King Henry VI. was descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of King Edward III., and the persons supporting the claim of the House of Lancaster to the throne, were from that circumstance called Lancastrians. {22a} On the other hand, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, with the assistance of some of his powerful relations and connections, was cautiously but vigilantly taking measures calculated to secure his accession to the crown, although at first he did not openly bring forward his pretensions to it. They were founded upon the fact of the Duke of York’s being descended from Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son of King Edward III.; {22b} and the adherents and supporters of the Duke of York, and of his sons after his death, received the appellation of Yorkists. The adverse parties encountered each other at St. Alban’s on the 22nd {23a} of May, 1455, where a battle was fought, and the Duke of York obtained the victory. A hollow and ineffectual truce, and an outward reconciliation, ensued, only to be broken in rather more than four years afterwards, when the hostile parties once more took up arms, and at Blore Heath, on the borders of Staffordshire, again met in mortal conflict. Blore Heath, celebrated for the battle fought in 1459, is in the parish of Drayton in Hales, or Market Drayton, on the high road leading from the small market town of Drayton, towards Newcastle. It is in Staffordshire, two miles and a half distant from Drayton, and about two miles from the division of the counties of Shropshire and Staffordshire. It is eight miles and a half distant from Eccleshall, and is, as Stow in his _Annals_ correctly states, near Mucklestone, being only one mile and a half from the latter place. The town of Drayton is in Shropshire; but the parish of Market Drayton, or Drayton in Hales, comprises parts both of Shropshire and Staffordshire, and includes Blore Heath, which, though formerly a heath, is now completely enclosed and cultivated. In the autumn of 1459, Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury {24a} marched from Middleham Castle, in Yorkshire, with a considerable army, in support of the cause of the Duke of York, and entered Staffordshire with the ultimate intention of effecting a junction at Ludlow, with Richard Neville Earl of Warwick, called the King Maker, {24b} and also with the Duke of York, who had collected an army in Herefordshire, and in the marches of Wales. The Earl of Salisbury, and his son the Earl of Warwick, were noblemen of very great power and possessions, and were then the principal leaders of the Duke of York’s party, and abettors of the scheme of deposing King Henry VI., and placing the Duke of York upon the throne of England.