King Henry the Sixth

N the early autumn of the year 1422, the ancient noble abbey church of Saint Peter at Westminster was the scene of a great funeral ceremony.

I

The body of King Henry V. was about to be laid to rest in the quiet sleeping place of great Englishmen. His death had come upon the kingdom with the force of a terrible catastrophe. He had only reigned nine years and a half, but, in that time, his wise statesmanship and dauntless courage had enabled him to more than outrival great Edward III. and the chivalrous Black Prince by adding the territories of France to those of England. By the Treaty of Troyes he had compelled the weak King of France to disinherit his own son, Charles the Dauphin, and to adopt Henry as his heir.

In the height of his success he was establishing himself and the affairs of England upon a sure basis when a severe illness laid hold of him and caused his death at Vincennes, near Paris, in August, 1422. Before he died he gave directions for the future ruling of the two kingdoms, and the guardianship of his infant son. To his brother, the Duke of Bedford, he committed the Regency of France, and to his other brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the Protectorship of England. To his two uncles, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, he entrusted the guardianship of his child. Richard Neville, Earl of

Warwick, a soldier who for many years served with great honour in the high and responsible position of Captain of Calais, was later to become the knightly tutor of the young King. Warwick was a man of great wisdom and military prowess, truly representative of the chivalry of the day, and one well-qualified by great experience to make a good soldier of the prince committed to his charge.

In order to secure the friendship of the powerful Duke of Burgundy, Bedford married his sister, and later promoted another marriage whereby Brittany was won over to the English side. Bedford knew well that on the death of the frail King of France, the young Dauphin, a man of vigorous mind and determined purpose, would refuse to submit to the treaty which set him aside from the succession to the throne, and that he would urge the French people, by all the eloquence at his command, to rise against the English usurpers and win back the territories wrested from them by Henry V. Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans, Paris, Gisors, Poictiers, Rouen, and the fairest portions of France were under the power of England, but the strong hand which had snatched them was now mouldering in the coffin and the sharp sword lay rusting in its sheath. Why, then, should not France bestir herself and once more be free ?

When a great man holds his possessions in the firm grasp of a statesman and soldier, faction slumbers or works out its purposes in darkness and stealth. Rivalries are concealed, because men dread the vigilance of a vigorous ruler who has power and is quick to maintain order. Lesser men can only plot in secret, or hint at what they desire should come to pass. Changes occur

rapidly when the King is an infant and nobles have been called upon to rule until he comes of age. Hidden factions now have courage to assert themselves, jealousies spring forward into the light, ambitions try to vault into high places, and many wills strive for preeminence in the place where one in former days ruled alone.

As a new generation presses forward to the study of problems which present themselves, new factors demand an answer, and adjustments have to be made. Kingdoms and peoples cannot stand still, and from the ranks of the greatest number, that is, the common people, new forces are constantly emerging which require a careful study and handling on the part of kings and nobles. It was so in England at the time of the death of King Henry V., it is so in the England of today.

Even while the coffin of the dead king was resting where the light, streaming through the beautiful stained glass windows, fell upon the helpless dust of one who once held the bravest, strongest, and most ambitious of his nobles in awe, those same nobles were confronting each other with frowning brow and flashing eye, and strong, tumultuous passions were rising which would, before many years had passed away, drench the green fields of England with blood, hurl great families into oblivion, and make way for the coming of a host of merchants and workers.

Bedford, the eldest surviving brother of the late King, now Regent of France, was of shrewd mind and calm temperament, energetic when roused, but, in the main, inclined to achieve his ends by tactful dealing rather than by force. His brother, Humphrey of Gloucester,

was outspoken and impulsive, lacking somewhat in foresight and deliberation, and thereby prone to spoil matters by hasty decisions; passionate and selfish, and brave to recklessness; careless of the Church, but studious of religion, never afraid to declare his convictions, open in his animosities and ever ready to give offence or accept a challenge. It was on account of his hasty marriage with Jacqueline, Duchess of Holland, that the Duke of Burgundy afterwards broke away from his alliance with England; and because of his outspoken enmity with the Beauforts that Gloucester's life was ended, probably by poison. He hated the Bishop of Winchester, and was at variance with his uncles Exeter and Somerset.

The Duke of Bedford had left the English forces in France under the command of Lord Talbot and his son, with Lords Scales, Hungerford, and Salisbury, and they were watching every move made by the Dauphin. Sir John Fastolfe, a distinguished soldier who had won great renown at Agincourt, was Governor of Normandy, and, later, of Anjou and Maine. The Earl of Warwick kept watch and ward over the fortress of Calais, the gateway of France.

But there was another nobleman of high rank, who was destined to play a great part in the stormy events which were, in a few years, to break over England. His name was Richard Plantagenet, son of Richard, Earl of Cambridge, second son of Edmund, Duke of York, who was the third son and fifth child of Edward III. and Philippa of Hainault. By the marriage of Richard of Cambridge with Ann Holland, heiress of the Mortimers, Richard Plantagenet united in himself the claims of the second and fourth sons of Edward, while Henry VI.

represented the noble line of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. If King Henry died unmarried, Humphrey of Gloucester stood next in the succession, after him came the Duke of Somerset, and later Margaret Beaufort. Thus Henry VI., Gloucester, and the Beauforts stood for the House of Lancaster, and Richard Plantagenet for the House of York.

Two strong Lancastrian Kings had reigned since the day when Henry Bolingbroke had snatched the sceptre of England, with boisterous hand, from the nerveless grip of Richard II., but the adherents of the elder branch had not forgotten their claims, and in the troublous season of the minority of one whose frail infancy and youth foretold a weak maturity, a man like Plantagenet was not likely to allow so favourable an opportunity to go by unheeded, and his marriage with Cicely Neville, a daughter of the knightly and powerful House of Warwick, assured him of stalwart supporters, if at any time the question of the succession to the Crown came to be settled upon the field of battle. With these indications of the main actors of the drama before us, we can move with greater ease along the pathways of the play of Henry VI.

We return to that solemn funeral procession which, on an autumn day in the year 1422, wended its way through the sorrowing crowds in the streets of London, to the noble sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. Within the ancient walls the Duke of Bedford stood bare-headed beside the coffin. Gloucester with gloomy brow watched his hated rival the Bishop of Winchester. Exeter and Warwick stood near. In a great concourse, which completely filled the Abbey, the nobles and commoners stood massed within the great nave, and the branching