French history in the English-speaking theatre no dowry is given (Treaty of Tours, 1445). In the final scene, the Yorkists are victorious after the First Battle of St Albans (1455) during the War of the Roses. In the first scene of "Henry VI part 3", the Yorkists confront the supporters of Henry VI, who discuss whether the king should accept the issue of the duke of York as king. Queen Margaret refuses to accept that her son, Edward, be disinherited. With her principal commander, Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, she fights successfully for a while the Yorkists but is eventually defeated by them, whereby the
The Wars of the Roses (adaptation) For example, Ton Hoenselaars argues that Brecht Another major influence on the production was Jan Kott. Hall had read a proof copy of Kott's soon-to-be-influential "Shakespeare Our Contemporary", prior to its publication in Britain, just before he began rehearsals for "The Wars of the Roses". He was strongly taken by Kott's theory regarding Shakespeare's conception of the "Grand Mechanism" of history; as history continually revolves, each claimant to the throne rises, only to be subsequently deposed and crushed in an ongoing cycle. In the program notes for "Henry VI", Barton and Hall included a quotation from Kott, which they felt