| | Roots of the Conflict: Intermission | | 
HENRY VI |
In the feudal system, where rank was bestowed by accident of birth, merit was not a necessity but simply a happy bonus. More often, power was handed to the merely competent, whose weaknesses were tempered by the advice of wise council. It is difficult not to feel sorry for Henry VI, who was born facing so many difficulties and with so little capacity to cope with them. Henry VI was deeply pious and devout, excessively sensitive, and fundamentally naive. Any man who could establish a political position near him might have total control of the government, for Henry would usually acquiesce to anything demanded of him. In addition to lacking guile, he lacked intelligence. He was essentially a simple man, ill equipped to deal with the complications of international or domestic politics. To add to this disastrous combination, he had inherited mental instability from his insane grandfather, Charles VI of France. Thought not a certifiable madman, he was still subject to periodic bouts of catatonia. It was an added factor which made him unfit to govern. The real problem in England in the mid 15th century was that the two most powerful men in the land were miscast in their roles. Henry VI was dwarfed by the obligations of the throne, while by contrast, no duchy was large enough to contain Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York. Ironically, if the royal family tree had been able to flourish unchecked, it might have yielded good fruit. Though the laws of inheritance had never been formalized, by all precedents, the Duke of York was the rightful king. His mother was a granddaughter of Lionel of Antwerp, second son of Edward III. The reigning Henry VI, being descended from King Edward's third son, John of Gaunt, had a clearly inferior claim. York was the rightful king both by birth and by aptitude. But the political status quo was difficult to challenge, for the crown held great reverence, as suited the people's perception of their king as God's chosen representative. The man sitting on the throne was perceived to be there by God's will, and the dictates of God were more important than those of birth. Very strict, unwritten rules had to be followed to unseat a monarch, and its difficulty can be seen in the fact that it had only been successfully achieved once, by Henry IV. York was not a power-mad magnate. He had no overt designs on the throne. This was not to say that he was content to remain quietly in his lands and have no say in politics, and indeed, the Wars of the Roses largely resumed as a result of the conspiracies to exclude York from a role in the government. But for York to expect this was not self-serving or unreasonable, for he was one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, and deserved to be recognized as such. He was not without political expertise, but too often failed to make the necessary masterstroke to ensure his victories. The York question was the chief problem facing the courtiers who attached themselves to Henry VI. He was clearly a dangerous upstart with the potential to shake up the existing power structure in England, and would best be handled by being shunted out of the way. Thus, in 1436, the king's council sent him overseas to serve as Regent of France, in hopes of salvaging the crumbling situation in the English possessions on the continent. It was a thankless task, made more so by the King's reluctance to send any financial support. Repeated complaints to the King for reimbursement yielded no results. Furious, York refused to take a second term of office. As the balance of power shifted on the fields of France, so did the balance of power shift in the English court. A vocal party supporting an end to the war had emerged, led by the crafty and unscrupulous Cardinal Beaufort, the king's uncle. Joining the Cardinal was William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, the Steward of the King's household. Opposing these two was the faction of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. For years, the Cardinal and the Duke grappled in the council chamber, but Beaufort was too devious for his opponent to match. In 1441, he abruptly arranged to have Humphrey's wife Eleanor arrested and tried for witchcraft (it seems that she was actually engaged in attempts to divine her husband's future, a practice which seem to have aided her little). Eleanor was exiled, and Humphrey's reputation was shattered. The peace party gained influence over the easily led King, and negotiations began for a treaty with France. Suffolk‘s plan was to arrange a marriage alliance between the King and a French noble lady, which would engender a truce and halt the French advances into English territory. The bride he hit upon was the young and fiery Margaret of Anjou, the French King's niece, and daughter of the influential René of Anjou, who was in theory King of Naples, Sicily, Jerusalem, and Hungary, though his presence as a hanger-on in the French court belied his vast territorial claims. The two nations settled upon a truce with the possibility of an eventual peace, and the English gained a fine bride for their king. It was only after negotiations were well underway that René of Anjou made it clear that he had no dowry to give with his daughter, which was kept secret. Margaret of Anjou was shrewd enough to quickly size up the situation. She soon gathered around her a cadre of allies, the top men being Suffolk and the influential Earl of Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, the latter of whom it was rumored she had had an affair with. Convinced, moreover, that the Duke of York was a threat, she did all she could to alienate him from the king. Within months after her arrival, the teenage Queen Margaret was the real power in England. The population was livid. A woman and her lackeys were dominating Henry VI, and governmental corruption could be seen on all levels, all across the land. Discontent was about to reach a bursting point. The Earl of Suffolk, betrayed by Parliament, hated by the people, with no friends left except the still loyal Queen, was suddenly politically isolated. In 1449 he was brought to trial on various charges of treason and corruption. His sentence was exile. The Earl was attacked by a mob when he went home to collect his belongings for his departure, narrowly escaping through a back exit. It was to do him little good. On his voyage to France he was waylaid by a pinnace, captured, put in a small boat, and decapitated after several blows to the neck from a rusty sword. His body was left to rot on the shore near Dover. Suffolk was a martyr for the inept King and the grasping Queen. Though he embodied their selfish, secluded form of government, he was not the source of it, and his death would resolve little. It would take greater men than a cold-blooded mob of pirates to put England under firm guidance again. Many believed it was a task only Richard, Duke of York, could undertake. 
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