Second Battle of St Albans to take advantage of their victory. The Wars of the Roses were fought between the supporters of the House of Lancaster, represented by the mentally unstable King Henry VI, and those of the rival House of York. Richard of York quarrelled with several of Henry's court during the late 1440s and early 1450s. He was respected as a soldier and administrator, and was believed by his own supporters to have a better claim to the throne than Henry. York and his friends finally openly rebelled in 1455. At the First Battle of St Albans, York gained a victory, but this
Wars of the Roses York, daughter of Edward IV and the best surviving Yorkist claimant, reuniting the two royal houses. Henry merged the rival symbols of the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York into the new emblem of the red and white Tudor Rose. Henry later shored up his position by executing a number of other claimants, a policy his son Henry VIII continued. Many historians consider the accession of Henry VII to mark the end of the Wars of the Roses. Others argue that they continued to the end of the fifteenth century, as there were several plots to