ABSTRACT
Civil wars do not promote chivalric conduct, vendettas tend to mar fair play, and the decline in knightly values was much bemoaned by contemporary chroniclers, though vestiges persisted. During the Wars of the Roses both sides employed the longbow and many battles opened with an archery duel; as a consequence, casualties would be high, and it was usually the side which fared worst in the opening exchanges that first advanced to contact. Though many of the older generation of protagonists, such as York, 2nd Duke of Somerset, Buckingham and Fauconberg, had seen service in the French wars, their sons and successors. In the majority of campaigns the two sides simply square up: Somerset's flanking manoeuvre before Second St Albans evidences a rare degree of strategic and tactical innovation. Though lacking the scale and widespread devastation of modern wars, devoid of the full horror of industrialised conflict, warfare, in the fifteenth century, was every bit as frightful.
