King: Henry VI, 1421-1471

History is full of many mad kings, some of them homicidal maniacs who murdered hundreds or thousands of their subjects.  Others were gentle dreamers who weren't up to the task of governing because of matters beyond their control.  Henry VI, 1421-1471, was of the latter variety.

Henry was born at Windsor in December, 1421, the child of Henry V and Catherine of Valois.  When he was 9 months old, his father Henry V, victor of Agincourt, died still campaigning in France, leaving Henry VI the youngest king ever to ascend to the English throne, in August, 1422.  Further, in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, he also became titular King of France because of his mother's claim to her father Charles VI's throne.  Thus, while still in diapers, Henry inherited two kingdoms at war with each other.  The Hundred Years War was still very much alive, despite the Treaty of Troyes.  Being a child king in the Medieval era was a dangerous proposition.  There were several able-bodied adult males in the Lancastrian and Yorkist sides of the Plantagenet family, any of whom could have exploited Henry's youth to take the throne for themselves.  His mother, young and suspicious because of her French heritage, wasn't able to offer much support.

Henry's three uncles, John, Duke of Bedford, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Westminster, were among the nobles on his royal council.  Henry, as custom demanded, was placed in the care of Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who would oversee his education and military training.  Henry was crowned King of England in 1429, and then in 1431, crowned King of France at Notre Dame de Paris.  Most Frenchmen disregard his claim.  They had already crowned Charles VII at Reims in 1429 and that was the only coronation that mattered.  Henry assumed royal authority at the age of 16, and early on seemed to take an interest in governing his realm.  Then tragedy struck.  His mother died when he was sixteen and Henry, shy, pious and bookish, soon fell under the sway of favorites, the ultimate doom of many a Plantagenet king.

Henry was averse to resuming an active war with France and agreed to a marriage with Margaret of Anjou, a French princess with ties to the House of Lorraine and the Valois.  If Henry was shy and a bit nerdy, Margaret was not.  Where Henry was backward in taking charge of his realm and keeping his nobles under control, Margaret was determined to take control.   She had Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, imprisoned on charges of treason.  He died before he could be tried.  While the cause was most likely a heart attack or stroke, enemies whispered of poison.  She also alienated the Yorkist faction by excluding Richard, Duke of York and Henry's cousin, from council and court.  He was banished to Ireland to serve as governor there, no a wise move in the long run.  The council broke down into factions and the country followed suit.  The economy foundered, law and order dissolved.  Blame fell on another Plantagenet relation, the Duke of Suffolk, who was exiled, but captured at sea and brought back to England for execution.  English troops were losing ground in France.  Margaret remained childless.  Returning troops and unemployed peasants and laborers rose in Jack Cade's rebellion in 1450.

In the midst of this chaos, Henry's already fragile hold on sanity finally snapped.  He slept for days at time and seemed unaware of what was going on around him.  Modern sources believe he had a form of schizophrenia.  He had little idea, if any, that his son Edward had been born.  Richard of York took complete control of the government and he had a powerful ally.  Richard Neville had inherited the Warwick earldom through his wife, a Beauchamp.  An able administrator and tactician, the future Kingmaker had Beaufort thrown into the Tower on charges of treason and excluded Margaret from any governmental decisions.  Henry finally came around on Christmas Day, 1454, but his mind wasn't strong enough to resist York and Warwick.  He agreed to disinherit his own son, on grounds that the boy may not have been his, but the result of a liaison between the Queen and Beaufort.  Henry VI named Richard of York and his heirs as heirs of the throne, to Margaret's fury.  The factions in the Plantagenet family, the nobility and council exploded into war in 1460 at the Battle of Northampton, touching off the Wars of the Roses.

Following Northampton, Henry was captured and imprisoned as Richard of York's forces took control.  Richard was killed at Wakefield the following year and his son, Edward IV took the throne, deposing Henry at the Battle of Towton.  By this time, Henry had relapsed again.  Henry and Margaret fled with their son to Scotland.  Henry was eventually recaptured in 1465 and placed in the Tower.  Margaret galvanized the Lancastrian side from France.  And she had gained a powerful ally.  Warwick, who had done so much to put Edward IV on the throne, had grown alienated by Edward's secret marriage to a commoner and the flood of her relatives into lucrative positions at Court.  Warwick threw his allegiance to Henry, allowed his daughter Anne to marry Edward, the Prince of Wales, and began working with French backing to amass an army.  Warwick landed in England and Edward IV fled into exile as his brother, Richard of Gloucester, kept up the fight for the Yorkist side.  Edward IV's younger brother, George of Clarence backed Henry VI.

But Henry VI's freedom was short-lived.  He was barely aware of the measures Warwick took in his name, including declaring war on Burgundy, which had supported Edward IV.  Edward landed with an army and met Warwick at Barnet, in April, 1471, where Warwick was killed and Clarence hastily changed sides.  Henry VI was captured and returned to the Tower.  Then, in May of 1471, Edward, Prince of Wales was killed and Henry VI was a shell of a man.  On the night of May 21, 1471, as Henry VI knelt at prayer in the chapel of the Wakefield Tower, he was killed.  Debate goes on about whether Edward IV specifically ordered the death, and what part Gloucester, the future Richard III had in it.  Most likely, Edward IV did order the murder and Gloucester transmitted the order but the actual deed was left to others.  Edward IV ordered Henry VI's body to be buried in Chertsey Abbey.  Ironically, it was Richard III who had Henry reinterred at St. George's Chapel.  By that time, Henry had acquired the status of a local saint.  Miracles were reported at his tomb in Chertsey and there was talk of a cause for canonization, but it never came to fruition.  Centuries later, workers uncovered the body of Henry VI.  Wounds in the skull and the evidence of blood on still-existing hair indicated that he had, in fact, died violently, yet another Plantagenet in the Tower. 

While in the Tower, Henry VI supposedly wrote a poem, as follows:

Kingdoms are but cares
            State is devoid of stay,
 Riches are ready snares,
            And hasten to decay
 Pleasure is a privy prick (private bother)
            Which vice doth still provoke;
 Pomps, imprompt; and fame, a flame;
            Power, a smoldering smoke.
 Who meaneth to remove the rock
            Out of the slimy mud
 Shall mire himself, and hardly scape
            The swelling of the flood.

(Source, Wikipedia).