk and the King gives out the cry “Stop killing my countrymen!” Because that's the
sad thing about the Battle of Shrewsbury, for the most part it was Englishmen killing Englishmen.
Well I hope you enjoyed our little video there, the Battle of Shrewsbury. If you did like,
share and subscribe and don't forget to turn on the all notification buttons that's great.
But before I go, a quick mention to some of our PATREON members Alex Simba Wilson,
Reuben Geertsema, if I haven't pronounced that right you got to let me know,
and Marylynn Hill, hey guys thanks a million. Bye for now.