The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King

1

Crown of Thorns

Kingdoms are but cares,

State is devoid of stay,

Riches are ready snares,

And hasten to decay.1

Historians have always regarded King Henry VI as a much-maligned monarch. When his famous warrior father, Henry V, died at Vincennes in 1422, there is little doubt most of his subjects hoped young Henry would be just as formidable when he reached full age. However, when the king shook off his minority in 1437, aged 16, this perfect dream of sovereignty and warlike ability completely eluded him, and he was later regarded as a man unsuited to his role.2 Henry VI had been governed from birth by his uncles, and despite being tutored by the best civil and military minds in the land, the king's many failings as a leader proved fatal for England. In adulthood, Henry became uninterested in the real world and later suffered from a debilitating mental illness. In short, Henry V's son was a king in name only, spending most of his reign on his knees at prayer, in the shadows of delirium or watching his dominions in France fall apart one by one.

However, in his early reign, Henry's strange ways and abject holiness were largely tolerated, even in an age of powerful men with feral ambitions. England's belligerent ruling class survived by obtaining key positions at court, and because the king was unable to arbitrate fairly between them, this allowed over-mighty nobles to undermine Henry's authority. More at home in a church rather than in a suit of armour, the king's tragic reign is, therefore, a story of exploitation by others. Those who knew him best realised this and considered him easy prey. Even his advocates regarded Henry as a king who shunned his royal responsibilities, and one later foreign observer measured these failings against his many virtues:

King Henry was a man of mild and plain-dealing disposition who preferred peace before wars, quietness before troubles, honesty before utility and leisure before business; and to be short, there was not in this world a more pure, more honest and holy creature.3

Although the above flattering lines were written after Henry's death, this description of the king, if true, was not one to be admired in the turbulent fifteenth century. Through gross negligence and the unchecked interference of devious ministers, Henry's reign saw the loss of all his father's military conquests abroad except Calais, deep divisions among the English nobility and the makings of a volatile catalyst for intermittent civil war. However, Henry VI was not wholly to blame for these calamities. His many years of personal rule were plagued by crisis after crisis, and powerful nobles who aimed to control, even usurp the throne, thought him poorly served by his councillors and inner circle. Misrule generally translates into rebellion or war in society, and because of this, some people openly described Henry VI as a natural fool. Yet this 'silly weak king'4 ruled independently from his protectors for almost twenty-five years before being deposed in 1461, and soon after his death, ten years later, thousands of pilgrims visited his shrine at Chertsey Abbey and attested to miracles there. Therefore, we may ask ourselves, who was the real Henry VI, and why did his critics tolerate him for so long?

Unlike Edward II and Richard II, who were removed by ambitious courtiers, Henry enjoyed almost saintly status well beyond the reign of his enemies. Even after the death of Richard III, who allegedly stabbed him to death in the Tower of London in 1471, Henry's fame rivalled that of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. However, while he lived, the king's careless attitude to leadership remains wholly evident, despite successive efforts by Tudor writers to rehabilitate his profile and blame others for mismanaging the kingdom. Indeed, most historians today still conclude that King Henry was no more than a pawn in the hands of others, and the fact that he was allowed to live for so long reveals just how docile and out of touch he was.5

In 1459, one contemporary chronicler was particularly scathing about Henry's neglect, and although this viewpoint may seem a personal tirade, there is no smoke without fire:

[And] at this same time, the realm of England was out of all good governance, as it had been many days before, for the king was simple and led by covetous counsel and owed more than he was worth. His debts increased daily, but payment there was none. All the possessions and lordships that pertained to the crown the king had given away, some to lords and some to other simple persons, so he had almost nought to live on. For these misgovernances, and for many others, the hearts of the people were turned away from them that had the land in governance and their blessing was turned into cursing.6

During his reign, there is no doubt Henry VI placed too much trust in unscrupulous nobles, who were driven by power in an age of chivalry and bastard feudalism.7 According to his chaplain, John Blacman, the king thought governing England was both tiresome and inconvenient compared to his religious pursuits. It is recorded that he admonished government officials when they disturbed him at work, he did not act nor dress in a regal manner as befitting a king, and because of his lack of interest and judgement, factionalism divided English nobles due to indifference or misplaced favouritism.8 According to one sympathetic writer in 1457, Henry was simplex et probus (honest and upright).9 But this much-quoted and sometimes misunderstood description of the king must be weighed against a host of other royal attributes Henry did not possess. Apart from following a pious and puritanical existence, which prevented him from dealing with state affairs, the king could be wholly self-centred.10 Even worse, although totally inescapable, in 1453, his mental health became so seriously impaired that others had to govern the realm for him. During the bloody dynastic struggles of the 1460s, Henry was regarded as a political puppet by both Yorkist and Lancastrian factions to the point of absurdity. Indeed, it is the measured opinion of most modern historians that Henry was unfit to rule England and that the foundations of Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, were the only positive endowments of his tragic reign.

So, what are we to make of the king who became the extreme focus of the Bastard of Fauconberg's rebellion in 1471? From Henry's point of view, imprisoned in the Tower of London, he may not have known or cared about the insurgency raging beyond his guarded apartments. On the other hand, knowing this may have contributed to his already fragile disposition. Therefore, tracing Henry's life briefly during the Wars of the Roses is worthwhile to see how each crisis affected his reign and his reasoning. Only then can we understand how a man so ahead of his time (yet so unsuited to medieval kingship) could be such a powerful force for change even though he led a solitary life of religious observance and mental suffering.

See how they disturb me

When his minority officially ended in 1437, Henry VI had been King of England and France since birth. Under his uncles - Cardinal Beaufort, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and John, Duke of Bedford - he had enjoyed a largely trouble-free reign and was potentially on the verge of greater things. However, in the 1450s, English military failure in France and localised rebellion at home helped produce a political power vacuum that enabled various factions to emerge that the king was unable or unwilling to control. In short, Henry was unlike his ruthless ancestors, and he set aside problems for others to solve. The popular Kentish rebellion led by Jack Cade in 1450 added to the king's many woes, and it was the first of its kind to present a well-worded manifesto of grievances against Henry's corrupt ministers. The rebels were careful to stay loyal to the king, although this attitude changed when they requested the punishment of those officials who had offended their county. Executions followed when the rebels gained access to London and, as will be explained later, it was not the last rebellion to be put down without a brutal cull of all those responsible.11

The idea that rebels had managed to force their way into London was unforgivable, and the blame fell on the king and his ministers, who had lost control of the situation. To add to this crisis at home, the gradual loss of English territories in France added pressure to the king's mounting list of domestic and international problems. Each aristocratic clique sought to influence Henry's decision-making, but a general lack of finance hamstrung the government. The king shifted the blame for the military disasters in France onto other nobles like the Duke of Suffolk, who paid with their lives. Everyone other than Henry was guilty, and this situation aggravated the rivalries of powerful English nobles tasked with winning the war abroad, especially two men who typified the political family feuding of the late fifteenth century.

The most dangerous internal rivalry during the 1450s was the one pursued by Richard, Duke of York and Edmund, Duke of Somerset. York was Henry's heir presumptive while the king remained childless, but even though he was the king's primary beneficiary, his greatest fear was Somerset's royal lineage. If Somerset could validate his own Beaufort claim to the throne, he could also succeed Henry if he died without an heir. Displaced of his command in France, politically humiliated at home on several occasions and...