Battle of Ludford Bridge The Battle of Ludford Bridge was a largely bloodless battle fought in the early years of the Wars of the Roses . It took place on 12 October 1459 , and resulted in a setback for the Yorkists . Although this seemed to be a triumph for the rival Lancastrians at the time , they had thrown away their advantage within six months . Background . In the first pitched battle of the wars , the First Battle of St Albans in 1455 , Richard of York had eliminated most of his rivals at court . He reaffirmed his allegiance to the King , Henry of Lancaster and was reappointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . However , Henry ' s Queen , Margaret of Anjou , suspected that Richard ultimately intended to supplant her infant son Edward of Westminster , Prince of Wales and become King himself . She continually plotted and agitated against Richard and the Nevilles , his chief supporters amongst the nobles . Events were precipitated by some high - handed actions by Richard ' s nephew Richard Neville , 16th Earl of Warwick . Warwick held the post of Captain of Calais , and late in 1458 , he had led ships from Calais in attacks on merchant ships from Lübeck and Spain , on obscure grounds of acknowledgement of English sovereignty in the Channel . Though these actions infuriated the royal court , they were popular among the merchants , particularly in London and Kent , as they removed competitors for English trade with Flanders . When Warwick was summoned to London to explain his actions before the King ' s council , there was violence between Warwick ' s retinue and the royal household . Warwick claimed that his life had been threatened , and he returned to Calais with any charges unanswered . Margaret took this to be open defiance of Henry ' s authority . She had long before persuaded Henry to move the court from London to the Midlands , where her supporters had the most influence . They began mustering their forces , and summoned a council to be held in Coventry on 24 June . Richard of York , his brother in law Richard Neville , 5th Earl of Salisbury ( Warwick ' s father ) and Warwick himself feared that they would be arrested for treason if they went to their opponents ' heartland , and refused to attend . They were quickly indicted for rebellion . Richard ' s forces began the campaign dispersed over the country . Richard himself was at Ludlow in the Welsh Marches , Salisbury was at Middleham Castle in North Yorkshire and Warwick was at Calais . As Salisbury and Warwick marched to join Richard , Margaret ordered a force under James Tuchet , 5th Baron Audley to intercept Salisbury . At the bloody Battle of Blore Heath , Audley ' s forces were routed . Battle . Even after this defeat , the forces available to Henry and Margaret outnumbered York ' s , Salisbury ' s and Warwick ' s combined armies by two to one . The Yorkist army tried to move towards London , but found their path blocked by the Lancastrian army with King Henry himself nominally at its head , and fell back to Worcester . Here , Richard attended mass in the cathedral before sending written protestations of his loyalty to Henry . These were ignored . Richard retreated towards Ludlow , before making a stand at a fortified position near Ludford , Shropshire on 12 October . His troops excavated a defensive ditch in a field on the opposite side of the River Teme from Ludlow , near the bridge which gave the battle its name . They also constructed barricades of carts in which cannon were emplaced . However , morale was low , not least because the royal standard could be seen flying in the Lancastrian army , and it was known that King Henry himself was present , in full armour . For much of his reign , Henry had been regarded as an ineffectual ruler , and he had even lapsed into madness for periods of several months at a time . Richard of York and his supporters had maintained that they were opposed only to Henry ' s " evil counsellors " . Now they realised that their army would probably refuse to fight against Henry himself . Among the troops brought by Warwick from Calais were 600 men led by Andrew Trollope , an experienced soldier . During the night , Trollope and his men defected to the Lancastrians . On hearing this , York , Salisbury and Warwick crossed the bridge and went at midnight into Ludlow , ostensibly for refreshment . They then abandoned their armies and fled . York , with his second son Edmund , Earl of Rutland , fled into Wales , and from there to Ireland . Salisbury , Warwick and York ' s eldest son Edward , Earl of March went to the West Country where a supporter , Sir John Dynham , loaned them a boat which took them to Calais , where the garrison still supported Warwick . At dawn on 13 October , the leaderless Yorkist troops knelt in submission before Henry , and were pardoned . York had abandoned not only his troops but also his wife Cecily Neville , Duchess of York , his two younger sons and his daughter , who were found standing at the Ludlow Market Cross when the Lancastrians arrived . They were placed in the care of the Duchess ' s sister Anne , wife of Humphrey Stafford , 1st Duke of Buckingham , one of Margaret ' s supporters . The Lancastrian troops proceeded to plunder Ludlow , becoming drunk on looted wine and committing many outrages . Aftermath . Henry and his army then returned to Coventry , where a Parliament packed with Queen Margaret ' s supporters attainted York , Salisbury and Warwick and their remaining supporters . However , it proved impossible for the Earl of Wiltshire , who was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland in Richard of York ' s place , to raise troops to oust York from Ireland , while the Duke of Somerset was twice repulsed by the garrison of Calais when he tried to reclaim it from Warwick . Although it had appeared that the country had been united behind King Henry at the time of the Battle of Ludford Bridge , within a short time the behaviour of Henry ' s court had prompted many complaints that Lancastrian favourites were enriching themselves at the expense of the King and populace . It was these grievances which Richard of York had first used as pretext to take arms against Henry ' s court in the early 1450s . Within six months of the Battle , Warwick was able to land at Sandwich in Kent , with popular support from London and the south east of England . He then marched into the Midlands and , aided by treachery in the Lancastrian army , he captured King Henry at the Battle of Northampton . Site - modern day . In January 2011 the masonry on one side of the bridge collapsed into the river below , closing off the river below and the bridge to traffic .