On 17 February 1461 the Second Battle of St Albans on Bernards Heath north of the town centre resulted in a Lancastrian victory.

Tewkesbury Abbey was just behind the Lancastrian centre.

A farmhouse then known as Gobes Hall marked the centre of the Lancastrian position ; nearby was " Margaret's camp ", earthworks of uncertain age.

* 1471-a brass plate on the floor in the centre of the sanctuary marks the grave of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, the son of King Henry VI and end of the Lancastrian line, who was killed in the Battle of Tewkesbury-the only Prince of Wales ever to die in battle.

After the defeat, Somerset and other Lancastrian leaders took refuge in Tewkesbury Abbey but they were forced from sanctuary two days later, tried and executed immediately, at the Cross in the centre of Tewkesbury.

The First Battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455 was a Lancastrian defeat that opened the war.

The castle was the subject of the six-month long Siege of Kenilworth in 1266, believed to be the longest siege in English history, and formed a base for Lancastrian operations in the War of the Roses.

Henry Tudor was able to establish himself as a candidate not only of the traditional Lancastrian supporters, but of discontented supporters of the rival House of York, and rose to capture the throne in battle, becoming Henry VII.

Tudor was the son of Welsh courtier Owen Tudor () and Katherine of Valois, widowed Queen Consort of the Lancastrian King Henry V. Edmund Tudor and his siblings were either illegitimate, or the product of a secret marriage, and owed their fortunes to the good will of their legitimate half-brother King Henry VI.

" It was enlarged in 1567, and in its present shape has 28 Esses ( the Lancastrian ‘ S ’), the Tudor rose, the tasselled knots of the Garter and also the portcullis.

In 1399, both Henry's grandfather and King Richard II died, bringing the Lancastrian usurpation that brought Henry's father to the throne, and Henry was recalled from Ireland into prominence as heir to the Kingdom of England.

The first half of his rule was marred by the violence associated with the Wars of the Roses, but he overcame the Lancastrian challenge to this throne at Tewkesbury in 1471 to reign in peace until his sudden death.

Edward strengthened his claim with a decisive victory at the Battle of Towton in the same year, in the course of which the Lancastrian army was virtually wiped out.

This time, Edward was forced to flee when he learned that Warwick's brother, John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu, had also switched to the Lancastrian side, making Edward's military position untenable.

The Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was killed on the battlefield.

One contemporary chronicle claimed that his death was due to " melancholy ," but it is widely suspected that Edward ordered Henry's murder in order to completely remove the Lancastrian opposition.

Edward did not face any further rebellions after his restoration, as the Lancastrian line had virtually been extinguished, and the only rival left was Henry Tudor, who was living in exile.

She was one of the principal figures in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses and at times personally led the Lancastrian faction.

Margaret was taken prisoner by the victorious Yorkists after the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury.

" York apparently was prepared for conflict and soon was marching south to meet the Lancastrian army marching north.

While she was attempting to raise further support for the Lancastrian cause in Scotland, her principal commander, Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, gained a major victory for her at the Battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460 by defeating the combined armies of the Duke of York and the Earl of Salisbury.

The Lancastrian army was beaten at the Battle of Towton on 29 March 1461 by the son of the late Duke of York, Edward IV of England, who deposed King Henry and proclaimed himself king.

Margaret was forced to lead her own army at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, at which the Lancastrian forces were defeated and her seventeen-year old son was killed.

Hugh Despenser the elder had been captured at Bristol, and despite some attempts by Isabella to protect him, was promptly executed by his Lancastrian enemies – his body was hacked to pieces and fed to the local dogs.

In about 1452, she married Sir John Grey of Groby, who was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461, fighting for the Lancastrian cause, which would become a source of irony as Edward IV was the Yorkist claimant to the throne.

The left battle was commanded by the Earl of Devon, another devoted Lancastrian.

The most dangerous Lancastrian force however, was that commanded by the Bastard of Fauconberg.

