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Bramham Over The Centuries

The Battle of Bramham Moor: 19 February 1408

This battle, often referred to as Camp Hill, ranged over the area bounded by Camp Hill (near the University pig farm on the Al), Headley Hall (the University Farm), and Oglethorpe Hills (the highest point of the Moor, either side of the road to Toulston).
The background was typical of the time; a succession of Kings had been pressed to establish their position over great Lords almost as strong as themselves. Thus Henry IV, who had had his predecessor, Richard II, starved to death in Pontefract Castle, was constantly beset by opponents who felt he had usurped the throne. Leaders of the faction campaigning for the claim of the Yorkist Princess Phillipa were Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland (father of Harry Hotspur of Shakespearean fame) and Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshall of England.

Percy, having raised a force from his territories in the North, marched into Yorkshire, crossed the Wharfe at Wetherby, and met the King's forces under the Sheriff, Sir Thomas Rokeby, close to the Al entrance to the University Farm.
Even today a fragment of a Roman road running north-west and south-east exists at the spot; a line of entrenchments, pointing towards Headley Hall, lies between this spot and Halloway Leys Wood behind Paradise Farm just to the north.
The battle raged across the whole Moor and, although both sides fought with courage and determination, as the trained soldiers of the Sheriff began to get the better of the rebels, the Earl's forces fled in all directions.
Earl Percy was slain on the field and Lord Bardolf, his deputy, died of his wounds soon after. Their bodies were cut into quarters and displayed in the principal towns of the kingdom. In the rebel army were the Abbot of Hales and the Bishop of Bangor.
The former, taken in complete armour, was executed, but the Bishop, not appearing in the vestments of war, was spared.
In the early years of the nineteenth century a ring and seal were found which were supposed to have belonged to one of these ecclesiastical warriors.
The dead from this battle were buried in communal graves at the east end of Bramham churchyard where the cherry trees stand today. The bottom of a cross which was the memorial to this battle lies at the edge of the wood on the right hand side of the dip in the road from Bramham to Toulston, moved from its original position close by.
For this victory Sir Thomas Rokeby received the manor of Spofforth, with everything appertaining, from a grateful King Henry, whose position was thus secured for himself and his son, Henry V.

 

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