Quote Originally Posted by Aedilred View Post
Mark Twain has a lot to answer for.

Although this does remind me of something I've wondered about for years: the Earl of Warwick at the battle of Barnet. Schoolboy history has it that he fell from his horse and his armour was so heavy he couldn't get up again and was killed on the ground. But this is the same schoolboy history that confuses tournament armour with field armour, that's the product of generations of Whig historians assuming everyone in the Middle Ages was basically an idiot, and so on.

I mean, apart from anything else, Warwick supposedly killed his horse at Towton to inspire the men, and fought on on foot. So either in the intervening ten years he started wearing much heavier armour for some reason, or the Barnet story is a pack of lies.

Basically, the Warwick story just doesn't sound realistic, but it's the only version of the event I've heard. Does anyone know of another more likely/accepted interpretation?
Not sure about which specific source to look at for "schoolboy history". My initial thought was that it wasn't his armor's weight that kept him from getting up, but rather some enemies. The wikipedia article about the battle seems to agree:
Regardless of the king's intent, other Yorkist soldiers, perhaps ignorant of the order, found Warwick first. They pulled him down, pried open his visor, and fatally stabbed him through the neck. Edward's guards found Warwick's corpse, mutilated and stripped of its gilded armour.
Getting pulled down, and hold down, sounds much more reasonable than falling and being unable to get back up.