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E

Edmund Beaufort

Edmund Beaufort, 2nd duke of Somerset, also called (1444–48) 4th earl of Somerset, in full Edmund Beaufort, 2nd duke of Somerset, 1st earl of Dorset, (born c. 1406—died May 22, 1455, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England), an English nobleman and Lancastrian leader whose quarrel with Richard, Duke of York, helped precipitate the Wars of the Roses (1455–85) between the houses of Lancaster and York. In the 1430s obtained control—with William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk— of the government of the weak King Henry VI. But he was later imprisoned when Richard, Duke of York became ‘Lord Protector’, before dying at the Battle of St Albans.

 

H

Henry VI

 

(born December 6, 1421, Windsor, Berkshire, England—died May 21/22, 1471, London), king of England from 1422 to 1461 and from 1470 to 1471, a pious and studious recluse whose incapacity for the government was one of the causes of the Wars of the Roses.

Henry succeeded his father, Henry V, on September 1, 1422, and on the death (October 21, 1422) of his maternal grandfather, the French king Charles VI, Henry was proclaimed king of France in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420) made after Henry V’s French victories.

 

 

M

Margaret of Anjou

(born March 23, 1430, probably Pont-à-Mousson, Lorraine, Fr.—died Aug. 25, 1482, near Saumur), queen consort of England’s King Henry VI and a leader of the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses (1455–85) between the houses of York and Lancaster. Strong-willed and ambitious, she made a relentless, but ultimately unsuccessful, effort to obtain the crown for her son, Prince Edward (1453–71).

Margaret of Anjou