CHAPTER 18: BLOODSHED OUTSIDE SANDAL MAGNA

CHAPTER 18: BLOODSHED AROUND SANDAL CASTLE

Copyright: Thomas Hoskyns Leonard. Edinburgh 2017

                                                                                   

In early December 1460, Samuel Hart was in utter despair. The Lancastrians who controlled the City of York were striding in and out of his apothecary shop on Pack and Saddle Street relieving him of most of his stock. He feared for his enigmatic brother Jonathan and his family on Great Ousegate, lest Jonathan might too readily seek the recourse of law and end up hanging from the Bootham Bar.

However, young Sir Harry de Burgogne left his Papa and Mama in their cold mansion on Micklegate and galloped off on his nervous steed Galahad for Duke Richard of York's very own Sandal Castle, twixt Wakefield and Sandal Magna, which remained in the hands of the Richard's brave soldiers.

Meanwhile, the puzzle-some Terry Hadfield was sitting with her wrinkled mother on a bench of elm outside their cottage in the tiny West Riding village of Osleset, combing her flowing, brown hair. She was eagerly anticipating drinking an ale with her sturdy father and two brothers, upon their return, with their team of oxen, from ploughing their portion of the woodland pasture.

Terry was blue-eyed and round faced, with the compact body of a milkmaid. She was moderately well educated for a girl with her background, since her mother had taught her to read, write, and how to add numbers.

What happened within that next fateful period of time occurred too quickly for Terry to immediately comprehend:

a platoon of Lancastrian horsemen rode at speed into fair Osleset waving flaming torches, amidst a cacophony of indecipherable noise, and dismounted by the village well. Three of the ruffians rushed up to Terry and her mother and threw them, unnecessarily brutally, backwards off their benches, before setting fire to their thatched cottage.

Much to Terry's anguish, the remainder of that first platoon of troopers proceeded to torch the entire village; the sobbing women and screeching children fled into the forests, pursued by the raving bulldogs and raging local acolytes, whereupon the wretched victims of hate drowned in the ponds and struggled desperately in the fern.

Both Terry and her mother screamed in horror when the two dozen ploughmen from the fields fled shrieking between the burning cottages, closely pursued by a second platoon of troopers who were eagerly lashing the ploughmen's bleeding backs with bull-whips spiked with steel.

“Burn in Hell, heathen scum!” shrieked Terry's Mum, when she saw her dear husband's sickening plight.

“Aaaaaaaaarg!” howled Terry, when a bulky Lancastrian ran her dear Mum through with a pike.

The kinder one hit Terry on the back of her skull with the hilt of his sword, whereupon she lost the plot.

When Terry recovered consciousness, there was not a living person to be seen in the glowing embers of the charred and blackened village. Despite her aching head, Terry ran, instinctively, to the orchard by the stream, where her white mare Beauty had been tethered to be fed. To Terry's relief, the vibrant mare was alive and well. Terry grabbed a pitchfork, seized Beauty's reins, and decided to ride her bareback.

Whither shall I wander? wondered Terry, as if in a dream. Methinks I'll ride to Sandal Castle, where sweet Richard, Duke of York, will take me into his noble court and help me to recover life's seam.

When Duke Richard set forth from London, the sky full of snow and purple thunder, he did so in a vain attempt to protect his tenants in the West Riding, whose dwellings the ruthless Margaret of Anjou's Lancastrians had burnt and looted far and wide.

The middle aged knight Sir Percival de Burgogne of York had been several times around the block during his festering life, with sad baggage he could not disavow.

“We've only been able to raise five hundred men so far, Sire,” he announced, riding up. “The ghouls have agreed to make you Lord Protector yet one more time. But protect you they never will, and to slay you would be their thrill. The Earl of Warwick and your sweet son of March did put them to too much shame.”

