# Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The House of Lancaster


## Henry IV (1399- 1413)

!Henry IV{width="190"} **Henry IV** was born on
3 April 1367 at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, which was why he was
also known as Henry Bolingbroke. His father was the third son of King
Edward III of England, John of Gaunt. After landing in Yorkshire in
1398, Henry had enough support to be declared king by parliament in
1399. As king, Henry consulted with parliament often, but he sometimes
disagreed with them, particularly over church matters. Henry was the
first English king to allow the burning of heretics.

Henry spent much of his reign defending himself against plots,
rebellions and assassination attempts. Rebellions continued throughout
the first ten years of Henry\'s reign. These included the revolt of Owen
Glendower, who declared himself Prince of Wales in 1400, and the
rebellion of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. The king\'s
success in putting down these rebellions was due partly to the military
ability of his eldest son, Henry, who would later become King. In 1406,
English soldiers captured the future King James I of Scotland as he was
going to France. James remained a prisoner of Henry for the rest of
Henry\'s reign.

### Marriages and children

In 1381, 18 years before becoming king, Henry married Mary de Bohun.
They had two daughters and four sons, one of which was the future King
Henry V of England. Mary died in 1394, and in 1403 Henry married Joanna
of Navarre, the daughter of Charles d\'Évreux, King of Navarre. She was
the widow of John V of Brittany, with whom she had four daughters and
four sons, but she and Henry had no children.

The later years of Henry\'s reign were marked by serious health
problems. He had some sort of disfiguring skin disease, and more
seriously suffered acute attacks of some grave illness in June 1405,
April 1406, June 1408, during the winter of 1408-09, December 1412, and
then finally a fatal bout in March 1413. Unusually for a king of
England, he was buried not at Westminster Abbey but at Canterbury
Cathedral, as near to the shrine of Thomas Becket as possible.

## Henry V (1413-1422)

!King Henry V. **Henry V**
was born in Monmouth in 1387. He was king from 1413 to his death in 1422
By the time Henry died, he had not only consolidated power as the King
of England but had also effectively accomplished what generations of his
ancestors had failed to achieve through decades of war: unification of
the crowns of England and France in a single person.

### Life before became King

When Henry\'s father, Henry Bolingbroke, was exiled in 1398, Richard II
took the boy into his own charge and treated him kindly. In 1399 the
Lancastrian revolution brought Bolingbroke. He was created Duke of
Lancaster on 10 November 1399, the third person to hold the title that
year. In 1403 the sixteen-year-old prince was almost killed by an arrow
which became lodged in his face. An ordinary soldier would have been
left to die from such a wound, but Henry had the benefit of the best
possible care, and, over a period of several days after the incident,
the royal physician crafted a special tool in order to extract the tip
of the arrow without doing further damage. The operation was successful.

The Welsh revolt of Owen Glendower took up much of Henry\'s attention
until 1408. Then, as a result of the King\'s ill-health, Henry began to
take a wider interest in politics. From January 1410, he had practical
control of the government. In 1413 his father died and Henry became
king.

### Reign

When he became king, Henry had to deal with three main problems: the
restoration of domestic peace, the healing of rift in the Church and the
recovery of English prestige in Europe. Henry tackled all of the
domestic policies together, and gradually built on them a wider policy.
From the first he made it clear that he would rule England as the head
of a united nation. The heirs of those who had suffered in the last
reign were restored gradually to their titles and estates.

Henry then turned his attention to foreign affairs, in particular the
war with France and his claim to be King of it. 25 October 1415 saw
Henry score a great success in this campaign at Agincourt. The command
of the sea was secured by driving the Genoese allies of the French out
of the English Channel. Successful diplomacy saw the Holy Roman Emperor,
Sigismund, cease his support of Henry\'s French foes, whilst the Treaty
of Canterbury helped end the rift in the Church.

