A strong young woman, Margaret of Anjou, wed a man ill-suited to be king.
HENRY AND MARGARET
One of Henry VI's contemporaries described him as pious, averse to conflict, and not particularly prone to violence. He saw Henry as truthful and concerned with fairness and justice. Henry was kind and generous, quick to forgive. He preferred to dress and live modestly.
Henry embraced the Devito Moderna, a Christian spirituality popular at that time. The followers of the Devito Moderna focused on Christ's humanity versus a focus on Christ's divine nature. They valued virtue and the avoidance of vice. As a precursor to Puritanism, the adherents were more rational than emotional. They might have asked, what is the value of knowledge without the fear of God?
History credits Henry VI with establishing Eton College, King's College, Cambridge, and All Souls College, Oxford. With those credits, Henry's reign benefited England in a way no other monarch, before or after, has accomplished. The devout and erudite Henry communicated with academia with more ease than most.
Henry VI, the son of the Warrior Prince, was a lover of peace, one willing to deny self in favor of devotion to God.
As did Richard II before him, Henry VI desired peace with France. Henry's advisors suggested a contract with Charles VII for the hand of Charles' niece, Margaret of Anjou (1429-1482), an arrangement that would best meet Henry's needs. The 1444 Treaty of Tours articulated the agreement. On 23 August 1445, twenty-three-year-old Henry married fifteen-year-old Margaret at Titchfield Abbey.
JACK CADE'S REBELLION
A man, who called himself Jack Cade, among other names, set up his make-shift headquarters at the White Hart Inn before crossing the Thames on London Bridge, and entering London on 3 July 1450. King Henry VI was twenty-eight years old. Once inside the city, Cade established tribunals to punish the King's men he held responsible for England's sorry economic conditions. Cade found Henry's Lord High Treasurer and another man guilty of treason. Cade's followers paraded through London's streets, their pikes adorned with the condemned officials' heads.
Not unlike the Peasant Revolt of 1381, England's lower classes suffered at the hands of the gentry. The common folk looked to Henry to address their concerns. Normandy had fallen, the war in France continued to go badly, and the war debt fell on the shoulders of the working classes in the form of increased taxes. Fear of a Norman invasion was real and pervasive in England's southern shires. Meanwhile, the King's men continued to fight for control, with no consensus on the direction England should take to address the many issues.
Cade created a manifesto he dubbed The Complaints of the Poor Commons in Kent in the spring of 1450. When Henry failed to address their grievances, a band of men numbering more than five thousand marched to London. Small landowners, artisans, and shop keepers joined the group composed mainly of the peasantry.
Henry sent a small, royal force to meet the poor man's army. He underestimated the size of the ragtag militia; Henry's forces encountered an ambush. Several key royals lost their lives, and Henry, fearing for his life, sought refuge. Emboldened by the success of his troops, Cade marched his troops to London.
The citizens and officials of London engaged Cade's army on the evening of 8 July. The fighting lasted all night until eight in the morning. The Londoners prevailed; Cade's army suffered many casualties. Cade escaped, only to be apprehended later. He died of his wounds before he could be brought to trial.
Initially, Henry authorized pardons for the surviving Cade rebels. However, when he realized that Cade had used Mortimer's name in a spurious attempt to link his cause to that of the arch-rival Yorks, Henry rescinded the pardons. After that, the hunt was on, with the usual results. Many of Cade's followers were hanged. Cade's corpse was beheaded, his body drawn and quartered, and sent to various locations thought to be rebel strongholds.
England faced a crisis of leadership. The common folk had lost confidence in Henry. A prevailing sense of rebellion pervaded despite harsh reprisals for any who dared to rebel. The powerful barons of the Lancaster line and the York line were at each other's throats. Peace-loving Henry VI was no match for the power elite.
Jack Cade's Rebellion was a commentary on England's socioeconomic problems and a precursor to the bloody conflicts just a few years off.
HENRY FALTERS, YORK RISES
Life became more difficult for Henry in August 1453. Margaret was pregnant, and England had lost its holdings in Bordeaux. All of the gains in France made by his father, Henry V, were lost during Henry's watch. Thirty-two-year-old Henry reacted by going into a completely unresponsive state for nearly eighteen months. He recognized no one, was mute, and he seemed to be in a trance.
Two months after Henry went into his trance, Margaret gave birth to their only child, Edward of Lancaster (1453-1471). When Margaret presented the future Prince of Wales to Henry, he was unresponsive, disinterested. Around Christmas 1454, Henry came out of his trance. The story goes that Henry expressed pleasure that he had a son, but he opined that the Holy Ghost must have fathered the young Edward.
During Henry's period of mental instability, Richard, Duke of York (1411-1460), became the Lord Protector and Defender of the Realm. Richard of York was the only son of Richard Conigsburgh, Earl of Clarence. The Earl of Clarence was a penniless royal without significant land holdings. He lost his head in the aborted coup to overthrow Henry V in 1415. Young Richard was four years old. When Richard's uncle, Edmund, Duke of York, died on the battlefield at the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, the boy inherited the title of Duke of York and his uncle's vast estates.
In 1436, twenty-five-year-old Richard of York successfully led a military expedition to France. By the time Richard returned to England in 1439, he was an acknowledged leader and a wealthy aristocrat. He was the antithesis of his feckless father, Richard Conigsburgh. Richard of York was a powerful magnate who had a reliable and legitimate claim to the English Crown. Richard's mother, Anne Mortimer (1390-1411), was the great-granddaughter of Lionel of Antwerp (1338-1368), Duke of Clarence. Richard's father was the second son of Edmund of Langley (1341-1402), Duke of York. As Lord Protector, during Henry VI's incapacity to rule, York held the reins of power. Margaret saw him as a clear and present danger to Henry VI and Henry's infant son, Edward, The Prince of Wales.
Quite naturally, Margaret believed that the House of Lancaster, in the person of herself, should retain control. Edmund Beaufort (1406-1455), the Duke of Somerset, and grandson of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford supported the Queen's claim. Beaufort was known as the Queen's favorite. Many believed that Beaufort was her lover, and quite possibly the father of the Prince of Wales.
Queen Margaret was intensely protective of Edward as the heir apparent to the Throne for the House of Lancaster. A bitter rivalry between the Queen's favorite, Beaufort, and York developed. When Henry came to his senses in late December 1454, York and his people were out of a job, and Queen Margaret, supported by Beaufort, back in control. York, who realized his potential peril at the hand of the unyielding Queen, marshaled his forces. All England was about to erupt in a civil war.
Up next, Civil War.
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