Surprisingly few pitched battles have happened in or around London over the years. The Battle of Barnet, like the Battle of Brentford, may not have the cachet of Marston Moor, Bannockburn or Bosworth Field, but it had important consequences nonetheless, not least the death of Warwick “the Kingmaker”. It also effectively marked the end for Henry VI, although it took the Battle of Tewkesbury some weeks later finally to bring down the curtain on his hopes to regain the throne.
As an an event in the complex tapestry of the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Barnet served to ensure Yorkist hegemony for the following 14 years.
The protagonists were the Yorkist king, Edward IV and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (Edward’s own uncle). Edward had usurped the throne from Henry once already back in 1461, but Henry (in reality, the Queen, Warwick and other supporters) had managed to wrest it back some six months prior to this battle. Warwick was once a close ally of Edward but had become disillusioned by the lack of honours and position which he felt his due and consequently defected to Henry. A fundamental foreign policy disagreement between the two men over Burgundy resulted in Charles the Bold of Burgundy providing funds and troops to Edward.
Early in the morning of 14 April, just north of Barnet, the armies clashed in foggy conditions. Warwick’s forces, superior in number to Edward’s, appeared to have the upper hand during the early part of the battle. However, the Duke of Gloucester (Edward’s brother, the future Richard III), was meeting with some success. When Warwick sent reserves to shore up that part of the battlefield, confused in the foggy conditions, they mistakenly attacked their own troops with disastrous consequences: confusion, collapse in morale, mutual accusations of treachery all combined to allow total victory for Edward and his army.
Warwick, attempting to escape, was run to ground and killed. Henry was kept captive and died weeks later.
The Battle of Barnet is fairly poorly chronicled and the exact battle site is unknown. Nonetheless an obelisk to commemorate it was raised in the general area in the 1740.
More on London battles soon.