With the French having lost the support of the Genoese and the Holy
Roman Emperor, with these 2 allies gone, the war was renewed on a larger
scale in 1417. Lower Normandy was quickly conquered, and Rouen was cut
off from Paris and besieged. The French were paralysed by the disputes
of Burgundians and Armagnacs. Henry skilfully played them off one
against the other, without relaxing his warlike energy. In January 1419
Rouen fell. By August the English were outside the walls of Paris. The
internal disputes of the French parties ended with the killing of John
of Burgundy by men loyal to the heir to the French throne. Philip, the
new Duke of Burgundy, and the French court threw themselves into
Henry\'s arms. After six months\' negotiation Henry was recognised as
heir and regent of France. On 2 June 1420, Henry married Catherine of
Valois, the French king\'s daughter. Following his death, Catherine
secretly married a Welsh courtier, Owen Tudor, grandfather of the future
King Henry VII of England.

### Death

Henry then made plans for a new Crusade began to take shape as the
French situation became clearer. Henry visited to England in 1421, but
returned to France after forces led by the Duke of Clarence were
defeated at the Battle of Baugé. The hardships of the longer winter
siege of Meaux broke down his health, and he died of dysentery at Bois
de Vincennes on 31 August 1422. Had he lived another two months, he
would have been crowned King of France. Henry was buried in Westminster
Abbey. He was succeeded by his infant son, Henry.

## Henry VI (1422-1461, 1470-1471)

!Henry VI{width="150"} **Henry VI**
was born at Windsor Castle on 6 December 1421, the son of King Henry V.
He was King of England from 1422, when he was nine months old. In 1423,
parliament was called and a regency council was appointed. Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester, Henry IV\'s youngest son, was appointed Protector
and Defender of the Realm and the Church until the King came of age, but
the Council had the power to replace him at any time. His duties were
limited to keeping the peace and summoning and dissolving Parliament.

Henry was eventually crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on 6
November 1429 a month before his eighth birthday, and as King of France
at Notre Dame in Paris on 16 December 1431. However, during the rule of
the regency council, much of the ground his father gained in France was
lost. A revival of French fortunes, beginning with the military
victories of Joan of Arc, led to the French nobles preferring the French
dauphin, who was crowned as King of France at Reims. Diplomatic errors
as well as military failures resulted in the loss of most of the English
territories in France.

Henry assumed the reins of government when he was declared of age in
1437. On gaining his majority, Henry VI proved to be a deeply spiritual
man, lacking the worldly wisdom necessary to allow him to rule
effectively. Right from the time he assumed control as king, he allowed
his court to be dominated by a few noble favorites, and the peace party,
which was in favour of ending the war in France, quickly came to
dominate.

### Marriage

It was thought that the best way of pursuing peace with France was
through a marriage with King Charles VII of France\'s niece, Margaret of
Anjou. Henry agreed, especially when he heard reports of Margaret\'s
stunning beauty. Charles agreed to the marriage on condition that he
would not have to provide the customary dowry and instead would receive
the lands of Maine and Anjou from the English. These conditions were
agreed to in the Treaty of Tours, but the cession of Maine and Anjou was
kept secret from parliament. It was known that this would be hugely
unpopular with the English populace. The marriage went ahead in 1445 and
Margaret\'s character seems to have complemented that of Henry\'s in
that she was prepared to take decisions and show leadership where he was
content to be led by her. In this much Margaret proved a more competent
ruler than Henry ever was, even though she was only sixteen at that
time. The issue of Maine and Anjou finally became public knowledge in
1446.

### Reign

The government\'s increasing unpopularity was due to a breakdown in law
and order, corruption, the distribution of royal land to the king\'s
court favourites, the troubled state of the crown\'s finances, and the
steady loss of territories in France. In 1447, this unpopularity took
the form of a Commons campaign against the Duke of Suffolk, who was the
most unpopular of all the King\'s favourites was widely seen as a
traitor, partly because of his role in negotiating the Treaty of Tours.
Henry was forced to send him into exile, but his ship was boarded in the
English Channel, and he was murdered. His body was found on the beach at
Dover.

In 1449, the Duke of Somerset, who was leading the campaign in France,
started more battles in Normandy, but by the autumn had been pushed back
to Caen. By 1450, the French had retaken the whole province. Returning
troops, who had often not been paid, added to the sense of lawlessness
in the southern counties of England, and Jack Cade led a rebellion in
Kent in 1450. Henry came to London with an army to crush the rebellion,
but was persuaded to keep half his troops behind while the other half
met Cade at Sevenoaks. Cade triumphed and went on to occupy London. In
the end, the rebellion achieved nothing, and London was retaken after a
few days of disorder, but the rebellion showed that feelings of
discontent were running high.

