Wars of the Roses show their loyalty to the Lancastrian or Yorkist faction respectively. It is often suggested by literary critics that Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has strong allegorical references to the conflict with York represented by the White Queen and Lancaster represented by the Red Queen. The Yorkist faction used the symbol of the white rose from early in the conflict, but the Lancastrian red rose was apparently introduced only after the victory of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth, when it was combined with the Yorkist white rose to form the Tudor rose, which symbolised the union of the
The Rose of Castille Vienna, Saint Petersburg and Trieste. In 1857, he returned to London and composed six new English operas for the Pyne-Harrison Opera Company, founded by the soprano Louisa Pyne and the tenor William Harrison, which after touring Britain for four years had sailed for New York in 1854. "The Rose of Castille" was the first and most successful of these operas, and the only one to premiere at the Lyceum before the company moved (via Drury Lane) to the rebuilt Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where the remaining five premiered between 1858 and 1863. "The Rose of Castille" was composed in