The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses Black Arrow" appeared in "Young Folks" (October 1883): The Battle of Shoreby, a fictitious battle that is the main event of Book 5, is modelled after the First Battle of St Albans in the Wars of the Roses. This battle in history as in the novel was a victory for the House of York. The presence of an abbey church in Shoreby is reminiscent of the abbey church of Tewkesbury to which the Lancastrians fled for sanctuary after the battle on 4 May 1471. In the "prologue" Stevenson intimates that the Tunstall of "The Black Arrow" is a real place:
Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland on attending parliament accompanied by a large force of men in February, and three months later both he and the earl were summoned by the king to attend council in attempt to impose a peace; a second letter was "written but not despatched". Neither, along with John Neville or Salisbury, did as requested. During the Wars of the Roses, Percy followed his father in siding with the Lancastrians against the Yorkists. The Earl himself died at what is generally considered to be the first battle of the wars, at St Alban's on 22 May 1455, and Poynings was elevated as