“Thank you for that most superfluous insight, Sticky Percy,” replied Richard, spitting phlegm. “And the harridan of Anjou declines to acknowledge my further recent success in fair Londinium. By the Act of Accord, I am now Henry's legal heir in verity that cannot give dispute. That harpy of horror thinks her glass-brained Prince of Wales, grandson of a cretin, will grow to be king. But that Neddy will be dead in a winter grave before he can ever a carol sing.”

Sir Percival blinked, and blinked again. “The Lancastrians are running amok in Yorkshire, Sire, and the Queen has appealed to the Scottish crown for help”

Duke Richard twisted his forelock around his ragged ear. “Scant chance the witch-child of Tarascon will hear back from that dour mother of a brain-dead duffer. Obstreperous Mary should hasten back to Guelders and her creaking windmills suffer.”

“We'll need to find several thousand brave soldiers more, Sire,” asserted Sir Percival, with cursory deference, “to give us even a remote chance of destroying blasted Margaret's multitude of troops.”

“Excuse me, Sire,” interjected an aged knight with broken teeth, galloping up, “but two dozen Welshmen have deserted to the foe.”

“Go hang the men from Pembrokeshire from the tallest tree then!” retorted Sir Percival, with a scowl.

“That will certainly encourage the troopers from the Marches to draw their swords,” said Duke Richard with a frosty, sarcastic smile.

“Take that for Aberystwyth, Fool of Christendom!” howled a soldier in a cart, throwing a mushy cow pat from a boiling pan of eggs into Sticky Percy's face. And the arrogant knight slouched egg-faced in his saddle, fully feeling the drips of burning shit and the disgrace.

When Sir Harry de Burgoyne approached Sandal Castle astride his energetic steed Galahad, he saw a solitary girl on a white mare trying to race him to the portcullis gate. Dressed in a muddied woollen peasant's dress, she was brandishing a pitchfork which seemed ready to embrace his tender throat.

“Tarry awhile, dark woman of the rain-swept forest,” shouted Harry, waving his sword. “I would have words with thee.”

“What words, Jack of Farts?” the girl angrily replied, while hesitantly drawing in her reins.

“Why do you seek to enter this place frozen in time, my princess?” inquired Harry, replacing his weapon. “This is a place where men have come to fight men, not feeble women.”

“I'm Terry Hadfield from horrifically scorched Osleset,” howled the girl, bursting into tears.“I come to fight for the grand Duke of York.”

“Why?” asked Harry, not altogether sympathetically.

“For the Lancastrians have my dear mother cruelly slain, and my dear father and brothers put in painfully grievous plight.”

It dawned upon Harry that he should mellow his smart-faced attitude, which he usually reserved for conversations with his noble peers. “I commisserate on thy sorrow and commend thee for thy courage, noble maid. My brother, Sir Percy is the commander of the garrison of the Castle Sandal, but he is currently returning from London with Richard of York himself.”

“What outrageous fortune!” howled Terry. “I'm Terry from horrifically scorched Osleset. If only I could throw myself on sweet Sir Percy's mercy!”

Harry pondered awhile as Terry wept and sobbed.“I suppose I could instead introduce you to our tetchy deputy commander, Sir Bronco de Bullivant, if you so wished.”

“Is he a fine man and true?”

“While he gives me, Harry of Micklegate, stick as a lad, Bronco wouldn't dare to give snout to even an unruly wench.”

“Please ask him to help me!” wailed the miserable girl. “If any kind knight or caring elf would give me succour then I'd grant him my very own maidenhead this dark and angry night.”

Sir Harry smiled with fine gallantry. “A lock of your precious hair, dearest Terry, would suffice my love sublime.”

Duke Richard of York's army expanded during his journey north to over five thousand surprisingly willing men. But after well nigh a fortnight of gross misadventures he found himself besieged in his very own Sandal Castle, with many thousands of up and coming 'Lars Porsenas' from Lancashire ready to descend on him like wolves on the fold.

Duke Richard set about encouraging his men to improve the defences of his already strong position.

While Harry de Burgogne was laying his bricks, the eighteen year old knight was delighted to be distracted by the welcome sight of his bosom friend Edmund, Earl of Rutland, the Duke of York's second born son, who was strutting his stuff around the moat.

