St Albans 1455

Boardman examines the political and military crisis that brought the forces of Richard, Duke of York, into St Albans on 22 May 1455. The confrontation grew from Henry VI’s unstable government, the rivalry between York and the Duke of Somerset, and regional feuds involving the Neville and Percy families. Rather than treating the encounter as a brief street skirmish, the book reconstructs a deliberate assault on a defended royal position within the town.

Using chronicles, civic evidence, topography and the surviving street plan, the study follows the Yorkist breakthrough, the deaths of leading Lancastrian lords and the capture of Henry VI. It then considers pillage, official attempts to shape the record and the blood feuds intensified by the fighting. The battle emerges as a decisive opening stage of the Wars of the Roses rather than an isolated disturbance.