In his seminal work ‘The End of the House of Lancaster’ Professor R. L. Storey places the beginning of the Wars of the Roses firmly in the period July/August 1453 and attributes its origins to the rising tensions between the Neville and Percy families in Yorkshire during that summer. This ignores a far more violent feud between two altogether more powerful cousins, both closely related to the Nevilles, which had raged in south Wales over the issue of regional supremacy during the previous fifteen months. The noble rivalry in the north came to a head with an attempt by Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont, to intercept a Neville wedding party on its way back to Sheriff Hutton from Tattersall castle in
