have been smaller, it would have been better armed than Egremont's York craftsmen and tradesmen. Salisbury and his retinue fought them back, arriving unscathed at Sheriff Hutton, but the episode marked the beginning of what was virtually a private war. The bride, Maud Stanhope, was the widow of Lord Willoughby of Eresby, his son would become a Yorkist. Another of the Yorkist party, John Neville, was later Lord Montagu. Maud was due to inherit the manors of Wressle and Burwell from her uncle, Lord Cromwell, who had obtained them from the Percys through litigation. Historian John Sadler argues this was the first incident in the Yorkist/Lancastrian affinities lawless squabble leading to civil war. Neville and York Salisbury changed his allegiance to Richard, Duke of York, who made him Lord Chancellor in 1455. This enabled Salisbury to advance the interests of his retainers against the Percies; for example Thomas de la More petitioned against Lord Egremont, whom de la More claimed had threatened to kill him years earlier. When King Henry VI tried to assert his independence and dismiss York as Protector, Salisbury joined him in fighting at the First Battle of St Albans, claiming that he was acting in self-defence. In 1458 he participated in The Love Day, an attempt at reconciliation held in London. He was notably successful in the Battle of Blore Heath, but after the Yorkist army collapsed in the Rout of Ludford Bridge, Salisbury escaped to Calais, having been specifically excluded from a royal pardon. He returned to England with York in 1460, and was slain on 30–31 December 1460, the night after the Battle of Wakefield. Death and burial After the defeat of the Yorkists at the Battle of Wakefield, Salisbury himself escaped the battlefield but was captured during the night. Upon discovery, battle-worn and now a traitor to the realm, he was taken to the Lancastrian camp. Although due to his great wealth, the Lancastrian nobles might have been prepared to allow Salisbury to ransom himself, he was nevertheless dragged out of Pontefract Castle and beheaded by the local population, to whom he had been a harsh overlord. He was buried first at Pontefract, but his sons transferred his body to the family mausoleum at Bisham Priory in Berkshire where they erected a monument to his memory. The effigy from this was brought to St Mary's Church at Burghfield, near Reading, after the Dissolution