The two variations represented here are based on the reconstruction of a skeleton recovered from a mass grave pit adjacent to the battlefield of Towton in Yorkshire. All the bodies displayed signs of  violent death including possible mutilation.

This battle, fought in March 1461 is recorded as being the bloodiest on British soil and could be considered a ' grudge match ' between the Yorkists under the young Edward of March and the Lancastrian forces who had so recently been involved in the killing of his father the Duke of York and brother Edmund of Rutland.

Skeleton 16 was found to be a robustly built male, well into middle age whose face bore a fearsome, but long healed scar. Studies believe that this man was a soldier of long standing, a likely veteran of the latter years of the Hundred Years War, who, with his companions was slaughtered in the aftermath of the battle and then ignominiously buried without the apparent respect normally given the dead. For this reason it is assumed that the man was one of the defeated Lancastrians.

The two variations of the figure are both wearing the livery of Lord Clifford, a Lancastrian commander killed in the battle. One figure is equipped as a vintner of billmen with three quarter plate armour whilst the second figure shows him as a vintner of bowmen, with mail, brigandine and a plate 'placarte' to protect his abdomen.

The artist felt that after so many hundreds of years in an unmarked grave this man deserved the respect of some image to his memory and those who fell with him.