King Henry VI had been king of England nearly all his life: his father Henry V had died in 1422 on campaign in France when Henry VI was only a few months old. Henry VI was never a strong king like his father; he was unable to keep a firm hand on either government or the nobility, and by the mid-1450s civil war had broken out. The main protagonists were supporters of Henry and his Queen—Lancastrians—and those of the recalcitrant Richard, Duke of York, or Yorkists. These civil wars—known today as the Wars of the Roses—broke out in 1455 when Henry's army was defeated by a Yorkist one at the First Battle of St Albans, and there were further bloody encounters between the two sides until, eventually, in March 1461, the Yorkist army led by Edward, Duke of York, beat the royal army at Towton. This decisive engagement has been described as the biggest battle ever fought on English soil: it resulted in Edward taking the throne for himself as King Edward IV, and King Henry and Queen Margaret escaping into Scottish exile.