Battle of Leeds

The Battle of Leeds (September 1240) was one of the two main battles in the Pale rebellion. It was a crushing victory for the rebel forces which allowed Richard of Cornwall to resume his march across England and take London later that year.
==The battle==
A Plantagenet army numbering some 12,000 men and commanded by the Earl of Derby was laying siege to the rebel town of York when Richard of Cornwall and his brother-in-law and ally Alexander II of Scotland marched with an army of 19,000 men to lift the siege. Derby opted to retreat south in order to link up with Henry III's host, unaware that the king had sailed to Wales. At Leeds, the exhausted and outnumbered loyalists were forced into battle by the rebel forces. It is reported that over a quarter of the loyalist army perished in the field. Once victorious, the rebels faced little opposition elsewhere in England until Henry III left Wales and met them at the Battle of Harefield.
Category:Battles