Henry VI

Henry VI (1421–71), king of England (1422–61 and 1470–1). Henry VI was the youngest king of England ever to ascend the throne; the only king never to know what it was like not to be king; the only one ever to be crowned king of France; and arguably the worst, who inherited two kingdoms and lost both. His reign is divided into three parts by modern historians as well as by Shakespeare. The first is his minority (1422–37); the second is his active majority (1437–53); and the third is the period of his mental incapacity (1453 until his death). Given the inherent dangers, Henry's minority was remarkably successful. Those who inherited power in 1422 in the name of the infant king were the same lords and retainers who had served the house of Lancaster from the time of John of Gaunt. They shared the overriding objective of preserving for the time he came of age the inheritances won by his grandfather and father in England and France. Fifteen years later not only was Henry still on the throne (he was crowned king of England in 1429, king of France in 1431), but his kingdom was not unduly lawless, the crown was solvent, and a substantial part of Henry V's conquests in France remained in Lancastrian hands. In 1437, when the king began to play a part in affairs, the old guard had discharged its duty as well as could be expected.

It was a cruel trick of fate to provide Henry V with a son who was the very antithesis of the martial and regal traditions of the house of Lancaster. Henry VI proved to be improvident, malleable, vacillating, partisan, uninterested in the arts of government, and, above all, antipathetic to the chivalric world his ancestors had adorned. As soon as he came of age he turned his back on the war in France. The defining moment came in 1440 when at 18 he had the opportunity to take the field in Normandy. Instead he sent his cousin the duke of York as his lieutenant, devoting himself to the foundation of Eton College. Within ten years the government of the kingdom had fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous court faction led by William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, royal debts were mounting, and Normandy was lost. In 1450 the regime was shaken by Cade's revolt, the most widespread and sustained popular rising since 1381. It says much for the residual strength of the dynasty that it survived these shocks. Indeed when Henry suffered his devastating mental collapse in 1453, the reign appeared to be set on a more stable course.

Henry VI fell into a coma in August 1453. He recovered his senses just before Christmas 1454, but was permanently impaired. In some respects his recovery was politically more destabilizing than his collapse. While comatose Henry could be treated as a child again, a protectorate was established, and government entrusted to a council; after his partial recovery, he became a puppet tossed this way and that by faction. By 1459 royal government was almost totally powerless, the administration of the law had virtually collapsed, and the crown was bankrupt. In the civil war that erupted Henry was but a passive onlooker. In 1461 he became the victim when he was deposed by the victorious Edward IV. But his life was spared. There was no sentiment in this. Throughout the 1460s the hope of his cause was carried by his only son and heir Edward, in exile in France; killing Henry would only have promoted a more plausible Lancastrian claimant. In 1470 he was restored to the throne for six months. Coming out of the Tower for rare public appearances, he was a pitiful sight. But the death of the prince of Wales at Tewkesbury in 1471 sealed his own fate, and a few days later he was done to death.

Henry was a more effective force after his death than ever he was in his life. There soon developed a cult surrounding his saintliness, miracles were reported, and Edward IV was obliged to repress it. Richard III moved his body from Waltham, which had become a place of pilgrimage, to Windsor, the better to control the phenomenon. After 1485 Henry VII endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to secure his canonization. It was at this time that John Blacman was commissioned to produce his Recollections, which have fixed the image of the saintly king. But Blacman's portrait of a prudish, unworldly man inhabiting a court more like a convent drew upon memories of Henry after 1453. Before then he had been a man of the world, maintaining a court as splendid as any in Europe. The sad truth is that between 1437 and 1453, between the ages of 16 and 32, Henry had been, as king in deed and as well as name, one of the most incompetent ever to rule England. In another age, and another society, a man who turned his back on vainglorious war, and whose greatest achievements were in the promotion of education (through the foundations of Eton and King's College, Cambridge), might have been more highly regarded. But in 15th-cent. England a king like Henry VI was a public disaster.

Anthony James Pollard

Bibliography

Griffiths, R. A. , The Reign of Henry VI (1981);
Storey, R. L. , The End of the House of Lancaster (1966);
Wolffe, B. P. , Henry VI (1981).