3). Henry VI (1422-71)

Pre-reading task: Trace the main events in the king’s tragic life.

Henry VI, son of the legendary victor of Agincourt was a mild, virtuous and often pitiable figure. Born on 6 December 1421, he was only nine months old when his father died, and he was crowned King of England when a child. Within weeks of his accession to the English throne Henry also became King of France, on the death of his mother's father the mentally unstable King Charles VI. The child on whom this vast inheritance had fallen was carefully schooled for his role; while his uncle Bedford governed France on his behalf, young Henry VI was brought up by the Earl of Warwick, one of his father’s loyal supporters. But both men ultimately failed in their efforts. French resistance to English rule mounted dangerously, fostered by Joan of Arc, and King Henry grew up to be quite inadequate for the heavy tasks which lay ahead of him.

As an adult, Henry VI was far more interested in spiritual matters than in war and politics. He had many of the qualities of a monk: he hated bloodshed, wore a hair shirt, and was deeply shocked by sexual irregular­ities. 'Forsooth and forsooth' was the strong­est language he permitted himself. Two great memorials to his piety and charity are King's College, Cambridge, with its glorious chapel, and Eton College, both of which he founded at the beginning of the 1440s. A good man, Henry was nevertheless a poor king. His naivety and unquestioning loyalty to those whom he regarded as his friends made it hard for him to control the factions which flourished at his court. He put his trust in the party of the Beauforts - his kinsmen by John of Gaunt's third marriage - and the Earl of Suffolk, who favoured a peaceful settlement with France. Though the French warrior-saint Joan of Arc had been burnt to death by the English hi 1431, the same year that young Henry was taken to Paris and crowned King of France, six years later the French King Charles VII entered Paris in triumph. In England, opinion was divided over French policy: Henry and his advisers hoped to make peace and thereby save some of England's possessions across the Channel, but it was an unpopular view. Among the leaders of the opposition party was an ominous figure – Richard, Duke of York, next in line to the throne.

The peacemakers seemed to prevail when, in 1445, Suffolk negotiated a marriage between Henry and Margaret of Anjou. niece of King Charles VII. Suffolk's power and influence soared. But the marriage proved no safeguard. Still greater losses followed, and by 1451 Normandy and Guienne were gone. As the author of such a national disaster, Suffolk could not survive; despite Henry's loyal efforts to save him, he was impeached by Parliament and subsequently killed, in 1450. It was a measure of the nation's discontent when, a few months after Suffolk's death, the popular rising known after its Kentish leader as 'Jack Cade's Rebellion' erupted, but the saintly Henry would not heed warnings.

He continued to govern with unwise and unpopular advisers, notably his great-uncle, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and he did nothing to conciliate Somerset's enemy and his own heir presumptive, the Duke of York. In 1453, however, York suddenly found himself in the ascendant, through two dramatic events: the unfortunate king went mad, and two months later a son and heir was born to him. The child was christened Prince Edward, York became Protector, in March 1454, and he took advantage or his new-found power to send Somerset to the Tower. But the pendulum swung again, and when the king recovered his wits York was dismissed, Somerset restored.

What followed was the first battle in the long civil war which the Romantic novelist Sir Walter Scott christened "The Wars of the Roses'. On 22 May 1455 York and his supporters fought a battle against Somerset and Henry VI at St Albans, after Henry refused to hand over Somerset to his enemies. In the ensuing fighting Somerset was killed, and for a time it seemed that peace would now prevail, as the pacific King Henry so devoutly desired. But Henry's queen, the hot-tempered Margaret, had no intention of letting her infant son's rights be endangered and in 1459, when trouble flared again, it was she who took the initiative, dominating the King, raising an army, and attacking the Yorkists near Ludlow, scattering their de­feated leaders. Yet again there was a change of fortunes. The Yorkists returned to rout the Lancastrian king's army at Northampton, in 1460, capturing the unhappy king, and this time the Duke of York took decisive action. He formally requested the throne of England from Parliament.

His wish was not granted, but he was promised that he would inherit the throne on Henry's death. Now Queen Margaret's mili­tant maternal instincts were truly roused, in defence of her son's rights. She gathered a fresh army, and brought her son's disinheritor to battle at Wakefield. at the end of December 1460. It was York's last battle: he was killed in the fighting. But it was not the end of the war. His heir, Edward, now took up the Yorkist claim, supported by one of his father's strongest allies, the Earl of Warwick, who was to earn himself the name of 'the Kingmaker'.

Edward was the first king whom Warwick helped to make. As Edward IV, he entered London in triumph, and was accepted as king in Westminster Hall on 4 March 1461. A handsome young man. not yet 20, he possessed great military skill: and when, at the end of March, he met the forces of Henry and Margaret at Towton, near Yorkshire, in a battle for the throne, the result was an overwhelming victory for King Edward and the House of York. The defeated King and Queen fled across the border into Scotland for safety, and Edward IV returned victorious to London for his coronation.

