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.

Edward IV of England

Edward IV's reign is known mainly for the Wars of the Roses.  He was crowned in 1461, during this time of strife between the houses of York and Lancaster.  Edward inherited a right to the throne when his father Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield.  Edward was crowned in London, in 1461, thanks to the efforts of his cousin Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who gained control of the city while Henry VI was embroiled in battle in the north of England.  Scott references Edward's life in his "The Lord of the Isles".  Scott provides a note to canto 1 including the following:
 
"...From this castle of Artornish, upon the 19th day of Octoher, 1461, John de Yle, designing himself Earl of Ross, and Lord of the Isles, granted, in the style of an independent sovereign, a commission to his trusty and well-beloved cousins, Ronald of the Isles, and Duncan, Arch-Dean of the Isles, for empowering them to enter into a treaty with the most excellent Prince Edward, by the grace of God, King of France and England, and Lord of Ireland. Edward IV., on his part, named Laurence, Bishop of Durham, the Earl of Worcester, the Prior of St. John's, Lord Wenlock, and Mr. Robert Stillington, keeper of the privy seal, his deputies and commissioners, to confer with those named by the Lord of the Isles. The conference terminated in a treaty, by which the Lord of the Isles agreed to become a vassal to the crown of England, and to assist Edward IV. and James, Earl of Douglas, then in banishment, in subduing the realm of Scotland.


The first article provides, that John de Isle, Earl of Ross, with his son, Donald Balloch, and his grandson, John de Isle, with all their subjects, men, people, and inhabitants, become vassals and liegemen to Edward IV of England, and assist Him in his wars in Scotland or Ireland; and then follow the allowances to he made to the Lord of the Isles, in recompense of his military service, and the provisions for dividing such conquests as their united arms should make upon the mainland of Scotland among the confederates..."