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 the 49-year-old Henry VI, who became the third king and the last representative of the Lancaster dynasty, one of the lateral branches of the ancient Plantagenet family. By fate, he found himself at the center of bloody events, which later received the very poetic name of the Scarlet and White Rose War.
The last king of the Lancaster family
Unlike the German king Henry VI, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who became famous for his numerous military campaigns and extreme cruelty towards the rebellious vassals, his English namesake, too, Henry, and also VI, but who lived two and a half centuries later, was a quiet and peaceful person. Born on December 6, 1421, even in infancy, he received the right to two crowns at once - English and French. However, showing all signs of mental retardation, he remained throughout his life only a toy in the hands of various political adventurers.
Until 1437, when the young heir to the throne reached adulthood, the regency council established by the parliament ruled the country on his behalf. But even after the official coronation took place, it was not he who actually ruled over all the affairs, but a handful of enterprising and dexterous nobles, among whom Count William Suffolk stood out especially.
Inglourious Favorite End
In 1455, he arranged the marriage of Henry VI with Margarita of Anjou. Possessing a strong and domineering character, she immediately pushed into the background her demented spouse and brought the count to whom she owed the crown. Finding himself in the position of a favorite, he soon received the ducal title, and became the sovereign master in the palace.
However, even in those ancient times, royal power in England had certain boundaries established by parliament, which the new-born duke clearly did not take into account. In 1447, pushed by arrogance and arrogance, he embarked on a gamble with the seizure of territories belonging to France, as a result of which he was defeated and, as a person who caused significant damage to the kingdom, was beheaded. Margarita was powerless to help her favorite.
The split in court circles and the beginning of the war
Meanwhile, the health of her husband, the rightful king of England, Henry VI, markedly worsened. At times he fell into complete madness, and the parliament was forced to appoint a protector (the person who ruled on behalf of the incompetent king), which, bypassing the queen, was the duke Richard York, who hated both Margarita herself and her executed favorite. It was this appointment that triggered a split among the highest English nobility, some of which supported the queen in her claims to power, and showed hostility to others who took the side of Richard York.
Very soon, the confrontation that arose between the two formed parties grew into brutal bloodshed, which went down in the history of the country as the Scarlet and White Rose War. She got this name because on the banner of the adherents of the queen, personifying the Lancaster line of the Plantagenets, a scarlet rose was depicted, and their opponents ─ white. In fact, it was a war between supporters of the priority of royal power over parliamentary power and their opponents.
Military action developed with varying success. In 1458, the rebellious Richard almost died after he was abandoned by his supporters, who sided with Henry VI, who announced at the time of one of rare intellectual enlightenments that he had amnesty for everyone who had voluntarily laid down their arms. Thus, the White Rose army temporarily lost its combat capability, but two years later a close associate of York ─ Earl of Warwick, gathered disparate forces, and, defeating the royal army, captured London. The unfortunate king Henry VI was captured and was jailed.
Law Above All
Surprisingly, the representatives of the White Rose party seized the capital in battle, arrested the king, and became full masters of the situation, could not enthrone their leader Richard York. It turns out that in addition to military force, there is also a law, and he did not allow the rebellious duke to be crowned without the consent of the parliament, that is, a constitutionally elected legislative body. Venerable men refused him, and the only thing York managed to achieve was the right to inherit the throne in the event of the death of its rightful owner, King Henry VI.
Warlike queen
Such a decision of the parliament deprived the right to the throne of the son of Margarita of Anjou. And she, having shown truly non-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 its main opponent, Richard York, was killed. Then Margarita managed to free her husband from imprisonment, with whom she took refuge in the north of the country.
Apparently, this was 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 replace him with 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 basis for this decision was the latter's belonging to one of the branches of the Plantagenet clan.
King Failures Military Failures
Soon after, a series of major military defeats followed by Lancaster supporters 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 rest of her forces suffered a crushing defeat at the battle of Hexham.
Almost all warlords loyal to the queen were killed in battle or executed. The ousted 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 by the winners by a monk who happened to be there.
Tragic denouement
After this, the fugitive was captured, brought to London, and he was imprisoned for the second time in his life. Henry found freedom only five years later, after an ardent supporter of Lancaster Count Warwick rebelled and temporarily seized power. He even returned the crown to him, and he for a short time was again nominally considered an English monarch. However, his supporters soon suffered a final defeat. The young son of Henry VI was captured and executed, and he was stabbed to death in one of the towers of the Tower. The ashes of the ill-fated king are now resting in the Windsor castle of Berkshire.
The image of the unfortunate king was included in the plots of several literary works and paintings. To this day, on the stages of many theaters in the world is a series of plays by William Shakespeare "Henry VI". In it, the audience sees the tragedy of the monarch who owned two crowns from birth, but failed to hold any of them in his hands.