Edmund was a sleek, muscular youth, and of a passionate though intelligent disposition.

Harry and Edmund kissed each other's lips, and held each other in brotherly embrace.

“I still love you, Harry,” said Edmund, hugging his comrade tightly, “and we will fly together entwined like lion-eagles to the stars.”

“You are to me as Jonathan was to David,” replied Harry, with an impudent smirk, “and we will conquer the world as one.”

Earl Edmund's attention was distracted by a foot soldier with short-cropped, brown hair, who was serenading the playful, love opera in quite intrusive fashion.

“What are you staring at, dizzy-eyed geck that you are?” asked the momentarily disdainful earl. “I have it in mind to give you a particularly mean kick where you would least expect to receive it.”

“I was wondering what it would be like to be a knight or a count, Your Grace,” squeaked the soldier, coyly protecting herself with her hands. “I am but a simple peasant, though perchance not a daft one,.”

“I recognise that voice!” exclaimed Sir Harry, with a grin. “You're Terry from Osleset aren't you? Admit it, or it's the bristly nine tails for you!”

“I do believe that this soldier dressed as a lad is, in all verity, a most attractive girl,” added Earl Edmund, smiling broadly, “and that's enough to put me in a versatile twirl.”

“I think that Sir Bronco de Bullivant is behind this little stunt,” advised Sir Harry. “He doesn't know whether he prefers a lass or a runt.”

“A thousand apologies,” wailed Terry Hadfield, all askance, “I'm completely out of place,”

“I forgive you, pretty Terry,” said Earl Edmund, caressing the girl's shoulders. “Please do come to the ramparts at midnight for a sweet kiss. If you don't know which way to turn, then that would be most remiss.”

Meanwhile, Sir Percival de Burgogne was stomping around the castle quadrangle, persistently agitating for one sortie or another against the vastly superior Lancastrian forces,

“Shut your gob, boil-brained Percy,” roared Duke Richard, giving vent with his fists. “I'd prefer to let the enemy starve us to death.”

At that, Sir Harry de Burgogne felt a mite scared, and wondered how he could keep himself fed.

Hungry Harry contrived to find a speedy resolution of this problem on the morning before Christmas. When Henry Beaufort, the third duke of the despicable Somerset line, sent a couple of heralds in white hoods to parley with Duke Richard on behalf of the Lancastrians, Harry devised a solution which seemed contrary to all decent notions of camaraderie and friendship.

Methinks Harry's mind was in a different place when he neglected his affections towards Terry Hadfield and the fond Earl Edmund of Rutland in the jerk-kneed manner that he did.

Harry very craftily offered to accompany Duke Richard's negotiators when they rode out of the castle to meet the sly emissaries. He said that he wished to wave the white flag for them in the hope of helping them to find a peaceful solution to the dynastic problems of the nation. The negotiators gratefully acceded to Harry's kindly and insightful request.

During the first couple of minutes of the deliberations, the Lancastrian heralds tried to provoke the Yorkists with a variety of humorously expressed, offensive messages. As the Yorkists had heard most of the insults before, they simply stood there chanting, “Gad's zooks, Gad's zooks, You're a load of nutty dukes,” most repetitively and to the point of immense irritation.

This is an excellent time to leave, thought Sir Harry, whereupon he showed the heralds two stiff fingers, prodded his horse Galahad with his silver spurs, and headed straight off to the north.

“Bollocks to all of them; ho ho ho!” cried Harry, when he thought he was safe and in the clear.

Thereupon, amidst a roll of thunder and a flash of lightning, several thousand of the Lancastrians appeared out of the murky green, stretched in a long line like Xerxes' Persians in front of him.

I am lost! raged Harry. They will flay my hide while they boil my kidneys and eat my spleen.

But, thereupon and whereupon, the Owl of St. Sophia the Martyr appeared in the air above him and hooted, “Have faith in me!”