For the next nine years, the throne was Edward's. While the indomitable Margaret continued to seek support from Scotland and France for the Lancastrian cause, Henry drifted about the borders of his lost kingdom, until in 1463 his wife and son crossed to France, leaving him in the northern strong­hold of Bamburgh. In the summer of 1465 he was taken prisoner by Yorkist supporters and brought to degrading captivity in the Tower. Warwick the Kingmaker had not finished with Henry VI, however. When a breach arose between the new King Edward IV and Warwick, in 1470, Edward temporarily fled the kingdom, and the Kingmaker, having joined forces with Queen Margaret, had Henry brought out of the Tower - where he was 'not so cleanly kept as should seem such a prince' - and reinstated as King of England. He was no more than a pathetic pawn in Warwick's game, and the 'readeption' of King Henry VI ended in the spring of 1471, with the return of Edward IV. At the Battle of Barnet on 14 April, Warwick was killed. Queen Margaret's army was defeated soon afterwards, in the bloody Battle of Tewesbury. Edward IV was King once more. Henry VI was sent back to the Tower, never to emerge. His only son. young Prince Edward, was killed on the field of Tewesbury, and soon after the battle Henry was murdered in the Tower of London, on the night of 21 May. Today, on the anniversary of King Henry VI's death, two sheaves of flowers, are delivered to the Tower - white lilies from Eton College, roses from King's College, Cambridge. They are a tribute to a pious king from his two great foundations.

(from “Kings and Queens of Great Britain” by Josephine Ross, L. 1982)

Physically, Henry VI was weak. Mentally, he was probably simple; on some occasions, obviоusly so. He never much changed during his forty or so years on the throne. And when he was fifty, he was murdered.

Henry V had wanted his brother, the good Duke Humphry of Gloucester to be Regent of England but the magnates of England had other ideas. They wanted the chance to run the country without a king, witout a strong leader. Gloucester was given the title, Protector, but the country was really in the hand of an aristocratic council and the seemingly inevitable struggle for unfluence. Henry VI never had the measure of this council.

C+ At the time of [Henry V’s] death, the ascendancy of the English arms in France was established. In his brother John, Duke of Bedford, who went to France as Regent and Commander in Chief, a successor of the highest military quality was found. The alliance with Burgundy, сarrуing with it the allegiance and sympathies of Paris, persisted. The war сontinued bitterly. Many sieges and much ravaging distressed the countryside. In 1421 the French and their Scottish allies, under the Earl of Buchan, defeated the English at Bauge. Diese Scotsmen were animated by a hatred of the English which stood out beyond the ordinary feuds. Buchan, who had been made Constable of Franee after Bauge, had induced his father-in-law, the Earl of Douglas, to bring over a new Scots army and to become Constable himself. The French, having had some success, were inclined to retire behind the Loire, but the rage of the Scots, of whom there were no fewer than 5000 under Douglas, was uncontrollable. They forced a battle and were nearly all destroyed by the arrow storm. Douglas, Buchan and other Scottish chieftains fell upon the field, and so grievous was the slaughter of their followers that it was never again possible to form, in diese wars, a separate Scottish brigade.

In England, the modest success of the army in France was not much of an occasion for joy. The Parliaments were reluctant to pour more money into wars. The longer the war, the more campaigns to finance. The more territory gained, the more to administer, the greater the costs. And because the territories were so ravaged by war, they were quite incapable of generating anything for tneir own upkeep, never mind supporting the English forces and camp followers. The infant Henry VI knew little of this. Seven yean later he was thought old enough to be crowned King of England. There was nothing special about the coronation. The English were used to boy-kings. And. it would seem, huge feasts. The menu of the coronation feast has survived.

*The first course: frumenty with venison.Meat royal, planted with lozenges of gold.Beef. Mutton. Cygnet. Stewed capon. Heron. Great pyke. A red leach of sliced meats, eggs, fruits and spices, with lions carved therein in white. Custard royal with a leopard of gold sitting therein. Fritter like a sun, with a fleur-de-lis therein.

And those were only the suiters There were two more enormous and varied courses to come, with sorbets or minstrels and poets to follow. But when the feasting was done, the business of intrigue and defending lands continued. The English were being held up on the southward march through France by the Amiagnac possession of Orleans. Under the Earl of Salisbury they laid siege to town. It wasn't much of a siege. The English force was weak, badly supplied and in bad mood when the Earl himself was killed.

