In one of the premises of the Tower of London in the early morning of May 21, 1471, a murder was committed. His victim was 49-year-old Henry VI, who became the third king and the last representative of the Lancaster dynasty ─ one of the side branches of the ancient Plantagenet family. By the will of fate, he found himself in the center of bloody events, which later received the very poetic name of the War of the Scarlet and White Roses.
The Last Lancaster King
Unlike the German king Henry VI ─ the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who became famous for numerous military campaigns and extreme cruelty against recalcitrant vassals, his English namesake is also Henry, and also VI, but who lived two and a half centuries later, was quiet and peaceful person. Born on December 6, 1421, in infancy he received the right to two crowns at once ─ English and French. However, showing all the signs of mental retardation, throughout his life he remained only a toy in the hands of various political adventurers.
Until 1437, when the young heir to the throne came of age, the regency council ruled the country on his behalf,established by Parliament. But even after the official coronation took place, it was not he who actually ran all the affairs, but a bunch of enterprising and dexterous nobles, among whom Count William Suffolk especially stood out.
Inglourious end of the favorite
In 1455 he arranged the marriage of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou. Possessing a strong and domineering character, she immediately relegated her feeble-minded husband to the background and brought the count, to whom she owed the crown, closer to her. Once in the position of favorite, he soon received the ducal title, and became the sovereign master in the palace.
However, even in those ancient times, the royal power in England had certain boundaries set by Parliament, which the newly-minted duke clearly did not take into account. In 1447, spurred on by arrogance and arrogance, he embarked on an adventure to seize territories belonging to France, as a result of which he was defeated and, as a person who had caused significant damage to the kingdom, was beheaded by the verdict of Parliament. Margarita was powerless to help her favorite.
The split in court circles and the beginning of the war
Meanwhile, the he alth of her husband, the rightful king of England, Henry VI, has deteriorated markedly. At times, he fell into complete madness, and parliament was forced to appoint a protector (a person who ruled on behalf of the incapacitated king), who, bypassing the queen, became Duke Richard of York, who hated both Margarita herself and her executed favorite. It was this appointment that served as the impetus for a split among the highest English nobility, partwho supported the queen in her claims to power, and showed hostility to the others who took the side of Richard York.
Very soon, the confrontation that arose between the two formed parties, grew into a brutal bloodshed that went down in the history of the country as the War of the Scarlet and White Rose. She received this name because the flag of the followers of the queen, who personified the Lancastrian line of the Plantagenets, depicted a scarlet rose, while their opponents had a white one. In fact, it was a war between supporters of the priority of royal power over parliamentary power and their opponents.
Military operations developed with varying degrees of success. In 1458, the rebellious Richard almost died after he was abandoned by his supporters, who went over to the side of Henry VI, who, at the moment of one of his rare mental enlightenments, announced an amnesty for all who voluntarily laid down their arms. Thus, the army of the White Rose temporarily lost its combat capability, but two years later, York's close ally, the Earl of Warwick, gathered disparate forces, and, having defeated the royal army, captured London. The unfortunate King Henry VI was captured and ended up behind bars.
The law is above everything
It's amazing, but the representatives of the White Rose Party, who captured the capital with a fight, arrested the king, and became full masters of the situation, could not enthrone their leader Richard York. It turns out that in the world, in addition to military force, there is also a law, and it was he who did not allow the rebellious duke to be crowned without the consentparliament, i.e. the constitutionally elected legislature. The respectable men refused him, and the only thing that York managed to achieve was the right to inherit the throne in the event of the death of its rightful owner, King Henry VI.
Warrior Queen
This decision of the parliament deprived the son of Margaret of Anjou of the right to the throne. And she, showing truly not feminine energy and firmness, managed to gather an army in the northern counties of the country, at the head of which she moved to London. In February 1461, a major battle took place near the city of Wakefield, in which her main opponent, Richard York, was killed. At the same time, Margarita managed to free her husband from imprisonment, with whom she took refuge in the north of the country.
It must have been her mistake. During the absence of the royal couple, the mood of the parliamentarians changed, and they considered it good to remove the long-suffering Henry from the throne, and to erect in his place the eldest son of the deceased Richard York, who became the next king of England, who went down in history under the name of Edward IV. The reason for this decision was that the latter belonged to one of the branches of the Plantagenet family.
Military failures of supporters of the king
This was soon followed by a series of major military defeats suffered by the supporters of the Lancasters, united under the banner of the scarlet rose. At first they were defeated at the battle of Toughton, and then, when Margarita went to France for support, the remnants of her forces suffered a crushing defeat at the battle ofHexgeme.
Virtually all the warlords loyal to the queen were killed in battle or executed. The deposed king Henry VI managed to escape from the battlefield and for almost a whole year he hid in the castle of one of his supporters, until, finally, he was betrayed to the winners by a monk who happened to be there.
Tragic denouement
After this, the fugitive was captured, brought to London, and for the second time in his life he ended up behind bars. Henry gained freedom only five years later, after an ardent supporter of the Lancasters, Earl of Warwick, rebelled and temporarily seized power. He even returned the crown to him, and for a short time he was again nominally considered the English monarch. However, soon his supporters suffered a final defeat. The young son of Henry VI was captured and executed, and he himself was stabbed to death in one of the towers of the Tower. The ashes of the ill-fated king now rest at Windsor Castle in Berkshire.
The image of the unfortunate king entered the plots of several literary works and paintings. To this day, on the stages of many theaters of the world, a series of plays by William Shakespeare "Henry VI" is being performed. In it, the audience is presented with the tragedy of a monarch who owned two crowns from birth, but was unable to hold either of them in his hands.
