{"id":17461,"date":"2025-07-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/?p=17461"},"modified":"2025-08-19T12:54:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T11:54:38","slug":"battle-of-shrewsbury-1403","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/07\/21\/battle-of-shrewsbury-1403\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018One of the wyrste bataylys that ever came to Inglonde, and unkyndyst\u2019: The battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dr Simon Payling<\/a>, of our Commons 1461-1504 section<\/a>, explores the background and significance of the battle of Shrewsbury, which took place on this day in 1403. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In defeating the rebellion of the Percys at the battle of Shrewsbury, Henry IV overcame an existential threat to the infant Lancastrian regime. It was a threat that came upon him suddenly and undeservedly. The rebellion had but one cause, the overweening ambition of the Percys, and no justification, or at least no meaningful one. The best the Percys could offer was Henry\u2019s alleged duplicity in the deposition of Richard II in 1399: they claimed that they had supported him because he had sworn to claim only his great Lancastrian patrimony and not the Crown.  Given their readiness to accept the rewards the new King bestowed upon them (and their belief that even these were not enough), this justification must have been widely perceived as hollow as it was. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Illustration of the battle of Shrewsbury by Thomas Pennant, 1781. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It was these rewards that made the rising so dangerous to Henry IV. Not only did they give the Percys a virtual monopoly of the local exercise of royal authority in their northern heartland, the east march towards Scotland, but also in north Wales, where the earl of Northumberland\u2019s son, Henry Hotspur, was made justiciar.  Hotspur, a renowned soldier with a military career extending back to the late 1370s, repaid the King\u2019s trust by fighting against Glyn D\u0175r in the early stages of the Welsh rebellion, and, much more significantly, by defeating an invading Scottish force at Homildon Hill on 14 September 1402.  This victory, however, was to drive a wedge between the Percys and the King, or, perhaps to put it more accurately, to give the aggressively acquisitive Percys expectations of reward beyond anything a prudent monarch could give. The Scottish commander, Archibald Douglas, earl of Douglas, was among those captured, and the King exercised his legitimate right to deny the Percys permission to ransom a soldier whose reputation was almost as elevated as Hotspur\u2019s.  This rebuff was added to another unjustified grievance over a ransom. At the battle of Pilleth on the previous 22 June Hotspur\u2019s brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Mortimer, had been captured by Glyn D\u0175r, and the King refused to assent to his ransom, taking the view, correctly as it transpired, that Mortimer (who subsequently married one of the Welsh rebel\u2019s daughters) was a traitor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the immediate background of a rising that took the King entirely by surprise.  On 9 July Hotspur raised rebellion in Cheshire, as the King, with a small force, was advancing north from London, ironically with the aim of supporting the Percys against the Scots on the northern border, \u2018to the last unaware of the yawning danger that was opening at his very feet\u2019 (as the great Victorian scholar, James Hamilton Wylie, elegantly put it).  He was at Nottingham when, on 12 July, he heard that Hotspur had rebelled. Perhaps acting on the advice of the experienced Scottish soldier, George Dunbar, earl of Dunbar, whose feud with the earl of Douglas had brought him into Henry\u2019s ranks, he determined to risk the hazard of an immediate battle rather than return to London.  Here he had one advantage. The great Lancastrian retinue was particularly strong in the Midlands, and many of its leading gentry rallied to his cause, as they had done in 1399.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Monumental effigy of Sir Thomas Wensley, All Saint’s church , Bakewell, Derbyshire. \u00a9 PicklePictures<\/a>.

Although approaching 60 years of age, Wensley fought and died for Henry IV at Shrewsbury. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The King was also aided by what appears to have been a miscalculation of the rebel side.  No one could dispute Hotspur\u2019s choice of Cheshire as the locus of rebellion, for not only had it been a Ricardian stronghold but its geographical position offered the prospect of joining the Welsh rising with his own.  If, however, the location of the rising was logical, its timing was not.  Hotspur\u2019s plan appears to have been to seize Shrewsbury, the headquarters of the heir to the throne, Henry, prince of Wales, who, despite his youth, had been appointed royal lieutenant in Wales in the previous March, and there to await reinforcements from his father in the north and from the Welsh rebel leader.  This plan, however, was thwarted by the King\u2019s swift and decisive action.  Had Hotspur delayed making plain his intentions until the King had reached the north, he would have had time to seize Shrewsbury and the prince. The King would then have been faced a long march back to intercept Hotspur, who would probably have made for London. The timing of the rebellion was also unfortunate in another sense, although one that was not apparent at its beginning. On 12 July Glyn D\u0175r was defeated near Carmarthen by the Pembrokeshire levies, headed by Sir Thomas Carew, constable of Narberth, so diminishing any aid he might have been able to offer Hotspur in a future campaign. Carew, something of an unsung hero of the campaign, was later fittingly rewarded by a grant of Sir Edmund Mortimer\u2019s forfeited estates.<\/p>\n\n\n

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St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Battlefield, Shropshire. Accessed via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.