It was at this siege that Joan of Are made her famous appearance. She had, so it was said, a vision and she heard voices. And in Marcn 1429, Joan of Arc went to the court of the Dauphin and told him of those voices and the message that he would be crowned King in Rheims. But first she had to deal with the English who, depleted and war-weary, fell back at Orleans. Joan of Arc then led the still sceptical Dauphin through Champagne, took Troyes and Chalons, and on 17 July, as the voices had promised, the Dauphin was crowned King Charles VII in Rheims Cathedral.

The Maid of Orleans believed her mission completed. She wanted no more of war. She wanted to go home but the court wouldn't let her. In May 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians and sold to the English for 10,000 gold francs. French King made no attempt to rescue her.

C+Joan of Arc perished on May 30,1431, and thereafter the tides of war flowed remorselessty against the English. The whole spirit of the country was against the English, claim. Bedford died and was succeeded by lesser captains. The French artillery now became the finest in the world. Seven hundred engineers [fired] gigantic stone balls against the numberless castles which the English still held. Places which, in the days of Henry V, could be reduced only by famine, now fell in a few days to smashing bornbardment. All Northern France, except Calais, was reconquered.

The Hundred Years' War was effectively at an end. But by now the English were at war with themselves: on one side the Beaufort family, bastard descendants of John of Gaunt and therefore Lancastrians (as was the King). On the other side the King, Henry VI: kindly, soft, soon to be judged insane, and and his new bride, Margaret. She was the seventeen-year-old Margaret of Anjou, married to Henry in a two-year truce with France. Margaret was a remarkable woman. She championed the Beauforts, set herself against the Duke of Gloucester, had him arrested and, so many believe, arranged his death.

The politics were complex but the ambitions were simple. The factions that had, at the start of the King's reign, fought for control of government, now fought for the throne. Against this background, the country was in turmoil for another reason. In 1450 the Kentish rebellion led by Jack Cade was protesting against the government's incompetence and oppressive taxes. But in his published demands, taken from Stow's Memoranda Cade was careful to honour the King.

*Thus our Sovereign Lord shall reign and rule with great honour, and have the love of God and of his people. For he shall have such great love of his people that he shall, with God's help, conquer where he will. As for us, we shall always be ready to defend our country from all nations with our own goods, and to go with our Sovereign Lord, as his true liegemen, where he will command.

But this peaceful and reasonable declaration is misleading. Cade, styled as Captain of the Kentish rebels, entered and took over London for three days. There were, in that time, some unseemly, certainly unreasonable, scenes.

*Arrived in the City, Cade sent to the Tower for Lord Say, who was fetched and brought to the Guildhall. There with others he [Say] was indicted for treason. They took him out and brought him to the Standard in Cheapside and there smote off his head. The same day, Crowmer was beheaded in Mile End. Afterwards they brought the heads of the Lord Say and of Crowmer on two poles and at various places in the city they put the heads together making them seem to kiss each other.

Cade's uprising was a simple, violent illustration of the breaking down of law and order. The anger towards those who governed was great enough to split violence and a belief that demands would be met. Cade's rebellion began on the day William Aiscough, Bishop of Salisbury, was murdered by his own parishioners. Another bishop, Adam Moleyns, Bishop of Chichester, was murdered by sailors in Portsmouth when he arrived to give them their backpay. The sailors were angry because the Bishop confessed to another's crime. He admitted (or so they said) that the late Duke of Suffolk had plotted for a French invasion, and that he had sold the French details of English defences and had been bribed to prevent English armies going to France. The navy, or possibly a pirate, caught up with Suffolk and beheaded him in a long boat. As for Cade, he was eventually chased off and killed during a skirmish at Heathfield in Sussex in 1450. During the next three years the English were thrown out of Normandy and, with the French victory at Castillon, the Hundred Years' War was at an end.

And then, in 1453, the King went mad.

C+He had gone down to Wiltshire to spend July and August. Suddenly his memory failed. He recognized no one, not even the Queen. He could eat and drink, but his speech was childish or incoherent. He could not walk. For another fifteen months he remained entirely without comprehension. When diese terrible facts became known, Queen Margaret aspired to be Protector. But the adverse forces were too strong for the Lancastrian party to make the challenge. Moreover on October 13, she gave birth to a son. Now it seemed there would be a Lancastrian ascendancy for ever.

But there were suspicions that the new pnnce, Edward, Prince of Wales, was not the King's son. However, it was also clear that the King was incapable of ruling. The power of the Duke of York - father of the future Richard III - in the Council was sufficient that, in March 1454, he was declared Protector. For more than a year, he was monarch in all but title. But then, in 1455, the King recovered his wits. Queen Margaret was ready to do battle. So was York. By May of that year the Queen's closest ally, Edmund, Duke of Somerset, was killed, and the King was taken prisoner. Margaret's screams for revenge echoed about the House of Lancaster. The Wars of the Roses had started.

