Sandridge Village History
by Reg Auckland

1st Battle of Sandridge 1461
© Reg Auckland all rights reserved, no copying without permission.

There are two Battles of St. Albans, the first in 1455. It is the second battle which took place on Shrove Tuesday - Pancake Day - February 17, 1461, during a snowstorm, which holds the interest for Sandridge.

The first battle had been fought between two rival families - the Houses of York and Lancaster. The Duke of York had been the Protectorate of the Lancastrian King Henry VI during a bout of temporary madness, but when the king recovered the duke was dismissed and the reins of State were given back to the Duke of Somerset who had been imprisoned by York and now released by Henry. Determined to seek revenge and regain power, the Duke of York raised an army and advanced towards London via Royston and Hertford to fight the King. The royal force marched north from Westminster through Watford and the two armies met at St. Albans to engage in battle. The outcome was the defeat of the king after which the Duke of York regained his power behind the throne.

But the struggle between the two Houses continued. Fighting on her husband's behalf with vigour and determination, Queen Margaret of Anjou fought the Duke of York in 1460 at Wakefield where he lost his life. But before he was killed his right to the throne had been publicly acknowledged and the heir apparent was his son Edward (IV), Earl of March. Meanwhile, the Earl of Warwick - an ardent supporter of the Duke of York and present at the battle in 1461 - had achieved enormous wealth, power and privilege. Despite this new and formidable enemy, Margaret was so flushed with the victory at Wakefield (which is about 180 miles from St. Albans) that she decided once more to attempt to permanently unseat the House of York.. She marched in January 1461 with an estimated 40,000 men from the Midlands and North to advance on London, keeping well to the east of Watling Street until she reached near St. Albans. By February she had reached Dunstable and then continued through Markyate and Redbourn to St. Albans.

The Earl of Warwick in London heard of the Queen's marauding progress from the north and decided to leave the capital and engage her in arms, taking with him Henry VI. He travelled along Watling Street and reached St. Albans some four days before the Lancastrian army, thus having time to prepare his army against the force he knew to be only a few miles away. His army was positioned as three main bodies: the left flank on Bernards Heath, the centre at Sandridge and the right flank on Nomansland Common with roughly a mile between each component. Warwick fully expected an attack to be made from the northwest by the enemy coming down well to the east of Watling Street.

Anticipating a battle in more-or-less open country, Warwick used a variety of defensive measures. He prepared, for example, a large number of strong cord nets about eight yards long and four feet high each of which was supported by iron stakes placed firmly in the ground and were intended to thwart an infantry attack. Similar nets were also made with a large nail standing up every two knots so that when laid on the ground they could only be passed over with likely personal damage. Caltraps, i.e., four-spikes iron balls, were mounted on the bars of very large 'lazy tongs' lattices which were laid on the ground and extended and contracted at will, very similar to the modern-day 'stingers' used by the police to stop fleeing motorists. Single caltraps were also strewn over the ground as anti-horse weapons to impede the advance of cavalry. Other personal defences were door-shaped shields of thick planks, supported by stakes, behind which sheltered archers . Each shield had an opening through which the archers could fire. When the archer had shot all his arrows, the shield, which was full of many nails with the points showing, was thrown on the ground topmost as a deterrent to any advancing enemy. The Earl of Warwick also employed mercenary Burgundians as artillerymen but it would appear that owing to the unexpected suddenness of Queen Margaret's attack, they did not have the chance to use their weapons to any great advantage. It seems that they had engines of war, one of which would shoot an arrow nearly four feet long; the arrow had three feathers in the middle and three at the end. Other Burgundians were petardiers, or throwers of bombs, containing "Greek fire", known at this time as "Wild Fire". "Greek fire" was a mixture of chemicals, probably including sulphur and pitch, with quicklime added so that the mixture, which caused fire, could not be doused with water. Petardiers threw a perforated earthenware pot which, when lit, was hurled with both hands against the Lancastrians. But the Earl of Warwick had erected no defences in the town of St. Albans.

There is a contemporary story that on the day before the battle, a large party of the king's men approached Dunstable, some ten miles or so from St. Albans. The men were new recruits and led by a butcher of Dunstable who, surprisingly, lost his way and was attacked by the Northern men. The butcher lost 800 men and it is said that he hung himself in remorse. However, another story has it that it was Sir Edward Poyning who was surprised by Queen Margaret's men in the Dunstable area and it was his two hundred foot who were killed or captured.

