First Battle of St. Albans

"We must not tarry," said Margaret; "let us part here — you for Dijon — I to Aix, my abode of unrest in Provence. Farewell — we may meet in a better hour — yet how can I hope it? Thus I said on the morning before the fight of St. Albans — thus on the dark dawning of Towton — thus on the yet more bloody field of Tewkesbury — and what was the event? Yet hope is a plant which cannot be rooted out of a noble breast, till the last heart-string crack as it is pulled away."

There were two battles fought at St. Albans during the Wars of the Roses.  The first occurred this day, May 22nd, in the year 1455.  This battle ended in victory for the Yorkists, under Duke of Warwick Richard Neville.  Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset led the defeated Lancastrians.

The text above is from Sir Walter Scott's "Anne of Geierstein".  Margaret of Anjou, wife of Lancastrian King Henry VI of England speaks in this passage.  Margaret was actually present at the Second Battle of St. Albans, which occurred in 1461; also Towton and Tewkesbury, as Scott credits her in her speech.