Battle of Shrewsbury: Henry IV Crushes the Percy Rebellion
Three thousand men died in three hours at Shrewsbury—England's bloodiest battle per minute until the Somme. Henry "Hotspur" Percy, the king's former ally who'd helped him seize the throne four years earlier, led the rebel army. He took an arrow to the face. The king's own son, sixteen-year-old Prince Hal—the future Henry V—fought with an arrow lodged in his cheek for hours. A surgeon spent weeks extracting it with custom tools. The battle proved gunpowder weapons worked: both sides used early cannon. Nothing ends a civil war faster than killing the charismatic rebel in the first afternoon.
July 21, 1403
623 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 21
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