Note 264d — Chapter XII · WILMSLOW CHURCH, CHESHIRE. [253a]

Although Ormerod (in vol. i. xxxii. note y, and vol. iii. p. 311,) mentions the date on the tomb as 1460, I found it impossible to ascertain whether that had ever been the case, because the two last letters of that part of the brass which contained the date, are missing. The date of the battle is given in 5 Rot. Parl. 38th Henry VI. p. 348 (a very high authority), as Sunday next after the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, in the 38th year of Henry VI., which was in 1459. In Holinshed’s Chronicles it is stated to have been fought on the day of St. Tecla, 23rd September, 1459; and in Hall’s and in Grafton’s Chronicles, St. Tecla’s day is also mentioned to have been the day of the battle; and in Baker’s Chronicles and Stow’s Annals, though the month and day are not named, 1459 is given as the year in which it was fought; Carte, the historian, also gives the date as Sunday, the 23rd September, 1459.