On receiving intelligence of the victory at Dintingdale and the recovery of Ferrybridge, Edward hastened to pass the Aire, leading the centre of the Yorkist army, while the right wing was headed by Warwick, and the rear brought up by Sir John Denham, a veteran warrior who had ever adhered to the Yorkist cause, and Sir John Wenlock, who had once already changed sides to his profit, and was to do so again to his loss. As the day was drawing to a close the Yorkists reached Saxton, a village little more than a mile south from Towton, and, on their coming in sight of the Lancastrian host, the northern and southern armies expressed the intense hatred they felt for each other by a long yell of defiance. At the same time Edward caused proclamation to be made, in the hearing of both, that, on his side, no prisoners should be taken and no quarter given; and Somerset immediately ordered a similar proclamation to be made in the name of the Lancastrian chiefs. All that cold March night the hostile armies prepared for the combat, and on the morning of the 29th of March--it was that of Palm Sunday--Yorkist and Lancastrian sprang to arms. As the warriors of the Roses approached each other snow began to fall heavily, and, from having the wind in their faces, the Lancastrians were much inconvenienced by the flakes being blown in their eyes. Falconbridge, prompt to avail himself of such a circumstance, caused the archers in the Yorkist van to advance, send a flight of arrows among their antagonists, and then draw back to await the result. Galled by this discharge, the Lancastrians, who formed the van of the queen's army, bent their bows in retaliation; but, blinded by snow, they shot at random, and the shafts fell forty yards short of their adversaries. Northumberland, the grandson of Hotspur, and Andrew Trollope, that "terrible man-at-arms," did not relish this inauspicious opening of the battle. Perceiving that at a distance they were fighting at disadvantage, Trollope and the earl ordered the men to draw their blades, to rush forward, and to close with the foe. An unexpected obstacle, however, presented itself to the assailants; for the northern men, finding their feet entangled in their own shafts that stuck in the ground, came to a halt; and the Yorkists, galling their adversaries with another shower of arrows, threw them into confusion, and drove them precipitately back on the main body of the Lancastrians.