The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [56]
Although the young King firmly supported Beaufort’s peace policy, he was neither prepared to relinquish the French lands still held by England nor the title of King of France. He was too weak and inexperienced to stand up to Gloucester, especially when the Duke warmed to his favourite theme, the sacred duty of fulfilling the wishes of Henry’s mighty father. To bolster his position, Henry tried to buy support by bestowing extravagant gifts and grants of land and money on those whom he believed to be his friends. The Council, alarmed at his profligate generosity, was soon warning him against excessive liberality and reminding him of the need to conserve money.
The appearance in England at this time of a strong and determined ruler might have saved the situation, with the power of the nobles being diverted to other causes, law and order being effectively enforced, and even the war with France successfully prosecuted or brought to an honourable conclusion. Henry VI was not a strong king and never would be; nor was he ever interested in winning military glory. Therein lay the tragedy of the House of Lancaster.
6
A Simple and Upright Man
In 1910, Henry VI’s skeleton was exhumed at Windsor. Examination showed that he had been a strongly built man, about 5’9″ tall, with brown hair and a small head. The portrait of him in the Royal Collection at Windsor, which dates from about 1518–23 and is probably a copy of an original from life, shows a chubby-faced, clean-shaven youth in a black gown furred with ermine and crimson sleeves, a gold collar and a small black bonnet. One contemporary described him as having a childlike face, and this portrait bears out that description.
In the National Portrait Gallery another portrait shows him in later life, with a far more angular and care-worn face. He had heavy-lidded eyes and a full underlip, and was inclined to stoop and bow his head.
In youth he enjoyed dressing in fashionable clothes, on one occasion appearing in a purple chaperon or cloak, a large round headdress with tippet, and a light blue gown known as a houppelande which swept the floor and had tight sleeves, a high scarlet collar, padded shoulders and a crimson belt with a gold buckle. As Henry grew older, however, he came to believe that rich apparel was a worldly vanity, and appeared wearing broad-toed shoes like those of a countryman, a long gown with a round hood like that of a burgess, and a long tunic, every item of a dark grey colour. His courtiers complained that he dressed ‘like a townsman’, and his commons, who expected their sovereign to look and dress like a king and to carry himself with regal bearing, made similar criticisms. So little did Henry care for his clothes that in 1459 he presented his best gown to the Prior of St Albans. His embarrassed treasurer then discovered that the King had no other gown suitable for state occasions, and no money to purchase another, and had to buy it back for fifty marks. Henry was not pleased.
John Whethamstead, Abbot of St Albans, described Henry as a simple and upright man. Commines calls him ‘a very ignorant and almost simple man’; even John Blacman, who wrote a hagiography of Henry at the behest of Henry VII, uses the word ‘simple’ to describe him, and in 1461, Whethamstead accused Henry of ‘excessive simplicity in his acts’. In each case the word ‘simplex’ should be translated to mean gullible or guileless; it was not until the seventeenth century that the word ‘simple’ was used to describe a half-wit or idiot. Nevertheless, gullibility was not a desirable quality in a king: Waurin says that all the evils that befell England during Henry’s reign were due to his simple-mindedness.
Although Henry had been comprehensively educated, was well-read and had a love of learning, he was not particularly clever. John Hardyng describes him as being ‘of small intelligence’. He lacked perception, and on one occasion even pardoned four nobles convicted of treason, along