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:
The Wars of the Roses (adaptation) become more aware of Shakespeare's political absorption and inspired interpretations of man's difficulty in governing himself and others." Barton and Hall were also influenced by certain politically focused literary theory of the time; both were subscribers to Antonin Artaud's theory of the "Theatre of Cruelty", and both had attended the 1956 London visit of Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble. Brecht's influence on "The Wars of the Roses" was especially pronounced, and many scholars have since cited Brecht's theories on drama in general, and historical drama in specific, as the impetus behind the 'rediscovery' of the "Henry VI" plays in the 1960s.