In 1464, he commanded a Yorkist force that turned the tables on a Lancastrian ambush at the Battle of Hedgeley Moor, and launched a surprise attack at the Battle of Hexham.

At the Battle of Tewkesbury ( 4 May 1471 ), he commanded the right of the Lancastrian forces and led a fierce charge against the Yorkist Lord Hastings in Red Pierce Meadow.

Upon seeing the Yorkist advance the right detachment of the Lancastrian army, commanded by Lord Roos, turned and fled across the Devil's Water and into Hexham, before a single blow had been struck.

At the Battle of Barnet Exeter commanded the Lancastrian left flank.

Lord Audley, who commanded the Lancastrian forces was defeated and slain.

He commanded the Lancastrian van at the Battle of Towton on March 29, 1461, in which he was slain fighting.

When Warwick reached the Lancastrian right flank, commanded by Lord Grey of Ruthin, treachery ensued.

There he met a Lancastrian army of five thousand men commanded by Somerset.

In the opening phase of the Wars of the Roses he raised troops from his estates in Cheshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire and commanded the Lancastrian force that moved to block the Yorkist Earl of Salisbury's route to Ludlow where he intended linking up with the rest of the Yorkist army.

* 1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his Yorkist cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV.

By marrying Richard III's niece, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII successfully bolstered his own disputed claim to the throne, whilst moving to end the Wars of the Roses by presenting England with a new dynasty, of both Lancastrian and Yorkist descent.

Yorkists were tied so much to the old order that Catholic rebellions ( such as the Pilgrimage of Grace ) and aspirations ( exemplified by William Allen ( cardinal )) were seen as continuing in their reactionary footsteps, when in opposition to the Tudors ' reformation policies, although the Tudors were not uniformly Protestant according to Continental definition — instead were true to their Lancastrian Beaufort allegiance, in the appointment of Reginald Pole.

* February 17 – Second Battle of St Albans, England: The Earl of Warwick's army is defeated by a Lancastrian force under Queen Margaret, who recovers control of her husband.

* May 15 – Battle of Hexham: Montague defeats another Lancastrian army, this one led by King Henry and Queen Margaret themselves.

Edward then alienated Warwick by secretly marrying Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a Lancastrian sympathiser, in 1464.

After the Battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461, during the Wars of the Roses, the defeated Lancastrian leader Owen Tudor ( grandfather of the future Henry VII of England ) was taken to Hereford by Sir Roger Vaughan and executed in High Town.

Warwick landed in the West Country on 13 September 1470, accompanied by Clarence and some unswerving Lancastrian nobles, including the Earl of Oxford and Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke.

As they moved towards the Lancastrian position, King Edward's army found that the ground was so broken up by woods, ditches and embankments that it was difficult to attack in any sort of order.

The young king, however, favoured ties with Burgundy, and in 1464 further angered the earl by secretly marrying Elizabeth Woodville ; as an impoverished Lancastrian widow, she was regarded by the Yorkists as an unsuitable queen.

In a deal brokered by the French king Louis XI, the earl agreed to serve Margaret and the Lancastrian cause.

Warwick invaded England at the head of a Lancastrian army, and in October 1470 forced Edward to seek refuge in Burgundy, then ruled by the king's brother-in-law Charles the Bold.

They later proceeded by ship to Scotland, where Margaret gained troops and other aid for the Lancastrian cause from the Queen and Regent, Mary of Guelders, in return for the surrender of the town and castle of Berwick upon Tweed.

In a stratagem possibly devised by the veteran Andrew Trollope, half the Lancastrian army under Somerset and Clifford advanced openly towards Sandal Castle, over the open space known as " Wakefield Green " between the castle and the River Calder, while the remainder under Ros and the Earl of Wiltshire were concealed in the woods surrounding the area.

Although the Lancastrian nobles might have been prepared to allow Salisbury to ransom himself, he was dragged out of Pontefract Castle and beheaded by local commoners, to whom he had been a harsh overlord.