Battle of Blore Heath with a stone cross in 1765. The battle was commemorated by a re-enactment each year in September at Blore Heath until 2009. Battle of Blore Heath The Battle of Blore Heath was one of the first major battles in the English Wars of the Roses. It was fought on 23 September 1459, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire. Blore Heath itself is a sparsely populated area of farmland, two miles east of the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire, and close to the towns of Market Drayton and Loggerheads, Staffordshire. After the First Battle of St Albans in 1455, an uneasy
England in the Middle Ages nine months and both the English political system and the military situation in France began to unravel. A sequence of bloody civil wars, later termed the Wars of the Roses, finally broke out in 1455, spurred on by an economic crisis and a widespread perception of poor government. Edward IV, leading a faction known as the Yorkists, removed Henry from power in 1461 but by 1469 fighting recommenced as Edward, Henry, and Edward's brother George, backed by leading nobles and powerful French supporters, vied for power. By 1471 Edward was triumphant and most of his rivals were dead. On his