In 1870, poet Walter White wrote a piece describing one of the most horrific clashes of arms on English soil:

"Palm Sunday chimes were chiming

All gladsome thro' the air,

And village churls and maidens

Knelt in the church at pray'r;

When the Red Rose and the White Rose

In furious battle reel'd;

And yeomen fought like barons,

And barons died ere yield.

When mingling with the snow-storm,

The storm of arrows flew;

And York against proud Lancaster

His ranks of spearmen threw.

When thunder-like the uproar

Outshook from either side,

As hand to hand they battled

From morn to eventide.

When the river ran all gory,

And in hillocks lay the dead,

And seven and thirty thousand

Fell for the White and Red.

When o'er the Bar of Micklegate

They changed each ghastly head,

Set Lancaster upon the spikes

Where York had bleached and bled.

There still wild roses growing,

Frail tokens of the fray -

And the hedgerow green bear witness

Of Towton field that day.”

When the Battle of Towton took place on Palm Sunday in 1461 near a small village in Yorkshire, it was the largest and bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. Towton was one of the battles of the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars ravaging England from 1455-1487. These marked the longest period England has been in unrest, surpassing the 12th century civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda (Maud), which lasted 15 years.

Today, roses are a sign of love and luxury, but for over 30 years they provided the symbols for two houses at war for control of the English throne. Thousands of people died and many more were injured fighting beneath the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, and the noble families ruling England tore each other apart in a struggle that was as bitter as it was bloody. Though what followed was a period of strong rule under the Tudors monarchs, it ultimately came at a terrible cost, and even then, it was through Elizabeth of York that the Tudor line received its legitimacy. After all, while Henry VII won his throne in battle, Elizabeth of York was the daughter of King Edward IV of England, a Yorkist monarch.

Indeed, the Wars of the Roses were perfect material for a drama about greed, power, and ambition, and many others followed Shakespeare's example. From Henry Payne's painting of a Shakespearean scene in which the two sides of the war are picked to John Everett Millais's mournful portrait of the Princes in the Tower, these pictures often evoke the tension and sorrow of the period, bringing it dramatically to life.

Meanwhile, excitement over the real history of the period reached a peak in late 2012 and early 2013 when Richard III's long-lost remains were found by archaeologists. The once proud king was found beneath a parking lot after the church in which he had been buried had been destroyed. This provoked a new rash of books about Richard, as well as a dispute over where his remains should be reburied. Centuries later, passions can still run high about the House of York.

The decisive Battle of Towton, in which an estimated 60,000 men fought, would become the stuff of legends, but more importantly, it resulted in the English throne changing hands and permanently altered the course of the Wars of the Roses. Ironically, the Wars of the Roses would end with an altogether different family dynasty taking power.