Battle of Shrewsbury anniversary marked with new portrait - but no reenactment this year
Today marks the 621st anniversary of the famous Battle of Shrewsbury - but for the first time in years, there won't be a reenactment in the county this summer.
In a battle believed to have been fought at the area now named Battlefield in the county town, on July 21, 1403, an army led by the Lancastrian King Henry IV defeated Henry 'Harry Hotspur' Percy's rebels.
The battle was the first in which English archers fought each other on English soil, and ended the Percy challenge to King Henry IV of England. Hotspur - immortalised by Shakespeare and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club - was killed during the battle, said to be shot in the face with an arrow when he opened his helmet's visor.
The leader of the rebel army from Northumberland was said to be initially buried in Whitchurch, Shropshire before rumours spread that he was not really dead, and so the King had him disinterred. His body was set up in Shrewsbury, impaled on a spear, and later quartered and put on display in Chester, London, Bristol and Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
