a. and sb. [f. Lancaster + -IAN. Cf. YORKIST.]
A. adj. Pertaining to the English royal family which based its title on its descent from John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster (died 1399), or to the party (whose emblem was the Red Rose) that supported this family in the Wars of the Roses.
1828–40. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), I. 145. For his good service in the destruction of the Lancastrian faction.
1861. Sat. Rev., 21 Dec., 643. The deaths of the Lancastrian Princes did not … open to him a near prospect of the crown.
B. sb.
1. An adherent of the house of Lancaster; one of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses.
1838. Penny Cycl., XII. 129/1. Henry VI. was after his death revered as a martyr by the Lancastrians.
2. A native of Lancashire.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. VI. cxiii. 627. The difference between a Yorkshireman and a Lancastrian.
Also † Lancastrist = prec. B. 1.
1654. Vilvain, Epit. Ess., IV. 66. Yorkists and Lancastrists on English land Darraind twelv cruel conflicts.
