Note 114b — Chapter VI · THE FIELD OF THE BATTLE OF TOWTON. [81a]

In a note to Rapin’s History of England, translated by Tindal, it is stated, with reference to the engagement at Ferrybridge, “there was at this time no Lord Fitzwalter, for Walter Lord Fitzwalter died in 1432, and Sir John Ratcliffe, son of Ann, daughter of the said Lord Fitzwalter, had not summons to Parliament till the first of Henry VII. This Sir John, or his son, is probably the same whom Rapin, and other of our historians, call by anticipation Lord Fitzwalter. See Dugdale’s Baronage, vol. i. p. 223, and vol. ii. p. 285.” But although it may readily be admitted, that it does not appear from our Baronages, that there was a Lord Fitzwalter in 1461, their silence seems scarcely sufficient to outweigh the clear and unqualified statements, of several of our old annalists and chroniclers, that a Lord Fitzwalter held a command of importance in the Yorkist army, and was slain in the action at Ferrybridge. Stow not only mentions that circumstance, but also states that Lord Fitzwalter was one of the noblemen who, on the 12th of March (before the battle of Towton), left London with Edward, and accompanied him on his march northward. Besides which, in Leland’s Itinerary, vol. i. fo. 105 [99] (see also Camden’s Magna Britannia, vol. iii. p. 49), in noticing Ferrybridge, it is stated, “wher the first Lord Fitzgualter of the Radecliffes was killid, flying from Cok beck Felde;” and, although the last part of the passage is not quite accurate, still the statement is of some value; and in Fenn’s Collection of Original Letters, which are considered authentic records of the respective dates, at which they purport to have been written, Lord Fitzwalter is mentioned, in a letter from Clement Paston to John Paston, of the 23rd of January, 1460 (but, according to our present mode of reckoning, 1461), as having ridden northwards, and is said to have taken two hundred of Sir Andrew Trollop’s men; and the existence of a Lord Fitzwalter seems still more confirmed by another of those letters, which was written by William Paston and Thomas Playter, to John Paston, dated the 4th of April, 1461, giving the contents of a letter of credence from King Edward IV. to the Duchess of York, respecting the battle of Towton, which distinctly mentions that Lord Fitzwalter was slain, and that he had been engaged on Edward’s part. (See Fenn’s Collection of Original Letters, vol. i. pp. 205, 219.) As so many old writers have mentioned the existence of a Lord Fitzwalter at that period, it seems improbable that all of them could have been in error.