First Battle of St Albans a moment of indecision for Richard of York but a powerful victory for the Neville faction in the Neville-Percy feud. Burley, Elliott & Watson, The Battles of St Albans, Pen & Sword, 2007, 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
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