By 1460 rivalries between Richard of York and Henry VI’s favourites had descended from political hostility into open warfare.  Having fled to Calais in 1459 in the aftermath of the Ludford Bridge disaster, the earl of Warwick, his father the earl of Salisbury, his uncle Lord Fauconberg and his cousin Edward earl of March arrived back in England at Sandwich with 2,000 men in June 1460. Their numbers snowballed.  The city of London fell to the Yorkists with only the Tower of London remaining in Lancastrian hands.

The Lancastrians moved out of their stronghold at Coventry intent upon confronting the gathering white rose host whilst the Yorkists came north with their artillery along Watling Street.  Jean de Waurin, the  Burgundian chronicler, explained that the Lancastrian army awaited their foes outside Northampton, in a park by a little river (the Nene).  The English Chronicle identified the battle as taking place between…