The Lancastrians promptly engaged in a highly complex military manoeuvre. And, as if under divine influence from above, they re-formed themselves into two square phalanxes, with a fifty foot wide corridor in between.

Harry imagined he was riding one of Hannibal's thirty-seven elephants, and took his chance. He dug in his spurs quite ferociously, and Galahad sped along the corridor at lightning speed. As the splendid steed progressed onwards between the enemy phalanxes, Harry furiously waved his white flag around his sandy noggin, while trying to convince the dumb Lancastrians that he was part of an elaborate peace mission.

When he was finally well clear of the battlefield, Harry breathed a hefty sigh of relief, and raced clean away to the north-east, passing wind behind him as he went.

Sir Harry later took refuge in the Wetherby Preceptory where he enjoyed an outstanding pot roast with the monks, and caviar for afters. But at what a price, in terms of loyalty and friendship!

During a less than convivial Christmas in Sandal Castle, Harry's high ranking brother, who was sometimes nicknamed 'Sticky Percy', found himself surviving on boiled turnips and maggoty water. During each of the following few days, Sir Percival insisted on taking out a foraging party to search for more food, even though many of the inhabitants of Wakefield had deserted the town in fright and most of the other cupboards were bare for miles around.

Moreover, Henry of Somerset, of that unfortunate Beaufort lineage, was anticipating such Yorkist foolhardiness, and he and the crafty Earl of Devon, a scruffy renegade if ever there was one, were lying in wait hoping to spring an ambush.

The overly suspicious Sir Percival was scared that Henry Beaufort might be seeking to avenge the dastardly death of his cowardly father Edmund, Duke of Somerset at the Battle of St. Albans some five years previously. Sticky Percy's fears of the mind were in this case well-founded since he'd himself been responsible for that horrendous piece of inhumane brutality, as well as the cruel death of Lord Clifford of Skipton during the very same battle.

How strangely do their fears twist, turn, and churn! mused the Goddess Asherah, whilst she was relaxing astride her playful pet dolphin Naamah in the celestial Creek of Arafat.

As the storm clouds gathered, the sweet Earl Edmund of Rutland hauled Terry Hadfield into the castle chapel and dragged the somnolent priest out of his cubby-hole.

“Pray marry me to this soldier,” pleaded fair Edmund, throwing his sinewy arms around the priest. “Lest I fall in battle the morrow and wear my death mask in the night.”

And the knots of holy sanctity were spliced before several noble witnesses. Thereupon, the documents of marriage were signed, to be sent to the priest at St. Helen's Church when peace permitted it.

“What next?” inquired the lovely Terry, squeezing her husband's taut wrist.

“Away to my bed, wench of the Riding!” demanded Edmund, tickling Terry's tummy in jest. “And position yourself like a Yorkist trooper.”

On the next to last day of 1460, the cunning Henry Beaufort was standing on a hillock by St. Helen's Church in Sandal Magna when he saw Sir Percival's party foraging north of there and the castle. Thereupon Beaufort quietly mustered his troops, and he and his allies traversed the barren fields without e'er sounding a trumpet.

What a cowardly violation of the rules of war! pondered the muscular Yahweh, as he swam towards Asherah through the Reeds of Aaru.

When he saw the Lancastrian helmets and lances protruding over a cherry laurel hedge, Sir Percival howled “Nuts!” and ordered a full retreat to the castle. But he all too quickly heard the galloping of hoofs circling behind him, and suddenly the Lancastrians were embroiling him and his soldiers in a frantic mess.

When Sir Percival's clumsy horse crashed into a horizontal tree branch, the ungainly knight was flung headlong onto the ground. While he was trying to recover his senses, an arrow hit him in his backside. He tried to pull it out, but it broke leaving the arrowhead firmly wedged in his left buttock. He gritted his teeth, and swung his sword Colada backwards through the air, knocking the lanky limbed Earl of Devon off his steed much to the foul knight's displeasure.

