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Ascot Race Plate: the Ascot Cup, 1874. 'The Ascot Cup of this year was a gold vase designed and modelled by Mr. W. F. Spencer, and manufactured by Messrs. R. and S. Garrard and Co., of the Haymarket. Its design is in the cinque-cento or sixteenth-century Italian style. The bas-relief sculptures, on one side, represent the first incident in the history of the English Wars of the Roses. The implacable rival party chiefs, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and John Beaufort, Earl or Duke of Somerset, are met, with their adherents, in the Temple-gardens. They pluck each a rose, the white rose for York, the red one for the champion of Lancaster, to serve as the badge and token of their opposing claims. This is done in scene iv. act ii. of Shakspeare's "King Henry VI." part i. The sculpture on the other side displays the fierce battle of Bosworth, and King Richard III., on his war-horse, fighting with desperate fury, which could not avert his deserved fate on that memorable day. The vase is surmounted by a group which represents Lord Stanley crowning Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, as King Henry VII. The shields bear the heraldic arms of the great noblemen engaged in those wars, and the handles are figures personifying the ravages of Fire and Sword'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874. Creator: Unknown. (Photo by The Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Images)