History of Hertfordshire Kings Langley. He gave the alm of a groat to the poor. Henry Chichele, the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited Barnet in 1423. No bells rang, and the archbishop took offence at his poor welcome. When he returned in 1426, the church doors were sealed against him. Three important battles of the Wars of the Roses took place in Hertfordshire. At the First Battle of St Albans on 22 May 1455, which was the first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, Richard of York and Neville the Kingmaker defeated the Lancastrians, killed their leader, Edmund Beaufort and captured King
The Wars of the Roses (adaptation) become more aware of Shakespeare's political absorption and inspired interpretations of man's difficulty in governing himself and others." Barton and Hall were also influenced by certain politically focused literary theory of the time; both were subscribers to Antonin Artaud's theory of the "Theatre of Cruelty", and both had attended the 1956 London visit of Bertolt Brecht's Berliner Ensemble. Brecht's influence on "The Wars of the Roses" was especially pronounced, and many scholars have since cited Brecht's theories on drama in general, and historical drama in specific, as the impetus behind the 'rediscovery' of the "Henry VI" plays in the 1960s.