In 1450, the Duchy of Aquitaine, held since Henry II\'s time, was also
lost, leaving Calais as England\'s only remaining territory in France.
By 1452, Richard, Duke of York, who had been sidelined by being made
ruler of Ireland, was persuaded to return amd claim his rightful place
on the council, and put an end to bad government. His cause was a
popular one, and he soon raised an army at Shrewsbury. The king\'s
supporters raised their own similar-sized force in London. A stand-off
took place south of London, with the Duke of York giving a list of
grievances and demands to the king\'s supporters. One of the demands was
the arrest of the Duke of Somerset. The king initially agreed, but
Margaret intervened to prevent it. By 1453, the Duke of Somerset
regained his influence, and the Duke of York was again isolated. In the
meantime, an English advance in Aquitaine had retaken Bordeaux and was
having some success, and the queen announced that she was pregnant.

However, English success in Aquitaine was short-lived, and on hearing
the news of the English defeat in August 1453, Henry slipped into a
mental breakdown and became completely unaware of everything that was
going on around him. This was to last for more than a year, and Henry
failed even to respond to the birth of his own son and heir, Edward. The
Duke of York, meanwhile, had gained a very important ally, the Earl of
Warwick, who was one of the very influential and rich. The Duke York was
named regent as Protector of the Realm in 1454, and the queen lost all
her power. Somerset was held prisoner in the Tower of London. The Duke
of York\'s months as regent were spent tackling the problem of
government overspending. On Christmas Day 1454, however, Henry regained
his senses.

### Henry\'s character

Henry was kind and generous to those he cared about, giving away land
and titles to his advisors. He dressed simply. He was keen on reading
and \'book-learning\' but did not like leading his country in battle.

Keen on the promotion of education, Henry gave generous grants for the
foundation of both Eton College near Windsor, for the education of
students from poor backgrounds, and King\'s College, Cambridge, where
they could continue their education. Henry seems to have been a decent
man, but completely unsuited to kingship. He allowed himself to
dominated by the power-hungry factions which surrounded him at court and
was later powerless to stop the outbreak of bloody civil war. It was too
much for him to cope with, as his recurring mental illness from 1453
onwards showed.

### The Wars of the Roses

Nobles who had grown in power during Henry\'s reign, but who did not
like Henry\'s government, took matters into their own hands by backing
the claims of the rival House of York, first to the regency, and then to
the throne itself. After a violent struggle between the houses of
Lancaster and York, Henry was deposed on 4 March 1461 by his cousin,
Edward of York, who became King Edward IV. But Edward failed to capture
Henry and his queen, and they were able to flee into exile abroad.
During the first period of Edward IV\'s reign, Lancastrian resistance
continued mainly under the leadership of Queen Margaret and the few
nobles still loyal to her in the northern counties of England and Wales.
Henry was captured by King Edward in 1465 and subsequently held captive
in the Tower of London.

Queen Margaret was exiled, first in Scotland and then in France.
However, she was determined to win back for her husband and son, and
with the help of King Louis XI of France she eventually allied with the
Earl of Warwick, who had fallen out with Edward IV. Warwick returned to
England, defeated the Yorkists in battle, set Henry VI free and restored
him to the throne on 30 October 1470. Henry\'s return to the throne
lasted a very short time. By this time, years in hiding followed by
years as a prisoner had taken their toll on Henry, who had been
weak-willed and mentally unstable to start with. Henry looked tired and
vacant as Warwick and his men paraded him through the streets of London
as the rightful King of England. Within a few months Warwick had gone
too far by declaring war on Burgundy, whose ruler responded by giving
Edward IV the assistance he needed to win back his throne by force.

### Death

Henry VI was again held prisoner, this time in the Tower of London, and
he was murdered there on 21 May 1471. Popular legend has accused Richard
III of his murder, as well as the murder of Henry VI\'s son, Edward.
Each year on the anniversary of Henry VI\'s death, the Provosts of Eton
and King\'s College, Cambridge, lay roses and lilies on the altar which
now stands where he died. King Henry VI was originally buried in
Chertsey Abbey. In 1485 his body was moved to St George\'s Chapel at
Windsor Castle. He was succeeded as king by Edward, son of Richard, Duke
of York.

## References

