First Battle of St Albans 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 King Henry VI captured, a subsequent parliament appointed Richard of York Lord Protector. The incapacitation of Henry VI by mental illness in 1454 had led to the recall to court of Richard of
Geography of Scotland in the Middle Ages these losses were gradually regained, particularly while England was preoccupied with the Wars of the Roses (1455–85). In 1468 the last great acquisition of Scottish territory occurred when James III married Margaret of Denmark, receiving the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands in payment of her dowry. In 1482, Berwick, a border fortress and the largest port in Medieval Scotland, fell to the English once again, for what was to be the final change of hands. The only uncertain area was the small region of the Debatable Lands at the south-west end of the border, which would be divided by