While the Yorkists were preparing their deterrents on Sandridge territory, Queen Margaret and her army had reached St. Albans via Dunstable and Markyate, advancing well to the east of Watling Street, without Warwick being fully aware of where she was. His outposts had not reported her advance but one 'pricker' that did report said she was nine miles away. Fully expecting a solid frontal attack, he was surprised to learn that she had reached St. Michaels village and was advancing up Fishpool Street. At the Eleanor Cross in the High Street her soldiers were met by a furious flight of arrows from the defenders and had to retrace their steps. The Lancastrian army commander sent out scouts to find another way into the town and one reported back that he had found a path from Branch Road and up Folly Lane and Catherine Street to St. Peters Street (modern names) and that the barriers were undefended. Receiving this information, the leader immediately took his horde along this route and arrived at the head of Catherine Street. Some turned to the right to fight the soldiers in St. Peters Street who had opposed them in the High Street, but the majority turned left when they saw the enemy's flank on Bernards Heath. This was at once engaged head-on and to its rear. Confidently expecting an attack from a different direction and thus taken by complete surprise, the Yorkist army fought resolutely but were outnumbered and eventually ordered to retire to the right wing stationed on Nomansland Common. The order given by Warwick was a strange one as it meant the retreating force had to pass through its own centre stationed in Sandridge village which would probably cause some confusion. The order was subsequently rescinded when Warwick decided to lead the rest of his army to give support to his battered left flank. But an order to retire and another to stand fast and wait for support received in quick succession were slow in taking effect. When Warwick reached the top of Dead Woman's Hill he found the fighting on the Heath was in Margaret's favour. He was in time to witness an enemy cavalry charge which broke the body of men who had borne the first brunt of the fighting and watched his men begin to retreat. He attempted to stop the rout but something happened which firmly determined the fate of the battle.

Seeing the flight of his compatriots, one of the Yorkist knights named Lacey from Hurley in Kent, immediately decided to treasonably change sides and went with all his command over to the Lancastrians. This created absolute panic among Warwick's men who straight away gave up the fight, turned and ran down the steep slopes of Dead Woman's Hill to beyond Sandridge village or up and down over the hills of Marshalswick, pursued by the Queen's soldiers. An occasional glimpse of the church through the snow showers was a guide to some. Other men wearing red armbands denoted their allegiance to Lancaster and others flaunting white showing that they belonged to York, chased and fought each other for a mile or more until exhausted, the 'whites' seeking to kill the demoralised 'reds' trying to escape. Writing in The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, the author says that the Lancastrian army was of 'the substance that got that field were household men and freed men.' He adds that 'the queen's men and every lord's men bare the lord's livery, that every man might know his own fellowship by his livery. And beside all that, every man and lord bare the prince's livery, that was 'a bende of crimson and black with ostrich feathers'. Fighting a rearguard action and reaching Nomansland Common, Warwick managed to rally about four thousand of his supporters out of an original thirty thousand and realizing that the battle was lost set off for Buckinghamshire leaving his army to fend for itself. However, thirty thousand men in the army seems a large number; more likely it was in the region of ten thousand combining both forces.

When the victorious Margaret and her Northern and Lancastrian forces arrived at Nomansland they found her husband, King Henry VI, sitting under a tree where he had been left by the fleeing Earl of Warwick and guarded by Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriel. Both men were beheaded on Bernards Heath (possibly in 19th century-named Gallows Field - at the corner of Sandpit Lane and Sandridge Road) the next day despite a promise made by the King that their lives would be spared. It is said that all the wounded and captured Yorkists were killed on the spot. If this is true, then the parish of Sandridge from Bernards Heath to Nomansland was the site of a massacre of several thousand men, as well as those of both sides who were slain in actual combat.

