The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [59]
King’s College, Cambridge was founded in 1441 to provide further education for boys who had completed their studies at Eton. The college buildings and chapel are still numbered among the chief glories of the University of Cambridge. There was an element of laying up treasure in heaven about Henry’s foundations, for in lavishing so much expense and care on them he was consciously aiming to eclipse similar foundations such as the schools and colleges founded by William of Wykeham in the fourteenth century.
Henry spent lavishly on his educational projects, his palaces, and – above all – his favourites, with little regard for his depleted treasury. He was easily manipulated and exploited by unscrupulous courtiers, who took advantage of his extravagant generosity; he, in turn, lacked the perception to judge the worthiness of its recipients. He was an unworldly man, basically shy and naive, who had little aptitude for dealing with people. He was too simple to adopt a political role, too open and honest, lacking in cunning and the ability to dissimulate. He was sensitive, not only about the Lancastrian title to the throne, but also about attempts to limit his royal authority, which – given his long minority and the difficulties he faced in asserting his authority – is perhaps understandable. As a man he was virtuous and good; as a king, he was a disaster.
Henry VI’s chief weakness was allowing himself to be dominated by political factions, who frequently manipulated him into making unwise decisions and who were chiefly concerned with promoting their own interests. He had a peculiar talent for surrounding himself with the most rapacious, self-seeking and unpopular magnates, in heeding whose advice he showed a marked lack of political judgement. Nor did he make much attempt to stand up to those he disagreed with. Whoever controlled the King controlled the country; throughout Henry’s reign, therefore, the government of England was carried out according to the wishes of whichever faction was able at any given time to influence him.
Few kings can have inherited so many problems: a kingdom near bankruptcy, a Council divided by factions, a legal system corrupted by local magnates and their armed retainers, an aristocracy that was growing ever mightier and losing its integrity, and a war that could not be won but which was draining the country of its resources. None of these problems was Henry’s fault, but his failure to address them effectively made their escalation his responsibility.
Waurin wrote: ‘The King was neither intelligent enough nor experienced enough to manage a kingdom such as England.’ Although Henry’s chamberlain, Tunstall, says that he did spend a good deal of time ‘diligently treating of the affairs of his realm with his Council’, he left much of the business of government to whichever faction was in power, and when he did assert control it was sometimes only to make serious mistakes. Lord Chief Justice Fortescue, who remained faithful to Henry in prosperity and dire adversity, was yet a realist when it came to assessing his sovereign’s limitations, and in his treatise The Governance