sb. (a.) [f. YORK sb. (see below) + -IST.]
1. An adherent of the house of York, the English royal family which based its title on its descent from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and Edmund, Duke of York (died 1402), the third and the fifth son of Edw. III.; or one of the party (whose emblem was the White Rose) which supported this family in the Wars of the Roses.
1601. Weever, Mirr. Mart., C v. Then high-resolued Hotspur,… Join’d with the Yorkists, made a mutinie.
1643. Baker, Chron., Hen. VI. (1653), 280. From whence Richard Beauchampe Bishop of Salisbury, is sent to offer the Yorkists a full and generall pardon.
1726–31. Tindal, Rapin’s Hist. Eng. (1743), I. XII. 583/1. The King having advanced with design to give Battle, the Yorkists sent him a very submissive Letter.
1829. Scott, Anne of G., xxiv. Offering with large sums of money to purchase England to the Yorkists.
1856. Miss Mulock, John Halifax, v. The Vineyards had been a battle-field; and under the long wavy grass … slept many a Yorkist and Lancastrian.
b. attrib. or as adj.
1823. S. Turner, Hist. Eng., III. II. 321. The Christmas of 1469, seemed to have ended all hostilities between these two Yorkist parties.
1861. Sat. Rev., 7 Dec., 586/2. The Yorkist poems are numerous. There is one on the reconciliation of Henry and Duke Richard.
1864. Boutell, Her. Hist. & Pop., xx. (ed. 3), 339. The Yorkist Collar is formed of suns and roses.
2. A supporter of James, Duke of York (c. 1680), in his claim to succeed to the crown on the death of his brother, Charles II.
1681. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 124. The former [party] are called by the latter, tories, tantivies, Yorkists, high-flown church men, &c.
a. 1734. North, Examen, II. v. § 9 (1740), 321. It is easy to imagine how rampant these Procurators of Power, the Exclusioners, were…: Every where insulting and menacing the Loyallisis…. This Trade … naturally led to a common Use of slighting and opprobrious Words; such as Yorkist.
[1858. Knight, Pop. Hist. Eng., IV. xxi. 350. The anti-exclusionists were first called Yorkists.]
3. An inhabitant of York: = YORKER1 1. rare.
1796. Sporting Mag., VII. 55. Once a Cockney and Yorkist maintain’d a dispute, Whether London or York was of oldest repute.