After the fierce engagement came the task of clearing up the battle site. Corpses were stripped of their weapons and clothing before being buried. Tradition says that a part of St. Peters churchyard in St. Albans was used for the mass burial of the dead and so numerous were they that the frozen bodies were interred in an upright position in vast pits. It is rumoured that at this time in history all non-Catholics who died in England were buried vertically. If this rumour true, it is therefore possible that there were some foreign mercenaries in the fighting who warranted such treatment, although how a dead man's religion was ascertained is somewhat difficult to imagine. The Herts Advertiser reported in June, 1865, that some navvies, employed in constructing the railway through the parish found a number of human skeletons about four feet below the surface when excavating at Dead Woman's Hill, presumably for the cutting. There were no signs of any coffins being used and from a find of small and large silver coins of the period, the paper says that the remains were in all probability those of bodies of men killed in the second Battle of the Roses. It is quite possible that a small group of dead bodies was pushed into a part of the ancient ditch known as Beech Bottom (which the railway cutting traversed) and quickly and lightly covered over. Over centuries the ditch was filled up by natural detritus.

About twenty silver coins were found most of which passed into the hands of Mr. Thomas Kinder who paid a navvy half-a-crown (12½p) for them. The nominal values of the money were likely the groat, half-groat, penny, halfpenny and farthing of Henry VI. Some of the coins are said to have had evidence of clipping. Mr. Kinder, a Quaker, was partner in a brewing firm which, apart from owning 20 pubs in St. Albans and another 20 in the neighbourhood, also owned a brick-making and lime-burning business on Bernards Heath where possibly more unrecorded artefacts were found and sold to the same gentleman. An untraceable report says that 25 skeletons found on Nomansland Common in the 19th century were thought to have come from the 2nd Battle of St. Albans.

How the hapless villagers fared in Sandridgeduring the battle/rout is at the very least pure conjecture. Probably some fleeing soldiers sought temporary refuge in the villagers' hovels and the wounded may have crawled there, as well as to the church of St. Leonards, seeking assistance. Other defeated soldiers probably continued their journey to Wheathampstead and places beyond. Some may have hidden in the outbuildings of Pound and Hill End farms and other isolated dwellings. The extensive despoliation and pillage which took place in St. Albans after the battle probably did not happen in the village although the stealing of food and livestock was most likely a hardship suffered by the cottagers. There is no doubt, too, that the villagers suffered rape and leisurely looting as the Yorkist soldiers made their way back from Nomansland to St. Albans.

Several artefacts of the period have been found. These include 1½" long arrowheads, rowel spurs of various kinds, daggers and an ornamental horse brass. Shoes of draught and smaller horses have been dug up and in particular a small one with a wavy rim found at Dead Woman's Hill. The best relic found is a caltrap with four 2" spikes.

William Thrale of Nomansland Farm in the 19th century had a collection of stuffed birds and fauna, flora and many other interesting objects which was open for the public to view for a small fee, but admission was free on Good Friday. Among the non-natural objects were several iron cannon balls ranging in weight from two to fourteen pounds which William and his brother had found on Nomansland Common. An 1878 map of this area notes 'Cannon balls found AD 1848'. Although local tradition might say the balls were of the much later Civil War, they were undoubtedly from the Second Battle of St. Albans. The brothers also found pieces of armour. All these antiquities were lost to the public when the Thrale Collection was auctioned in 1884. A History of Hertfordshire says that a few cannon balls have also been dug up on Bernards Heath.

January 16 1814.
It is recorded by an old historian that at the second Battle of St. Albans on February 17, 1461, there "were slain 2300 men, of whom no nobleman is remembered, save Sir John Graie, which the same daie was made knight, with 12 others, at the village of Colneie". - Holinshed, vol. III, page 660. If any of your numerous and learned correspondents can give the names or any account of the above-mentioned 12 persons so knighted, and whether any or all of them were made knights banneret, it will greatly oblige B.E.

September 1824.
In vol. LXXXIV page 120 B.E. states: "It is recorded by an old historian that at the second battle of St. Albans, February 17, 1461, there 'were slain 2300 men, of whom no nobleman is remembered, save Sir John Graie, which the same date was made knight [but see account below in 'Lady Jane Grey' -Ed.] with 12 others, at the village of Colneie'. (Holinshead, vol III p660). If any of your numerous and learned correspondents can give the names or any account of the above-mentioned 12 persons so knighted, and whether any or all of them were made knights banneret, it will greatly oblige".
B.E. says, "No answer or notice having been taken of the above, we are requested to repeat the enquiry, and further to remark that the same historian adds. - "The Queene caused the King to dub his sonne Prince Edward, Knight, with 30 other persons, which the day before fought on her side, against his part". (Ho. ut supra).

