Lord Dacre’s last drink

 

 

 This stand has taken me probably 6 months. Mainly due to other things getting in the way but it has taken more planning and a modest amount of conversion compared to normal. I think only 2 or 3 figures had no modifications, though most of the others only had minor changes.

 

The story goes that during the battle, that Randolf Dacre, 1st Lord Dacre of the North of Gilsland, paused for a drink and taking off his bevor, was shoot thorough the neck and killed. It is claimed that he was hit by a bolt fired from behind a bur tree by the son of a man Lord Dacre killed previously.

 “This Lord Dacres, as the report goeth, was slayne by a boy, at Towton Field, which boy shot him out of a burtree, when he had unclasped his helmet to drink a cup of wyne, in revenge of his father, whom the said lord had slayne before, which tree hath beene remarkable ever since by the inhabitants, and decayed within this few yeares. The place where he was slayne is called the North Acres, whereupon they have this ryme. The Lord Dacres Was slayne in the North Acres” Glover 1585

  

Hence the dead body in Yorkist colours and the separate crossbow man. Who knows how true the story is but I thought it made for a good vignette. 

 

I’ve drawn heavily on the excellent Towton Battlefield Archaeology Project site by Tim Sutherland. It includes a reference to the location of the burr tree, based on the 1908 O/S map. Do have a look, I think Sutherland is one of the most interesting researchers on Towton.

As the website notes, archelogy around the location of “the tree” provided significant numerous artifacts including human bones and Sutherland concluded that the “bur tree” is a “probable site of former grave marker.”

 Dacre is buried at Saxton Church. His tomb states,

HIC JACET RANULPH / DNS DE DAKAR ET G[ILLESLAN]D VERU MILES Z STRENUUS IN BELLO / PR… .HENRICO VI / …O DNI MCCCCLXI XXIX DIE MNSI….RCII VIDL DNICA RAMIS PALMARU / CU’ AIE P’PCIET D’S AME

“Here lies Randolf, Lord of Dacre and Gilsland, a true knight, valiant in battle in the service of King Henry VI, who died on Palm Sunday, 29 March 1461, on whose soul may God have mercy, Amen.” Boardman (1996, 90)

Again, the Towton Battlefield Archaeology Project  has been working on the tomb too.

His burial is linked to the other legend about him, that he was buried mounted on his horse.

Dacre’s banner, which I’ve taken from the Lance and Longbow Heraldic Banners of the Wars of the Roses booklet is a hard one – and is a photocopy-paint-on. 

The other figure with a coat of arms is Sir Thomas Hampden.   

According to the Towton Battlefield Society list of combatants at Towton, he fought with Dacre. I chose him as he comes from my current next of the woods, the Chilterns. And was an ancestor of the far more important Sir John Hampden, a key figure in the pollical debates that led to the English Civil Wars. The family coat of arms is Argent a saltire glues between four eagles azure.

Whether Thomas had this coat of arms is conjecture and I have no proof beyond the TBS list that he was at Towton. The representation of the heraldry on the figure isn’t great – the eagles are more aspirational than actual. 

I’m currently working on an annotated gazetteer of Oxford/Bucks gentry in the WORs, which I’ll post on here in due course and there are likely to be a few more local figures in my WoRs stands as I progress.

The figures are a mix of Perrys, Essexs and the Wargame Foundry Swiss Character pack – the reminder of which may appear as C16th Scots in another project.