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
English overseas possessions in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms English overseas possessions in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms Between 1639 and 1651 English overseas possessions were involved in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars and wars that were fought in and between England, Scotland and in Ireland. At the beginning of the war, fifty thousand Englishmen inhabited some twenty colonies in the Americas. Most of the colonies were founded in the decade prior to the start of the English Civil War (1642–1651) with the oldest existing being the Colony of Virginia (1607). The vast majority of the adult population were first generation settlers