Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland was accomplished. In December, the king rallied sufficiently to resume control of government, and York's protectorate was terminated. With Somerset back at the centre of power, civil war seemed imminent. In May 1455, Northumberland was travelling with the king and Somerset to a great council at Leicester, when the party was intercepted by York and the Nevilles. On 22 May 1455, at the First Battle of St Albans, the royal forces clashed with the forces loyal to the Duke of York, in what has been described as the first battle of the Wars of the Roses. The battle was a
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