(from “This Sceptred Isle” by Cristopher Lee, L. 1990)

Questions:

1. How did the new dynasty come to the throne?

2. Why is Henry V so popular with the English people?

3. What is Henry VI mainly remembered for?

Unit 8. THE HOUSE OF YORK. THE WARS OF THE ROSES (I455-I485 )

Pre-reading tasks:

1. Can you explain the origin of Yorkists’ claim for the English crown?

2. Describe Earl of Warwick’s role in the escalation of the War.

3. What do you know about Richard III’s role in the destiny of “the Princes in the Tower”?

1. The forces in the Wars of the Roses.

Pre-reading task: What were the two great Houses opposing each other?

The Wars of the Roses spread over thirty years. But they weren't, as is sometimes imagined, one long war. On one side was the House of Lancaster; on the other, the House of York; but the houses of York and Lancaster came from the same dynasty, the same family tree: the Plantagenets. And just because there were Yorkists and Lancastrians, that doesn't mean that the wars were between Yorkshire and Lancashire. Just as in modem times, noble titles had little to do with places.

The Lancastrians were in power because Henry VI was a Lancaster. His wife, Margaret, was French, and the Lancaster commanded the Crown lands, for example, the Duchy of Cornwall. And they had all the Lancastrian earldoms: Lancaster itself, Derby, Lincoln, Leicester, Hereford and Nottingham. The other families who supported them gave them Somerset, Surrey, East Anglia and Devon. Then, with the Percys and the elder Nevilles in the Lancastrian camp, they had control of the northern strongholds.

The Yorkist strength was in the Mortimer family, and their lands were mainly on the Welsh borders, the Marches. They had strong support in Kent, some in Norfolk, and, because of the younger Nevilles, they had the Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, and the estates of Wiltshire and the southern Midlands.

Because the King had come to the throne when he was only nine months old, the barons who ran the country on his behalf had, inevitably, become very powerful and factious. Maladministration, corruption and incompetent gov­ernment were life in England and all the main players had personal ambitions. None of diese reasons, by themselves, account for the Wars of the Roses. But put them together and civil war seemed inevitable.

C+The four years from 1456 to 1459 were a period of uneasy truce. War began in earnest in July 1460 the Yorkist lords under Warwick confronted the Lancastrians and the Crown at Northampton. Henry VI stood entrenched and new cannon guarded his line. But when the Yorkists attacked, Lord Grey of Ruthven, who commanded a wing, deserted him and helped the Yorkists over the breastworks. The royal forces fled in panic. King Henry VI remained in his tent. The victors presented themselves to him, bowing to the ground. They carried him to London, and having him in their power once more, ruled in his name. Henry was to be King for life; York was to conduct the government and succeed him at his death. But the settlement defied the fact that Queen Margaret, with her son, the Prince of Wales, was at liberty at Harlech Castle, in Wales. The Queen fought on.

With her army of the North and North Wales, Margaret advanced to assert the birthright ofher son. The Duke ofYork... marched against her. At Wakefield, on December 30,1460, the first considerable battle of the war was fought. The Lancastrians, with superior forces, caught the Yorkists by surprise ... and a frightful rout and massacre ensued.... No quarter was given. The Duke of York was killed;... the old Earl of Salisbury, caught during the night, was beheaded immediately by Lord Exeter... The heads of the three Yorkist nobles were exposed over the gates and walls of York. The great Duke's head, with a paper crown, grinned upon the landscape, summoning the avengers.

The Queen’s army marched south, beat Warwick on the way, and recaptured the King. That should have been that: the House of Lancaster was back on the throne and the Yorkists were humiliated. But it wasn't. Edward, the Earl of March and the late Duke of York's eldest son, hoisted his father's banner, and joined with the bruised Warwick in Oxfordshire. Together they entered London in triumph.

A week after he arrived in London, the Earl of March was ruling England, and the Queen was heading north. Edward caught up with her at Towton Field in Yorkshire and. in a snow blizzard, slaughtered hundreds of Lancastrians. Henry VI escaped with his life, but not his throne. The twenty-year-old Duke of York was crowned Edward IV, and- one-third of the estates in England changed hands.

C+After Towton, the Lancastrian cause was sustained by the unconquerable will of Queen Margaret. [She] herself besieged the castle at Norham, on the Tweed near Berwick. Once again Edward and the Yorkists took the field and the redoubtable new artillery was carried north. The great guns blew chunks off the castles. Margaret fled to France, while [King] Henry buried himself amid the valleys and the pious foundations of Cumberland. This was the final parting of King Henry VI and his Queen. Poor King Henry was at length tracked down near Clitheroe in Lancashire and conveyed to London. [He] was led three times round the pillory and finally hustled to the Tower.

(from “This Sceptred Isle” by Christopher Lee, L.1990)