The Battle of Mortimer's Cross was fought on 2 February 1461 near Kingsland, Herefordshire (between Leominster and Leintwardine, by the River Lugg), not far from the Welsh border.

The opposing forces were an army led by Jasper Tudor and his father, Owen Tudor, and other nobles loyal to King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster, his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and their seven-year-old son, Edward, Prince of Wales, on one side, and the army of Edward, Earl of March.

Inspired by Henry's queen, Margaret of Anjou, York's enemies and rivals began gathering armies in Wales and Northern England.

His army included Welshmen, drawn especially from the Tudor lands in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, along with French and Breton mercenaries and Irish troops led by James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond.

The event was dramatised by William Shakespeare in King Henry VI, Part 3[7] (see below) and in Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour.

Pembroke's army was about a thousand men smaller than York's and, being untried in battle at that point, may not have originally planned to fight but by midday it was clear that they would have to in order to cross the Lugg.

Pembroke faced Edward's centre division and was held off but, most decisively, Owen Tudor attempted an encirclement of the Yorkist left wing; his ‘battle’ was defeated and a rout commenced.

[5] The battle having intruded on York's plans to march to the midlands, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, with the captive King Henry in his train, was meanwhile forced to move to block Margaret's army's route to London on his own.

The Lancastrians fell back through Dunstable, losing many Scots and Borderers who deserted and returned home with the plunder they had already gathered.