Battle of Barnet in the context of "Battle of Tewkesbury"

Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, 6th Earl of Salisbury, KG (22 November 1428 – 14 April 1471), known as Warwick the Kingmaker, was an English nobleman, administrator, landowner of the House of Neville fortune and military commander. The eldest son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, he became Earl of Warwick through marriage, and was the wealthiest and most powerful English peer of his age, with political connections that went beyond the country's borders. One of the leaders in the Wars of the Roses, originally on the Yorkist side but later switching to the Lancastrian side, he was instrumental in the deposition of two kings, which led to his epithet of "Kingmaker".

Through fortunes of marriage and inheritance, Warwick emerged in the 1450s at the centre of English politics. Originally, he was a supporter of King Henry VI; however, a territorial dispute with Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, led him to collaborate with Richard, Duke of York, in opposing the king. From this conflict, he gained the strategically valuable post of Captain of Calais, a position that benefited him greatly in the years to come. The political conflict later turned into a full-scale rebellion, where in battle York was slain, as was Warwick's father Salisbury. York's son, however, later triumphed with Warwick's assistance and was crowned King Edward IV. Edward initially ruled with Warwick's support, but the two later fell out over foreign policy and the king's choice to marry Elizabeth Woodville. After a failed plot to crown Edward's brother, George, Duke of Clarence, Warwick instead restored Henry VI to the throne. The triumph was short-lived, however: on 14 April 1471, Warwick was defeated by Edward at the Battle of Barnet, and killed.

Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England fought between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions between 1455 and 1487.

Edward inherited the Yorkist claim to the throne at the age of eighteen when his father, Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. After defeating Lancastrian armies at Mortimer's Cross and Towton in early 1461, he deposed King Henry VI and took the throne. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 led to conflict with his chief advisor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the "Kingmaker". In 1470, a revolt led by Warwick and Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, briefly re-installed Henry VI. Edward fled to Flanders, where he gathered support and invaded England in March 1471; after victories at the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury (where both the Earl of Warwick and Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, were killed), he resumed the throne. Shortly afterwards, Henry VI was found dead in the Tower of London, possibly killed on Edward's orders.

Sir John Savage, KG, KB, PC (1444–1492), was an English knight of the Savage family, who was a noted military commander of the late 15th-century. Savage most notably fought at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where he commanded the left flank of the Tudor (Lancastrian) army to victory and is said to have personally slain the Duke of Norfolk in single combat. Earlier in the Wars of the Roses, Savage had been a supporter and friend of the Yorkist King Edward IV, fighting alongside him and helping him to victories at the Battle of Barnet in April 1471 and the Battle of Tewkesbury the following month. He returned to active military service in 1482 when he joined the invasion of Scotland led by the King's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, where the Duke made him a Knight banneret.

However, following the death of Edward and the Duke of Gloucester's ascension to the throne as Richard III, the Savage family was viewed with suspicion due to their familial connection to the Stanleys, who were in turn connected to the Tudors. Consequently, Savage was one of the prominent figures who invited Henry Tudor to invade England in 1485, a struggle which culminated in the Battle of Bosworth Field. After his victory, Henry Tudor received the circlet of Richard from Savage's uncle, Lord Stanley, and was crowned King of England on the field of battle, taking the throne as Henry VII of England.