None of them seem to find anything remotely odd about this, but I do.

It is definitely NOT normal, so far as I'm aware, to bury a man with his pets in the 1460s, and it seems odd on a couple of other points as well.

First off, as far as I'm aware, Lord Dacre dies from a crossbow bolt to the head when he falls back out of the fighting and takes his helmet off to take a drink. Nothing I've heard in any way suggests he's even on a horse, let alone that it dies as a result of this.

Second, you've got quite enough dead humans to bury at Towton. Who's going to worry about a horse, which is going to need a damn big pit anyway!

Anyone else have any ideas here, or just think it's plain odd?

I don't know if there's an inscription on the tomb, and if so, whether it explains the presence of the horse, but if all else fails, I'll pop up there one day and look.

I seem to recall reading that the horse was a ruse to dig a whacking great pit, and that there's someone else in the grave with him and the horse. Can't recall who it might be though.

Clifford is the fellow that murdered the Earl of Rutland (Edward IV's younger brother Edmund) on Wakefield bridge. If I remember, it is rumored that Clifford was buried there so as the Yorkist would not exact revenge on his body after death.

Is there a source for it? Otherwise, it sounds worryingly like one of those "urban myths" that grow up to explain why something odd (like somebody being buried with his horse)happened.

I'd have thought that it was easier to simply slip Clifford into Dacre's grave and put Dacre on top of him, rather than drawing attention to it by digging a fragging enormous pit, but maybe they thought not.

As far as desecrating Dacre's body goes....don't the yorkists end up in possession of the battlefeild, and therefore presumably the bodies of any casulaties, including Dacre? And as far as I recall, don't the yorkists actually capture and execute Clifford?

Yes, corpse layering would be easier, but not much of a deterent for those looking to exact revenge. Try exuming a rather large and foul smelling equine cadaver however, and I think it would be a much different story.

I don't know the circumstances surrounding Dacre's demise. I believe Clifford was killed on the field, but I think his body was spirited away as I have heard they [Yorkists] never found his body.

The Forensic specialist who made the commentary had worked on a series of gang murders in Northern CA, where the victims had been buried in the same grave as a horse. The specialist noted that it was a very successful ploy to discourage casual exhumation, and so made the speculation that the horse may well have been buried to cover up a burial that would otherwise have been legaly allowed, and Lord Clifford fit the bill, due to the probable treatment his cadaver would have recieved - due to his commonly believed cold-blooded killing of the kings brother, Edmund, Earl of Rutland at Wakefield. Also, Cliffords grave was never reported.

Speculation, but fairly decent considering the extremely unusual burial.

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Tanc, ole pal, you have an unnatural pre-occupation with professional women that I don't think your good wife would approve of. May be in your neighborhood next weekend. You actually gonna be home so we can drop by and tell her what a sleaze you are?

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