The Wars of the Roses were a series of battles that were fought in England between two great houses or families. They were the House of Lancaster, whose supporters were called Lancastrians, and the House of York, whose supporters were the Yorkists. The battles were called the Wars of the Roses because the Yorkists were represented by a white rose and the Lancastrians by a red rose. This long civil war lasted from AD 1455-1485. Almost all the rich people in England chose sides, and during the wars, parliament kept changing sides.
During the Wars of the Roses, the winning side would use what was known as acts of attainder to strip the losers of all their property. By this act, those in power could convict their political enemies of treason, without bringing them to trial. By passing a bill of attainder, parliament simply declared anyone named in the act to be guilty of treason. Parliament could then take away all their civil rights and property, Between 1459 and 1500, parliament stripped 400 persons of their property and rights using acts of attainder. However, when those that lost came into power, they would promptly reverse the act of attainder, and take back whatever they had lost.