"Because it was a little bit hard for Henry the Sixth to continue to claim that he was the king of France, when his uncle was there actually wearing the crown, it was decided that to try and bolster sort of popular support for Henry, both in France and in England as King of France, he would be crowned in turn. So at the Grand Old age of eight, he was crowned King in Westminster, and then he was processed very slowly through the war-torn territory of France, eventually to be crowned king in Paris at Notre Dame when he was 10.
Now, this proved to be a bit of an error on the part of Henry's advisors, because it pushed Henry into real kingship before he was really ready for it. And after he had been crowned and returned to England by which point he was around 12, Henry understandably, felt that he was probably ready to take on the business of government for himself. And he was told in no uncertain terms by his councilors that he wasn't ready, that it would be dangerous to the country, in fact, if he were to take on too much power while he was still so young.
Two years later, Henry the Sixth tried again, he said, well, now I'm 14, I've been crowned twice. Could I maybe have the power of patronage? Again, his councilors went, I don't know or no, not yet. Not yet, Your Majesty? No, no, no. And probably the reason for this is that the last child King before King Henry the Six had been Richard the Second, who came to the throne aged 10, who went on to become effectively a tyrant ruler, someone who had taken power too early, and had proved to enjoy it a bit too much.
However, by squishing Henry's ambitions in this way, his councilors again made an error of judgment because Henry just by nature was not like Richard the Second. He was sensitive. He was kindhearted. He was, to be honest, a little bit soft. He was very different from Richard the Second and to have his own councilors showing such distrust in his judgment, made Henry himself doubt his own abilities. And he got in the habit of delegating power to other people, a habit that to be honest, he never really got out of…
He was sensitive. He was generous to a fault. He was very pious, more religious than a man of religion was how one of his contemporaries described him, probably because to be honest, when he was at his prayers, it was one of the only times he was actually allowed to just sit quietly and do what he wanted, instead of constantly having to deal with the demands of people around him. He was also and this was very unfortunate for a medieval King, easily manipulated.
And as I mentioned earlier, he hated conflict. If he had a choice between doing something that was right but hard or wrong, but easy, he always went for the wrong but easy option. To the extent that he just said yes to virtually everything. On one occasion, he gave the position of steward of the Duchy of Cornwall to two different men at the same time. That was an embarrassing oversight, but it actually caused enormous problems because both of these men defended their right to the title militarily, and it led to a decades long civil war in the West Country…
Having said that, though, Henry did achieve xertain things. And it was clear right from the moment that he first started to exercise power for himself that he was going to be a very different King from his father. Instead of celebrating his accession of power when he was 18 years old, by going off to fight the French, instead, he celebrated by founding a college, Eton College, and the following year 1441 he founded King's College, Cambridge. And he explicitly did this, he said, so that these centers of learning and religion would serve as memorials and legacies of his having taken adult power for himself...
Margaret of Anjou was a slightly lower ranking, French royal... months went by, and then years, and there is no sign of any child at all being born. Henry’s subjects started to mutter. There is an indictment in fact, against one of Henry’s subjects who in 1447 was arrested for claiming that Henry was being kept from his sport with his sovereign lady by two of his chief advisors, the Duke of Suffolk, the same man who had married Margaret by proxy, and had been Henry’s Stewart since Henry was 11 years old, and his ally, the Bishop of Salisbury, Henry's confessor. Now that was a bit embarrassing, and a bit of a strange thing.
But surely there is no truth to this was there? Hmm, curious, because there's another surviving role document called the Royal Book, which was written in the 1460s by someone who was in part of Henry's Court, which laid out various items of court protocol, including what should happen when a king and queen had sex basically, although it doesn't say that. ‘When they lay together’. And it's, what was supposed to happen was the Queen came to the King's chamber. Her servants went out, his servants went out and effectively they were left alone to get down to business. And the writer of the Royal Book said I saw never no person lie in the same chamber when this was going on, saving in King Henry's day, the Lord Say, with his Chamberlain. Now the Lord Say was yet another of Henry's closest advisors. And at one point the Chamberlain was Suffolk himself.
So this suggests that in fact, there was perhaps an element of truth to these rumors that Henry's advisors were getting involved in his sex life, not to try and stop him, but actually, perhaps to try and, you know, spur him on. Because Henry was a famously chaste and virginal young man. He was, I’m absolutely certain a virgin until he got married, and quite possibly a virgin for a little while afterwards, because one does wonder if, you know, did he just simply not know what was going on? Did someone eventually have to step in and explain things to him?...
Now that Lancastrians have been killed in battle, the vendetta between Lancaster and York becomes even more rigid. There are now sons of people killed at St Alban’s who want vengeance. There are now Yorkists, who are still denied power, even though they've got rid of Somerset, who are angry, and these two groups cannot be reconciled. Henry's answer to this situation is to on one occasion, make these people walk through the streets of London holding hands… Henry really has stopped involving himself in things and with the removal of the king from government, well, that is it. Things collapse, and the result is the Wars of the Roses"
