Battle of Sandwich (1460)
51°16′30″N 1°25′37″E / 51.275°N 1.427°E
Battle of Sandwich | |||||||
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Part of the Wars of the Roses | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
House of Lancaster | House of York | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Baron Rivers | Sir John Dynham | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
unknown | 800 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
unknown | unknown |
The Battle of Sandwich was a naval skirmish off the town of
Background
The port town of Sandwich, (it is now inland but historically faced the sea until the silting up of Wantsum Channel) was one of the Cinque Ports in the 15th century. It had historically served as one of the major landing and embarkation points from and to France.
Battle
Sent ahead by Warwick, Sir John Dynham found the king's fleet lying at Sandwich. Arriving at dawn, Dynham launched an attack while the king's officers were still in bed.[2] His success was so overwhelming that he "tooke the principall shippes of the Kynge's navie... well furnished with ordinaunce and artillarie".[3]
Aftermath
With command of the English Channel secured by this battle, a small Yorkist army of about two thousand men landed in Kent from Calais ahead of March and Warwick. Once the town of Sandwich itself had been secured by his forces in June 1460, Warwick landed there with March and Salisbury on 26 June 1460. Having cleared the Channel of French pirates (who had been able to raid the town thanks to the chaos caused in England by the civil war) and having made the coast of Kent safe, Warwick was received in Kent as a hero.[1] The French meanwhile aided the Lancastrians a year later.
Warwick's army soon increased in numbers, joined by many new recruits, and was largely well supported as it proceeded by way of
Sources and references
- ^ a b c Michael K. Jones 'Edward IV, the Earl of Warwick and the Yorkist Claim to the Throne', in Historical Research 70: 173 (1997), 342–352 pp. 342-352
- ^ John Campbell, John Kent, Biographia Nautica (1785), p. 348
- ^ Richard Brooke, Visits to fields of battle, in England, of the fifteenth century (1857), p. 235
- ^ England), Lincoln's Inn (London; Roxburgh, Sir Ronald; Baildon, William Paley; Walker, James Douglas (1 January 1902). The Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn: 1776-1845 ; Calls to the bar, 1776 to 1845 ; The site of Lincoln's Inn, by W.P. Baildon ; Maps and plans ; A catalogue of portraits ; List of painters, and engravers ; Catalogue of plate ; The heraldry of Lincoln's Inn ; Appendix. Lincoln's Inn.
- ^ "Folios 301-313: Nov 1457- | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 10 April 2016.