I have not had access to any records which shew whether our town took any very active part, or in what measure they suffered in consequence, in this fatal and disastrous strife; but it is scarcely possible that such great battles should have been fought in this and the adjoining counties, as _Mortimer’s Cross_, _Tewksbury_, and _Ludlow_, without Bridgnorth being more or less affected by them. I have little doubt that the state of decay and ruin, in which parts of the town were found some years afterwards, is to be traced to these civil contests. This is noticed in an Act of Parliament, passed in the year 1535. It recites that “many houses, messuages, and tenements of habitation, in the town of Bridgnorth, now are, and have of a long time been, in great ruin and decay, and specially in the principal and chief streets there being; in the which chief streets in time passed have been beautiful dwelling houses there, well inhabited, which at this day much part thereof is desolate and void grounds, with pits, cellars, and vaults lying open and uncovered, very perilous for people to go by in the night, without jeopardy of life, which things are to the great impoverishing and hindrance of the said town.” (_History of Shrewsbury, Vol. 1, p. 318._) These wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, which spread such ruin over the land, did not cease till after the battle of Bosworth Field, and the accession of the house of Tudor to the throne, in the person of Henry VII; and with this latter event, a very important one in English history, Bridgnorth was accidentally connected.