Battle of Towton

March 29, 1461

On Palm Sunday, in blinding snow on a Yorkshire plateau, two armies totaling perhaps sixty thousand men fought the bloodiest battle ever on English soil. By dusk, twenty-eight thousand Englishmen lay dead in drifts of red-stained snow. Edward of York, nineteen, was the undisputed victor and new king. The Yorkist victory was so complete that Henry VI fled to Scotland and the Lancastrian cause was reduced to a fugitive court.