Lost Legend of the Thryberg Hawk

Marksmanship skills honed to perfection, driven by necessity and desperation, Edmund Hawksworth hunted with his crossbow to keep his ailing mother alive, only to have her die in his arms. Deserted by his father who had left to fight the Lancastrian cause, the embittered and determined lad set out on a mission of vengeance and became embroiled in the bitter struggle for the throne of England between the Houses of Lancaster and York. There were those in 1461 who avowed that Edmund had been divinely chosen and anointed to be the Avenger of Righteous Blood – something the boy himself never claimed. What is certain, in command of the Wespen (Wasps), an élite unit of crossbow mercenaries, he turned events in York’s favor at the decisive Battle of Towton.

Despite protests from Yorkist lords, King Edward IV (himself a youth of eighteen), gave the accolade to the former herder of pigs from Thryberg declaring him to be ‘The truest and most loyal knight in all England’. With the end of the Plantagenet dynasty and the ascent of the Lancastrian Tudors the many stories of the Yorkist boy hero were suppressed. However, for fifty years fanciful tales of ‘The Hawk’ lingered on in the towns and villages of the West Riding of Yorkshire until in 1509 Edmund’s brother arrived in chains at Conisbrough Castle. Before his burning in Doncaster Fish Market the condemned heretic tells the true story of the Lost Legend of the Hawk.