First Battle of St Albans First Battle of St Albans The First Battle of St Albans, fought on 22 May 1455 at St Albans, 22 miles (35 km) north of London, traditionally marks the beginning of the Wars of the Roses in England. Richard, Duke of York, and his allies, the Neville earls of Salisbury and Warwick, defeated a royal army commanded by Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, who was killed. With King Henry VI captured, a subsequent parliament appointed Richard of York Lord Protector. The incapacitation of Henry VI by mental illness in 1454 had led to the recall to court of Richard of
Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms could not get their erstwhile allies to agree on a political and religious settlement to the wars, failing to get Presbyterianism established as the official religion in the Three Kingdoms and fearing that the Parliamentarians would threaten Scottish independence. Many Covenanters feared that under Parliament, "our poor country should be made a province of England." A faction of the Covenanters known as the Engagers, led by the Duke of Hamilton, therefore sent an army to England to try to restore Charles I in 1648. However it was routed by Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army at the Battle of Preston. This