It was estimated that 28,000 of the
Lancastrians were slaughtered in this battle and in the pursuit which
followed, and that 37,776 men in all were killed on that dreadful day.
In some parts of Yorkshire the wild roses were very beautiful, ranging
in colour from pure white to the deepest red, almost every shade being
represented; the variation in colour was attributed to the difference in
the soil or strata in which they grew. But over this battle-field and
the enormous pits in which the dead were buried there grew after the
battle a dwarf variety of wild rose which it was said would not grow
elsewhere, and which the country people thought emblematical of the
warriors who had fallen there, as the white petals were slightly tinged
with red, while the older leaves of the bushes were of a dull bloody
hue; but pilgrims carried many of the plants away before our time, and
the cultivation of the heath had destroyed most of the remainder. In the
great Battle of Towton Field many noblemen had perished, but they
appeared to have been buried with the rank and file in the big pits dug
out for the burial of the dead, as only a very few could be traced in
the local churchyards.
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