Largely built between 1406 to 1408 as a memorial for those killed at the battle, the tower dates from c. 1500.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

These considerations aside, the rapid approach of the royal army forced Hotspur to abandon his plan of taking Shrewsbury, and draw up in battle array on its outskirts.  None the less, although much had run in the King\u2019s favour in the lead up to the battle, when that battle was joined, it was still a close-run thing.  Although it appears to have lasted no more than two hours, it was, in the words of the later Gregory\u2019s Chronicle, <\/em>\u2018one of the wyrste bataylys that ever came to Inglonde,, and unkyndyst\u2019.  The casualty rate was very high, a product of the intense exchange of longbow fire with which it began, with, according to the St. Albans chronicler, Thomas Walsingham, men falling \u2018as fast as leaves \u2026 in autumn\u2019.  These casualties were heaviest on the royalist side, certainly in respect of the leading men (the most notable casualty on his side was the young Edmund, earl of Stafford), and it is probably fair to say that, if Hotspur had not fallen on the field, the result of the battle, if not that of the rebellion, might have been different. Indeed, if the accidents of battle had brought death to the King rather than to Hotspur, the civil war, the \u2018Lancastrian\u2019 title against the \u2018Yorkist\u2019, (represented in 1403 by the young Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, nephew of Hotspur\u2019s wife) would have begun in 1403 rather than 1459.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SJP<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

J.M.W. Bean, \u2018Henry IV and the Percies\u2019, History<\/em> xliv (1959), pp. 212-27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P. McNiven, \u2018The Scottish Policy of the Percies and the Strategy of the Rebellion of 1403\u2019, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library<\/em> lxii (1979-80), pp. 498-530.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For biographies of some of the casualties on the royalist side: The Commons, 1386-1421<\/em>, ed. Clark, Rawcliffe and Roskell, ii. 262-5 (Sir Walter Blount of Barton Blount, Derbyshire), 467-9 (Sir John Calverley of Stapleford, Leicestershire), 593-4 (Sir John Clifton of Clifton, Nottinghamshire); iv. 364-6  (Sir Hugh Shirley of Shirley, Derbyshire), 607-9 (Sir Thomas Wensley of Wensley, Derbyshire). For a probable casualty on the rebel side see ii. 384-6 (Sir Hugh Browe).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the background and significance of the battle of Shrewsbury, which took place on this day in 1403. In defeating the rebellion of the Percys at the battle of Shrewsbury, Henry IV overcame an existential threat to the infant Lancastrian regime. It was a threat that came upon him suddenly and undeservedly. The rebellion had but one cause, … Continue reading \u2018One of the wyrste bataylys that ever came to Inglonde, and unkyndyst\u2019: The battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":255143695,"featured_media":17472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[81480,189179080,774275563,54004,71470,774275540],"tags":[774276125,54043754,35890,142148569,41899336],"class_list":["post-17461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medieval-history","category-15th-century-history","category-henry-iv","category-local-history","category-military-history","category-welsh-history","tag-battle-of-shrewsbury","tag-edmund-mortimer","tag-featured","tag-henry-hotspur","tag-owain-glyn-dwr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Battle_of_Shrewsbury_1403_01981.jpg?fit=2056%2C2094&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QYNW-4xD","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16071,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/01\/30\/shrewsbury-wars-of-the-roses-1459-1461\/","url_meta":{"origin":17461,"position":0},"title":"The town of Shrewsbury and the Wars of the Roses: The campaigns of 1459-61","author":"Simon Payling","date":"January 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr Simon Payling, of our Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the political allegiance of the Shropshire town of Shrewsbury during the Wars of the Roses. While, during the Wars of the Roses, the political allegiances of individual noblemen are relatively easy to determine, those of individual towns are generally obscured. 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The \u2018Wars of the Roses\u2019 were notable for their striking reversals of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Commons in the Wars of the Roses"","block_context":{"text":"The Commons in the Wars of the Roses","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/sections\/the-commons-in-the-wars-of-the-roses\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/picture1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/picture1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/picture1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/picture1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17629,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/08\/04\/the-derbyshire-blounts\/","url_meta":{"origin":17461,"position":2},"title":"From Lancaster to York and back again: the political evolution of the Derbyshire Blounts","author":"Simon Payling","date":"August 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Dr Simon Payling, of our\u00a0Commons 1461-1504 section, explores the fortunes and shifting loyalties of one gentry family in Derbyshire during the Wars of the Roses. 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However, as Dr Simon Payling of our Commons 1461-1504 project explores, this was not always the case... 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