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
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