Two foot soldiers pounced upon the malefic Sir Percival and he fought desperately for survival as his fellow Yorkists fell writhing and rolling around him. A knight charged him with his lance. Sir Percival sidestepped and sliced off half of the Lancastrian's face with his sharp blade, before cutting off the ear of a plump squire from Little Torrington and hacking the nose off a gaunt henchmen from Honetone.

There's hope for me yet! agonized Sir Percival, when he saw a purple-winged phoenix peering at him from above.

Thereupon, Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset fixed Sticky Percy with his fearsome gaze, and ground his teeth.

Richard, Duke of York was watching the rough fighting from the castle ramparts, when he saw another large force marching towards the melée from behind a tract of forest.

That's John Neville's band of merry men! enthused the duke. I'll join forces with dear Neville and plough Beaufort's entrails into the soil of Yorkshire. Yes! I will, after all that's been said and done, sally forth with a sortie in the manner that sweet Percy has suggested.

Edmund, Earl of Rutland courageously pulled up his visor, while he and his suitably attired companion-in-arms Terry Hadfield (in reality the Countess Teresa Plantagenet) participated in the duke's speedy discussions with the reluctant Earl of Salisbury and the other captains concerning the possibility of a sortie.

Terry was impressed by the strength of the captains' complaints, particularly when the officers advised the duke that he was making a fatal mistake. She thought that Duke Richard was dissembling in an incoherent manner when he claimed that a couple of the Lancastrian leaders had offered him a peace pact. Duke Richard said that the real reason for the sortie was to meet with the Duke of Somerset in order to enact the terms of the pact.

To Terry's astonishment, the Earl of Salisbury accepted this deceitful explanation, for the moment at least, and the opinions of the less senior captains were ignored.

Salisbury has a harsh reputation among the common folk of Yorkshire, realised Terry. Maybe he has a foot in both camps.

Consequently, Duke Richard led his troops out through his castle gates and onto the plain ground in what was for him, in all verity, a desperate charge for freedom. His brave son Edmund, Earl of Rutland rode fearlessly at his side, and Edmund's attractive wife Terry was also mounted on a horse of the highest pedigree. But Terry was scared to bits, and thought that an imminent death awaited her.

“You take me to my death, Sire,” raged the Earl of Salisbury, getting the wind up. “May the Styx rise up to meet you, when the ferryman declines to take your penny.”

Duke Richard blandly ignored his experienced depute's expression of concern.

“Egads!” exclaimed the stupid duke. “Those are the colours of your son, the faithful Warwick. It is he, and not your crass nephew John Neville who brings my reinforcements into battle.”

“Take care, Sire!” warned Terry, most adroitly. “Lord Neville might be falsely displaying the colours of Warwick to confuse you.”

The Duke of York raised his steel sword vertically aloft like a Holy Crucifix.

“Horses' feathers!” he cried. “Onwards to victory!”

But Terry's perceptions were entirely correct, and John Neville compounded the crime by traitorously aligning himself with the Lancastrians and turning on the Yorkists.

Terry's heart churned in her ribs as Duke Richard's and John Neville's forces charged towards each other at pace. However, as the lances were about to cross, she slipped in her saddle and fell flat on the ground, silver stars filling her reeling head.

By the time Terry recovered her senses, Lord Neville's knights and troopers had retreated to their previous positions, while the Yorkists held their ground.

“I'm a woman!” shrieked Terry, frantically staring hither and thither. “Get me out of here!”

At that key moment in the battle, Duke Richard instructed his second born son, Edmund of Rutland to leave the field with a two or three other worthy knights, for his own safety and the greater good of the family. Consequently, Edmund most reluctantly cantered away, accompanied by his wife Terry who'd mounted the fine steed which had tossed the severely injured Sir Bronco de Bullivant to the ground. They headed through open space and onwards in the direction of York.

“Hump you with knobs on!” roared Duke Richard, charging haphazardly ahead. And he took the traitorous John Neville with his lance straight through his gullet.

