Warwick, Bishop Coppini and Edward of March, Northampton 1460 (MED0062)

Northampton, 1460: a legate, an earl and a boy in black armour

Three figures in front of an Eleanor Cross: on the left the Earl of Warwick in bright plate with a sallet and a pollaxe, in the centre Francesco Coppini in mitre and chasuble holding a candle and a Bible, on the right a young man in dark armour with his hands on his sword. The young man is Edward, Earl of March, eighteen years old. Within a year he will be Edward IV.

The Church as a party to the quarrel

Coppini, bishop of Terni, had come to England as a papal legate on a different errand and attached himself to the Yorkist cause. He wrote, preached and threatened spiritual penalties against those who resisted them, which turned an armed rebellion into something that could be presented as lawful. It was effective and it was unauthorised: Rome disowned him afterwards, and he ended his career in disgrace. The candle and the book in his hands are not decoration — they are the weapons he actually brought.

Half an hour, decided by a change of sides

The royal army stood in a fortified camp with the river behind it and guns in front. The fighting lasted about as long as it takes to walk the length of the position, because Lord Grey of Ruthin, holding part of the line, let the Yorkists through it. Henry VI was found in his tent and taken. In this war a battle is often the moment when a private arrangement made in advance becomes visible.

The guns that never fired

It had rained hard. Powder that has taken water does not burn, and the artillery the defenders had placed to cover the front was useless. Fifteenth-century guns were formidable and entirely dependent on dry weather, dry storage and dry ground — one of the reasons commanders of this generation still trusted the archers standing behind them.