Battle of Towton

The nobles simply assumed control and treated James as a distant figurehead.

Shifting to Henry V of England, whose reign was marked by civil unrest, his captivity in 1461 after the Battle of Towton became part of a complex power struggle that involved not just kings, but rival baronial factions who used his status to claim legitimacy for their own cause.

The so-called First Reid attempted to seize the throne and had to negotiate with Henry's captors.

Contemporary sources like Polydore Vergil note how his imprisonment was kept in a relatively secure environment at Greenwich, a sign of the Crown's desire to control any narrative around his captivity.

The first spark was at St. Albans in 1455, when Richard, Duke of York, captured Henry VI, earning the title Lord Protector.

By 1461, Edward IV had seized the throne after the bloody Battle of Towton.

Yet it took the decisive clash at Bosworth Field in 1485 for a new dynasty to take hold.

That was when the young Welsh heir, Henry Tudor or Henry VII, landed with Breton mercenaries on English soil, riding into history as the victor over Richard III.

But their final battle and their final moments have been almost forgotten until now.

Five centuries of myth and legend lie between us and the truth of the Battle of Towton.

Forensic science was about to cut through them.

At Towton Hall in 1996, builders were digging foundations for an extension.

Young, 18-year-old Edward has lost his father.

He's lost his 17-year-old brother.

Is he going to arrive at the Battle of Towton three months later, full of the milk of human kindness, with a forgiving nature? No.

What he's out for is vengeance.

In the year of 1438, a woman by the name of Elizabeth, who was the wife of John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, inherited the estate.

Her husband supported the Lancastrian cause, and after the Battle of Towton in 1461, the Earl and his son Aubrey were taken for arrest and put on trial for plotting to murder the king.

Why would they? Did they actually? They did.

I think they did.