But in next to no time, Duke Richard and his troops were surrounded by what seemed to them to be a conundrum of spiteful enemy forces.

When York and his men were attacked from behind by Lancastrians advancing from Sandal Magna '...in the plain ground between his castle and the town of Wakefield, he was environed on every side, like a fish in a net or a deer in a buckstall'. The last of York's force 'was crushed between the enemy like grain between millstones,'

Refusing to surrender, Duke Richard made his last stand in a grove of gaunt elm trees.

Sir Percival de Burgogne staggered over, waving his mighty sword Colada in defence of his Lord and Master.

At least I will die gloriously, thought the outrageous nincompoop, only to be impaled by the ruthless Henry Beaufort of Somerset's lance, which passed straight through Sticky Percy's groin and out through the trunk of a slender tree.

After Duke Richard's legs and hands had been hacked off, the sensuous Queen Margaret of Anjou appeared jauntily on the scene in her scruffy tunic and breeches to entertain him.

Not her too! lamented the fast fading duke in his furious agony, as the dying Sir Percival yowled like a gelded calf in the background and called for his mother.

“Hi Dick!” exclaimed the lust-driven queen, with a twitch of her fine nose. “This won't be quick.”

The tattoos the ecstatic queen carved onto the duke's face were remarkably artistic, and he was heard to mutter many a blasphemy as he slowly and tediously bled to his death.

The Queen of England remembered how well her learned mother Isabella of Lorraine and the black witches of Tarascon had taught her as a child, and smiled.

While Duke Richard was still in his death throes, they brought his teenage son Edmund of Rutland back to the grove, raging in manacles, having captured him during a bitter skirmish on the road to York. The much-bloodied, slant-eyed Edmund was accompanied by his faithful soldier, and wife of two nights, Terry Hadfield Plantagenet, her black eyes swelling by the moment.

Baron John Clifford ripped off his ostrich feather badge and stuffed it into Earl Edmund's gaping mouth.

“Why, good morrow, pretty boy,” said John Clifford, yanking out one of Edmund's broken teeth. “What fancy cake would you prefer for supper?”

“Your guts for garters,” roared Edmund Plantagenet, in the true style of the brazen forefathers who preceded him.

The vengeful baron thrust his rapier-like sword straight through dear Edmund's taut neck, causing his victim's blood to spout sideways like a Plinian volcanic eruption. The tip of the sword protruded fully two feet beyond the back of the manacled prisoner's neck.

“No!!!!!!!” shrieked Terry, falling to her knees in heart-stricken grief.

“That is for the death of my dear father of Skipton at St. Albans,” howled John Clifford, twisting the blade as Edmund fell gurgling to his death, “and God curse all of the bloody de Burgognes and rapacious Yorkists afore you.”

“And what is your fancy, lithe, rank-scented lad?” asked the lewd Earl of Devon, pulling Terry's head backwards by her cropped hair. “I could take you for a trick.”

“I'm a woman!” wailed Terry, in utter desperation, as the evil earl grasped her ever so tightly. “No!!!!!!”

“A woman!” howled the assembled Lancastrian knights, in derision.

“A stinking one at that,” sniggered Devon, sticking in the boot.

“Well said!” cried the nobles, rushing forwards in unison.

And teenage Terry acquired a plethora of fresh, new bruises when they kicked her into a ditch.

Harry de Burgogne was grief-stricken when he heard about Edmund's horrific demise, and he felt guilty in the worst possible way about abandoning his good companions in Sandal Castle, especially pretty Terry, merely for wont of a tasty meal.

The heads of Duke Richard and two of the other Yorkist leaders were stuck atop Micklegate Bar, the gateway to the City of York, staring dead-eyed over the Ouse. The advocate Jonathan Hart took his tiny neighbours to meet them, and didn't know whether to grieve or laugh. When the little girl giggled at the paper crown on Richard's big nut, Jonathan shed a tear for his duke.

“He was the man who so wanted to be king,” he said, as a huge, misty ghost of the mighty Richard of York appeared above the three mangled heads.

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