There is a passage in Biondi’s work, upon the wars of the Houses of York and Lancaster, written in old Italian, which tends to confirm the idea that there was not, at the period of the battle, any bridge there, but that the river was usually forded; the passage, however, is not conclusive, because, whether there was a bridge or not, a vast number of the fugitives would naturally attempt to ford the little river. { 112}
“Those who remained alive, took the road for the bridge of Tadcaster, but being unable to reach it, and believing a small river called Cock to be fordable, the greater part were drowned therein. It is constantly affirmed, that those who survived, passed over, by treading on the dead bodies of the sufferers; the water of this stream, and of the river Wharfe, into which it empties itself, were coloured in a manner to appear as pure blood.”
I have several times descended to and visited the river Cock, in two places—one after passing through the large meadow and valley before mentioned, and the other after descending from the village of Towton, by the old road already described; and whilst I drank of its pure and cool waters, at each place, I could not avoid reflecting upon the lamentable fact, that after the battle, this interesting stream flowed stained with human gore; and that both the Cock, and the large river the Wharfe, into which it flows, were discoloured with it, so as to appear like rivers of blood. Doubtless very much of that shocking discoloration was produced both by the wounded, in their endeavours to cross the Cock, and by the men slain in its bed or on its banks, in their flight; besides which, a portion of the field of battle near the public road dips towards the westward, and the melted snow mixed with blood would naturally drain through the large meadow and valley before mentioned, towards the Cock; and we learn from history, that the blood of the slain lay caked with the snow, which at that time covered the face of the ground, and afterwards dissolving with it, ran down in a most horrible manner the furrows and ditches of the fields, for two or three miles together. { 113}
However well selected the position of the Lancastrians was for fighting a battle, it was a most dangerous one for defeated forces to retreat from, because the contiguity of the river Wharfe, which was only from two to three miles distant on the eastward and north-eastward, prevented their escape from the field in that direction, and the eminence or cliff prevented it on the westward; whilst towards the northward the declivities and river Cock in their rear, were almost certain to cause, to an undisciplined army, the disorganization and loss of life which ensued.