Are the names of these 12 and 30 knights recorded in the history or account of the battle of St. Albans, or elsewhere? And are there any particulars extant of the said Sir John Graie? The author of Historic and Allusive Arms, p.70, mentions a person who 'had the rare honour of being made a Knight Banneret by King Edward IV after the second battle of St. Albans, 1461' but he does not state the authority.
Source for the above four paragraphs: Gentleman's Magazine

It is worthy of note that the new knights were honoured at London Colney and not, for example, at St. Albans. This village straddled the London road, was on the River Colne and close to a residence on its south side known as Salisbury Hall. The Hall was on an ancient site dating back to the tenth and eleventh centuries. By 1420 this moated edifice was in the ownership of Sir Richard Nevill by his marriage to Eleanor, Countess of Salisbury and became, ipso facto, Earl of Salisbury.
He had two sons - Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick, known as The Kingmaker, and John Nevill, Earl of Northumberland. Both were killed at Barnet in 1471. A contemporary report records that after this battle "many soldiers were billeted at an old moated manor house" which was likely to have been Salisbury Hall.

Sir Nevill was a grandson of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and as such was related to King Edward IV. It therefore seemed a natural thing for the Royal party to gravitate to Salisbury at London Colney after the battle on Bernard's Heath. Here, King Henry VI and Queen Margaret could be entertained in relative comfort and conveniently 'dub' those with regal favours for services rendered in assuring a successful outcome all at the expense of their erstwhile opponent, Sir Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick.

June 1796. Mr.Urban May 23

In the second battle of St. Albans the Duke of York's troops broke through the king's, "at the north end of the town, called Barnard heath, toward a little town called Syndridge (now Sundridge), in a place called Nomansland, they had far greater conflict with 4 or 5000 of the king's armie." Stowe's Annals, p.143.
Source: Gentleman's Magazine

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"The Greys were an ancient and substantial family whose name is said to have derived from the castle of Croy in Picardy but the first Grey mentioned in Dugdale's Baronage is a Henry de Grey who received a grant of land in Essex from Richard the Lionheart. From the sons of this Henry sprang the Greys of Ruthyn and of Wilton. Edward, eldest son by a second marriage of Reginald, third Lord Grey of Ruthyn, married the heiress to the barony of Ferrers of Groby, and it was their son, Sir John Grey of Groby, who, in the middle of the troubled fifteenth century, took to wife Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Woodville of Grafton near Stony Stratford. SIR JOHN WAS KILLED IN FEBRUARY 1461, FIGHTING ON THE LANCASTRIAN SIDE AT THE BATTLE OF ST. ALBANS, and three years later his widow, a beautiful but designing lady, made such an impression on King Edward IV that he married her - a misalliance generally held to have contributed largely to the eventual downfall of the House of York."
'Lady Jane Grey' by Alison Plowden. 1985. ISBN 0-283-99055-4

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The Rose & Crown PH in the village has only an indirect connection with the Wars of the Roses. A very popular pub sign throughout the country, the design symbolizes the joining of the Lancaster and York Houses by the marriage of Lancastrian Henry VII and Elizabeth, 'the White Rose of York' in 1485, thus creating the Tudor dynasty. The red rose became the Tudor emblem.

The Rose & Crown was, therefore, probably so named circa 1485 but it must be conceded that the pub is very old and was possibly there at the time of the Battle of Sandridge, but licensed under a different appellation. It is most probably the oldest pub in the village, pre-dating The Bell that used to be on the site of the Green Man.

The brewers claim that it is of 15th century origin but I have been unable to find any documents to support this and a request to the brewers for substantiation did not bring a reply. It has an internal pargeted wall.

The vicar of Sandridge at the time of the battle was most likely Robert Rydley. He died in 1464 and was replaced by William Tyler who came from Codicote vicarage. The annual salary or "gift of a pension" of the vicar in this year was £3.4.8d (£3.23½p).

