Sandal Castle

Sandal CastlePugneys Country Park lies in the shadow of Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where Lancashire thrashed Yorkshire in their most decisive defeat to date.

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and Lord of the Manor of Wakefield, had been staying at Sandal Castle with a force of 5,000, during Christmas 1460, after a quiet interlude in the Wars of the Roses. On the 30th December, he was cut off from the Castle when he went to the aid of a group of his men who had been foraging for supplies on Wakefield Green (Portobello). They had been attacked by Lancastrian forces from Pontefract under Henry Percy, Duke of Northumberland.

He would have been safe if he had stayed in the Castle; it was never taken by force in its entire history, it was the site of the Castle, rather than the building itself, that led to the defeat. Sandal is on a ridge site, an outcrop of the Oaks Rock sandstone. Lowe Hill in Thornes Park, an isolated hill, would have been a better choice for a castle, but it lay further away from the London road. The main part of the Lancastrian force , which numbered 20,000, had remained in hiding behind the woods at Milnthorpe and they took the Yorkist party by surprise.

There were six to seven thousand deaths in one day, the fighting was dominated by hand to hand combat with the sword. Human remains, swords and spurs have been found on Wakefield Green. So ended Richard's attempt 'to claim his right and pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head' (Henry VI). He was beheaded and Queen Margaret had his head set on Micklegate Bar in York, crowned with a paper crown 'that York may overlook the town of York.' The heads of traitors were usually set to look out away from the city so this was a special insult to the Duke of York.

Three ancient Crack Willows grew at Manygates until the last century, marking the place where the Duke was slain, the spot is now marked by a memorial outside the former Manygates School. Richard's son, Richard III made improvements to his father's castle but with his defeat at the Battle of Bosworth, 22nd August 1485, the castle, and the Manor of Wakefield, passed to the Duchy of Lancaster. The phrase 'Richard of York gave battle in vain' is a mnemonic for the order of the colours of the rainbow.

With acknowledgements to Steve Chapman, Local History teacher, and Will Shakespeare

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