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) finest ever production of the tetralogy; reviewing Michael Boyd's 2000/2001 production for the RSC, Carole Woddis wrote "The Wars of the Roses" "remains still the benchmark in terms of political and psychological elucidation and drive." In 1965, BBC 1 broadcast all three plays from the trilogy. Directed for television by Robin Midgley and Michael Hayes, the plays were presented as more than simply filmed theatre, with the core idea being "to recreate theatre production in televisual terms - not merely to observe it, but to get to the heart of it." Filming was done on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre stage,