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CHRONICLES OF THE LONDONER, GREGORY
"The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London"

And the 17th day [of February] next following King Harry rode to St. Albans, and the Duke of Norfolk with him, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Arundel, the Lord Bourchier, the Lord Bonvile, with many great lords, knights and squires, and commons of an 100,000 men. [This number is greatly exaggerated]. And there they had a great battle with the queen, for she come ever on fro the journey of Wakefield till she come to St. Albans, with all the lords aforesaid; and her meinie and every lord's men bare their lord's livery that every man might know his own fellowship by his livery. And beside all that, every man and lord bare the prince's livery, that was bend of crimson and black with ostrich's feathers. The substance that gave that field were household men and feed men. I ween there were not 5,000 men that fought in the queen's party, for the most part of Northern men fled away and some were take and spoiled out of their harness by the way as they fled. And some of them robbed ever as they yede, a pitiful thing it is to hear it. But the day before that battle there was a journey at Dunstable; but the king's meinie lacked good guiding, for some were but new men of war, for the chiefest captain was a butcher of the same town; and there were the king's meinie overthrew only by the Northern men. And soon after the butcher, for shame of his simple guiding and loss of the men, the number of 800, for very sorrow as it is said, hung himself; and some men said that it was for loss of his good, but dead he is - God knoweth the truth.

And in the midst of the battle King Harry went unto this queen and forsook all his lords,1 and trust better to her party than unto his own lords. And then through great labour the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Warwick escaped away; the Bishop of Exeter, that time Chancellor of England, and brother unto the Earl of Warwick, the Lord Bourchier, with many other knights, squires, and commons fled, and many men slain in both parties. And the Lord Bonvile was beheaded, the common saying that his longage 2 caused him to die. The prince was judge his own self. And there was slain that manly knight Sir Thomas Kyriel. the number of dead men was 3,500 and moo that were slain. The lords in King Harry's party pitched a field and fortified it full strong, and like unwise men braken their [ar-]ray and took another, and ere that they were all sette a-buskyd3 to battle, the queen's party was at hand with them in town of St. Albans, and then all thing was to seek and out of order, for their prickers come not home to bring no tiding how nigh that the queen was, save one come and said that she was nine mile off. And ere the gunners and borgeners4 could level their guns they were busily fighting, and many a gynne5 of war was ordained that stood in little avail or nought; for the borgeners had such instruments that would shoot both pellets of lead and arrows of an ell of length with six feathers, three in midst and three at the other end, with a great mighty head of iron at the other end, and wild fire all. All these three things they might shoot well and easily at once, but in time of need they could shoot not one of these, but the fire turned back upon them that would shoot these three things. Also they had nets made of great cords of four fathom of length and of four foot broad, like unto a haye,6 and at every two knot there was a nail standing up right, that there could be no man pass over it by likelihood but he should be hurt. Also they have pavysse7 bore as a door i-made with a staff folding up and down to set the pavysse where they liked, and loops with shooting windows to shoot out at, they standing behind the pavysse, and the pavysse as full of 3d. nail after order as they might stand. And when their shot was spend and done they cast the pavysse before them, then there might no man come unto them over the pavysse for the nails that stood upright, but if he would mischief himself. Also they had a thing made like unto a lattice full of nails as the net was, but it would be moved as a man would; a man might bryse8 it together that the length would be more than two yards long, and if he would he might hale it abroad, then it would be four square. And that served to lie at gaps there at horsemen would enter in, and many a caltrap.9 And as the substance of men or worship that will not glose10 nor curry favour (favy) for no partiality, they could not understand that all this ordnance did any good or harm but if it were among us in our party with King Harry., Therefore it is much left, and men take them to mallys11 of lead, bows, swords, glaives12 and axes. As for spearmen they been good to ride before the footmen and eat and drink up their victual, many moo such pretty things they do, hold me excused though I say the best, for in the footmen is all the trust.

1 It was reported in France that Henry sat under a tree a mile away and laughed and sang while the battle raged. Calender of State Papers and Manuscripts existing in the Archives and Collections of Milan, i, ed. and translated by A.B. Hinds, 1912. i, 55.
2 i.e. language (?), the words he used to the prince.
3 i,.e. set in order.
4 i.e. Burgundians. Warwick was employing foreign mercenaries.
5 i.,e. engines.
6 i.e. a net for catching rabbits.
7 i.e. shields.
8 i.e. draw.
9 a trap or obstacle for cavalry.
10 i.e. flatter.
11 i.e. clubs.
12 i.e. spears and laccnes.

"GREGORY" above, with Notes, has been extracted from The Wars of Roses by J.R. Lander (1965). ISBN 0-7509-0018-0.

NOTABLES AND COMBATANTS
L = Lancaster Y = York

Author: Reg Auckland

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