Henry VI, a simple man taking on a huge task!

King Henry VI of England looking every inch the mild mannered simpleton that he was.

When Joan of Arc was executed at Rouen in May 1431, Henry VI was but nine years of age. The Maid might be gone, but the prospect of a France ruled by the English crown was very far from becoming a reality. In 1435, England’s great allies the Burgundians, withdrew from the alliance when Duke Philip of Burgundy decided to back King Charles VII of France. It was a hefty blow and one that Henry took very personally. The 13 year old monarch wept uncontrollably when he heard the news and this betrayal haunted him for the rest of his life.

‘Oh dear Duke Philip, your betrayal of me is one so dreadfully cruel!

I trusted you as a faithful friend and now I feel such a wretched fool!’

Henry’s father, the illustrious warrior Henry V, had charged his three brothers with the care of the young king. However, in 1437 aged fifteen, Henry decided that he was able to make his own decisions. His mother, Catherine of Valois had died in January and a royal scandal was uncovered.

The dreadful scandal of Queen Catherine and Owen Tudor.

Henry’s mother, Catherine of Valois had scandalised the nation when it was discovered that she was having an affair with a lowly born Welsh commander, Owen Tudor.

‘Who ever heard of a Queen taking a common soldier to her bed!

The king’s mother has taken leave of her senses, she has clearly lost her head!’

Owen Tudor

For someone of regal birth to become romantically involved with a person so beneath their own social station, was a terrible scandal. The young king would flush with embarrassment whenever anyone mentioned the Queen or her lover.

‘Queen  Catherine had granted her affections to a Welsh soldier of low birth!

To the royal family it was a source of  great shame, to others, a cause for sniggering mirth!’

Catherine was the widow of the great Henry V. What was she thinking of by becoming entangled with this Welshman of base birth? Owen and the Queen had four children together. The Duke of Gloucester was outraged and he had Tudor jailed, while Catherine was to be enclosed in a religious house. Obviously, the young king must have been greatly embarrassed by the sordid episode, but the matter abated when Catherine died early in 1437 at an abbey in Bermondsey.

Bermondsey Abbey,

With the Burgundians having deserted the English cause in France and his mother’s outrageous behaviour with Owen Tudor, Henry’s rule had not had an auspicious beginning. Would things improve?