Abstract
In 1450 England’s king was Henry VI, a young man in his late twenties.1 He was the son of the famous warrior Henry V, a father he had not known for he came to the throne when he was nine months old. He had no memory of being other than king. He had been cossetted and nurtured to step into his father’s martial shoes. He had inherited two kingdoms, being crowned king of England in 1429 and king of France in 1431. From the age of sixteen in 1437 he had begun to play an active part in the affairs of the kingdom. By 1439 his minority was at an end. It had been a surprisingly harmonious minority. Rifts, conflicts and factional rivalry had, of course, occurred, but the leading councillors and nobles, inspired by their dedication to the memory of Henry V whom they had served, had been at one in their determination to hand on to his young heir his inheritance in both kingdoms.
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References
Unless otherwise noted reference for this narrative should be made to the major political studies of the later-fifteenth century. The reign of Henry VI is comprehensively detailed in R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI (London: Ernest Benn, 1981). Part Three, ‘The Approach of Civil War 1453–1461’, is by far the fullest discussion available of these years. The standard works for Edward IV’s reign are C. L. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward IV, 2 vols (London: Longman, 1923) which provides the greater detail and Charles Ross, Edward IV (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), which offers a corrected and modern interpretation. Charles Ross, Richard III (London: Eyre Methuen, 1981), is the fullest and most soundly based of many recent studies. For Henry VII see S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972).
This point is stressed in A. J. Pollard, ‘The Last of the Lancastrians’, Parliamentary History, 2 (1983), p. 204.
I differ from Professor Griffiths (Henry VI, pp. 772-808) in dating Queen Margaret’s capture of complete control of the Court from November 1458 rather than November 1456.
R. A. Griffiths, ‘The sense of Dynasty in the Reign of Henry VI’, in Charles Ross (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1979), pp. 30–1.
J. R. Lander, ‘Marriage and Politics in the fifteenth century’, in Crown and Nobility, pp. 94–126 argued that the Woodvilles were not excessively rewarded. M. A. Hicks, ‘The Changing Role of the Wydevilles in Yorkist Politics to 1483’, in Ross (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power, pp. 60-73 concluded that their influence and gains were excessive.
A. J. Pollard, ‘Lord FitzHugh’s Rising in 1470’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 52 (1979), pp. 170–5.
R. A. Griffiths and R. S. Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1985), p. 85.
For a recent suggestion that Somerset’s loyalty to Henry VI was the key to his behaviour see M. A. Hicks, ‘Edward IV and Lancastrian Loyalism in the North’, Northern History, 20 (1984), pp. 23–37, esp. p. 29.
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© 1988 A. J. Pollard
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Pollard, A.J. (1988). The Course of the Wars. In: The Wars of the Roses. British History in Perspective. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19549-7_3
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