Research

Recruiting

To understand where the majority of soldiers came from in the typical Wars of the Roses army, some comprehension of the social structure of the time is needed.

Eighty percent of the population of England lived in the country. Of these, all would have been farmers to some degree. These people, the commons, would have fallen into one of three types, Labourers, Husbandmen and Yeomen. The majority rented their land for cash, but some was still rented for servile work or goods, an old fashioned system by the late Fifteenth century.

The landlords were typically the gentry and some nobility, they would have actually owned the land. Some richer yeomen would have rented land to their poor and socially inferior cousins. The gentry would also have been made up of three degrees the gentlemen, the esquires and the knights. All the gentry and some of the lower levels of the nobility owed allegiance to the great nobles of the land. This was the system called 'livery and maintenance'. By this system the gentry were expected to do the bidding of the noble in return for money, protection and 'good lordship'.

It then followed that these higher nobles owed allegiance to the king. Obviously not all did, which is why the Wars lasted for over 35 years.

If a noble wished to raise his array, or personal army, he would send out letters, or even verbal messages, to the members of the gentry that owed allegiance to him. These gentry would then send out their servants to the villages and manors that were owned by the gentleman or the noble. At the village or manor the common men would be raised, or recruited, and would return with the servant to the gentleman's manor. The gentleman's fellowship would then proceed to a pre-arranged meeting point, usually called a mustering point, with the fellowships of other gentlemen to form the array of the noble.

The king could avoid the nobles involvement altogether by sending out letters directly to the gentry to recruit an army. It is some of these letters or reference to them that have survived.

"...pleaseth you to weet that on Thursday last was, there were brought unto this town many privy seals, and one of them was indorsed to you, and to Hastyngs, and to five or six other gentleman; and another was sent unto your son, and indorsed to himself alone, and assigned within with the king's own hand; and so were but few that were sent as it was told me; and also there were special terms in his than were in others; I saw a copy of those that were sent unto other gentlemen; the intent of writing was, that they should be with the king at Leicester the 10th day of May with as many persons defensibly arrayed as they might according to their degree, and that they should bring with them for their expenses for two months."1

The above shows the classic way in which a king could raise an army and avoid noble involvement. You may notice that the mustering point, Leicester, and the date of the muster for the army are included.

A certificate for the Half-Hundred of Ewelme still exists in the Stonor Letters (C. 1480) 2. This lists the men that were willing to do the king's service. It contains the village names of the Half-Hundred with men from each, their main weapons and armour information. There is also a muster list from Bridport (1457)3 in which the total equipment or harness of all the men who turn out is listed.

Another source of men for an army was the levies raised by the larger towns and cities of the realm, for example the York City Levy. These men would have been well turned out with the financial backing of the city, but were usually small in numbers.

In addition, the king could issue a commission of array. This gave the holder, usually a noble, the right to raise the commons of a particular county in the king's name. At times rival kings would issue commission of array on the same county. This caused problems for the commons, who would not know with whom to side.

Lastly, a few foreign mercenaries were sometimes brought over by invading armies. These were usually provided by a foreign power rather than paid for by the noble leading the army. They were always small in numbers and specialists of some type, for example the Burgundian handgunners who came to England with Edward IV.