Battle of Wakefield

Significance

The engagement at Wakefield on 30 December 1460, traditionally described as a battle but characterized by recent research as a small-scale skirmish, produced consequences disproportionate to its scale. The deaths of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, his second son Edmund, Earl of Rutland, and Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, in a single action eliminated the leading figures of the Yorkist cause at a critical moment in the Wars of the Roses. The loss of York himself removed the principal claimant around whom Yorkist opposition to the Lancastrian crown had organized, while the simultaneous deaths of Rutland and Salisbury compounded the blow to Yorkist leadership. The engagement thus transferred the leadership of the Yorkist faction to York's surviving son, Edward, who would press the claim his father had not lived to pursue, ultimately winning the throne as Edward IV.

Commanders (5)