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POLITICAL HISTORY In 1454 he is said to have had two thousand Stafford Knots, his badge of livery, made ' to what intent men may construe as their wits will give them.' 178 His estates at this time stretched all over central England, from Holderness to Brecknock, and from Stafford to Tonbridge. 17 ' The political state of Staffordshire in these wars is clearly shown by the first commission of the peace, issued by Edward IV in 1461, in which the only Staffordshire names are Sir John Sutton of Dudley, Sir Walter Blount, John de Audeley, John Harpur, Thomas Everdon, Thomas Wolseley, Thomas Asteley, Walter Wrottesley, and Nicholas Waryng. 180 In the commission issued by Richard III the same policy can be traced, for the only names of landowners of the county are John Sutton Lord Dudley, John Blount of Mountjoy, John Gresley, Richard Wrottesley, Humphry Persall, Nicholas Mountgomery, Ralph Wolseley, and John Cawardyne. 181 After the battle of St. Albans in 1455 there was no chance of peace, and in September, 1459, York raised his standard on the Welsh border, and it was to join him there that Salisbury, the father of the kingmaker, with about 7,000 men, marched southward from Middleham Castle. Margaret had collected 10,000 men at Market Drayton under two Staffordshire peers, James Touchet (Lord Audley) and John Sutton (Lord Dudley), 183 the queen herself being at Eccleshall with Prince Edward. 183 To the queen, when at Eccleshall, Lord Stanley, who had been raising men for the Lancastrians in Lancashire, promised to fight against the Earl of Salisbury, and his failure to carry out this promise, although he was at New- castle, within a few miles of the battlefield, was a chief cause of the Lancastrian defeat at Blore Heath, for which treachery the Commons impeached him. 18 * York had arrived at Ludlow, and the Lancastrian forces prevented Salis- bury from joining him there. On 22 September Salisbury took up a strong position on Blore Heath, three miles east of Market Drayton, his front protected by the Hempmill Brook, a tributary of the Tern, ' not very broad but somewhat deep.' ' In the early morning,' on the twenty-third, to quote Hall's account : 185 He caused his soldiers to shoot their flights towards the Lord Audeley's company, which lay on the other side of the said water, and then he and all his company made a sign of retreat. The Lord Audeley suddenly blew up his trumpet and passed the water. The earl of Salisbury, who ' knew the sleights, stratagems, and policies of war, suddenly returned ' and encountered Audeley when his forces were only partly across the water. ' The fight was sore and dreadful,' but in the end ' the earl's army so eagerly fought that they slew the Lord Audeley and all his captains, and discomfited all the remnant of his people.' 178 Paston Letters, , 265 ; Dugdale, Baronage (ed. 1675), i, 165. m Diet. Nat. Biog. 'Stafford.' 180 Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc. New Ser.), vi (2), 217. 1SI Ibid. 249. 188 The peerage had practically originated in the writ summoning John Sutton to Parliament in 1440, though a predecessor had been summoned as feudal baron of Dudley. He had been wounded at St. Albans in 1455. He was a successful 'trimmer,' as, though a supporter of Henry, he gained Edward IV's favour, and derived grants of land both from Richard III and Henry VII. Coll. (Salt Arch. Soc.), ix (2), 68. 183 Paston Letters, i, 282. 184 Rot. Par!. (Rec. Com.), v, 369. 185 Hall, Chnn. (ed. 1809), 240. Holinshed's account is identical. 243