Of those destructive wars, the battle of Shrewsbury in the reign of Henry IV., in 1403, may be considered in some degree as the first; because it was the earliest attempt by an appeal to arms, to remove from the throne a monarch of the House of Lancaster; {v} and the last was the battle of Stoke, fought in 1487, in the reign of Henry VII.; that of Bosworth, in which, by the death of Richard III., the Plantagenet dynasty terminated, being often erroneously called the last; but, although the latter certainly placed the House of Tudor upon the throne, the crown was secured to it by the battle of Stoke, when the partisans of the House of York, under John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, made their final but unsuccessful appeal to arms, in hopes of regaining the ascendency, which that party had formerly enjoyed. These sanguinary conflicts are usually called the Wars of the Roses, from the circumstance, that the supporters of the House of York assumed the badge or device of the White Rose, and those of Lancaster the Red Rose. It has been remarked with great truth, by Sir John Fenn, the antiquary, {vi1} in adverting to that disastrous period, “That our own kingdom has fewer authentic records of the transactions, during the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III., than of any other later period of our history, is a truth known to and lamented by every man of historical knowledge.” He ascribes the deficiency of information, amongst other causes, to the invention of printing; which at first sight appears to be a paradox, because such an invention seems to be calculated to favour universal knowledge:—“At the beginning of the art of printing, those who practised it, were solicitous to perpetuate things already committed to writing, relative to past times, and past occurrences, not regarding recent transactions as of equal consequence. This art likewise probably prevented the writers of manuscripts from multiplying their copies; they foreseeing that the new invention would in time, supply a sufficient number, at a much less price, by which means, the value of their manual labour would be greatly diminished.” {vi2} Notwithstanding, however, the scanty nature of the historical accounts handed down to us, some information of value has reached us; and the fields of battle, and the positions of the hostile armies, may in several instances, be clearly identified, after a perusal of the statements of the old chroniclers, and a comparison of their descriptions with the present aspect of the localities where the battles were fought.