MARGARET OF ANJOU Queen of England | The woman who lost the Wars of the Roses | the wife of Henry VI
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- MARGARET OF ANJOU was a WARRIOR QUEEN of England and one of the women who fought the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century. Sadly for Margaret, as the wife of Henry VI, one of the country’s weakest ever Kings, she was also destined to be the woman who lost the Wars of the Roses. In this Plantagenets documentary from History Calling, we look at the woman William Shakespeare later called the she-wolf of France. We start (where else) with Margaret’s early life, moving onto her marriage to Henry and at the difficulties she faced when she became Queen of England at just 15. We’ll look at her dealings with other major figures in this period, including Richard, Duke of York, Cecily, Duchess of York, Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII), Richard, Earl of Warwick (also known as the Kingmaker) and the future Edward IV and Richard III.
If you’ve ever wondered, what were the Wars of the Roses (or indeed what was the Cousins’ War, which is another name this conflict is known by), then this video is for you. It is the third in a series on the women of the Wars of the Roses and will facilitate an understanding the Wars of the Roses more generally.
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BUY OR RENT:
Britain’s Bloody Crown Presented by Dan Jones (2016) [Documentary covering the Wars of the Roses. Historically accurate] amzn.to/2TPep8i (US LINK)
The White Queen (2013). [Depicts the story of the Wars of the Roses from Elizabeth Woodville’s point of view. Gets the broad strokes of history correct, but definitely not completely accurate] amzn.to/3dm7kBL (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/2VcbQO5 (US LINK)
The White Princess (2018). [Covers the marriage of Henry Tudor to Elizabeth of York. Again, gets the broad strokes of history correct, but definitely needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.] amzn.to/3ftrmNt (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/3C1NLdl (US LINK)
The King in the Carpark (2013). Documentary about the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton in 2012. amzn.to/3C0loMF (UK LINK)
READ MORE:
The letters of Margaret of Anjou (Boydell and Brewer, 2019) available at amzn.to/3LzHOJr (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/3uPCSdv (US LINK)
Helen Castor, She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth (2011) available at amzn.to/33onkCq (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/3oNT1wg (US LINK)
Dan Jones, The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors (2015) available at amzn.to/3gQEsUc (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/34zKVAJ (US Link)
Michael Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (Yale, 2012) amzn.to/33O5w3A (UK Link) or (US Link) amzn.to/3FZrZaV
Phillipa Gregory, The Red Queen (2011). Fictionalised account of the Wars of the Roses told from Lady Margaret Beaufort’s point of view. Read for fun, but definitely don’t get your history from this. amzn.to/3rgXYfz (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/2V8IQa3 (US LINK)
Phillipa Gregory, The White Queen (2011). Fictionalised account of the Wars of the Roses told from Elizabeth Woodville’s point of view. Read for fun, but definitely don’t get your history from this. amzn.to/2PlPztQ (UK LINK) OR amzn.to/37bO9YK (US LINK)
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What you think the greatest challenge Margaret faced as Queen was? Let me know below and check out my PATREON site for extra perks at www.patreon.com/historycalling Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to my channel too.
This might sound simple but I think her biggest challenge was simply being a woman at this time in history. Of course this is an extremely simplistic view/opinion but in a time where men ruled everything, being a woman seemed to have been her biggest challenge.
I completely agree. Had she been a man, everyone would have lauded her strength.
@@AK-dw8jo Simplistic maybe, but absolutely true in my opinion.
@@HistoryCalling oh I also wanted to say I am glad that your subscribers are going up steadily. You are doing an awesome job and it’s awesome to be “part” of your journey. As you are so much in to history, I don’t even worry about you “forgetting” us when you reached the top 😂👍
But really well done and deserved!
@AK 47 Thank you so much. That is incredibly sweet of you to say and should I ever reach 'the top' (I'm not even sure how I would define that actually) I definitely wouldn't forget all the people who helped me to get there :-)
She was a very admirable Queen, and being married to Henry VI must have required a strong character. As much as I love Shakespeare, I'm glad one of my English teachers told us to NEVER accept his plays as historical documents, or his characters as accurate portrayals of real people.
Yes, Shakespeare was pretty hard on her. She deserves a lot of admiration in my opinion, not scorn. She was a real fighter and survivor.
😳 people actually find Shakespeare’s plays historically accurate?
@@kotorisama3080 some people take the crown as historically completely accurate as well. People love to be entertained.
@@kotorisama3080 A lot of people forget the “fiction” part of “historical fiction” is there for a reason.
I once got into a bit of a spat online with a poster who believed quite fervently that Henry VIII had viciously beaten his third wife, Queen Jane Seymour, while she was heavily pregnant, causing her to go into labor, and that this was ultimately the cause of Jane’s death. Their source? The 2003 made-for-tv movie “Henry VIII.” And yes, Henry beats a pregnant Jane in it. The scene has Henry angry at Jane for trying to influence him politically, and he struck and then kicked her several times screaming that all he needed of her were “Sons! Sons! Sons!”
It’s not an awful movie per se, but that particular scene is needlessly disturbing. I think the best part of the film is the portrayal of the love affair between Anne Boleyn and Henry Percy. Most books and movies will mention it in passing, usually as a justification of her hatred of Cardinal Wolsey. But other than a few good minutes and a ton of weird inaccuracies, this one doesn’t have a lot going for it. And to top it all off, it’s caused at least one person to believe Henry brutalized his pregnant wife, Jane. 🤷🏻♀️ If you haven’t seen it, I wouldn’t exactly recommend you rush to do so.
@@angelsinger4574 wowza. Im a huge tudor fanatic and when it’s something IDK i google it and check a few sources. Not just one
You know, there's this long history of English queens being SUPER strong and tough in the face of adversity, but I don't think any queen had it worse than poor Queen Margaret. Hard to say what the biggest challenge for her was, seeing as there were so many, but I suppose that FINALLY producing an heir and finding out that it didn't matter anyway, probably was the most horrible blow. I can only imagine the resentment she had for her pious husband. I'm sure she needed more "mental health days" than he did.
Margaret certainly had it bad, though someone like Anne Boleyn or Katherine Howard could give her a run for her money. Yes, I'm sure it was a great strain dealing with Henry and trying to maintain royal power and a terrible irony to produce a boy and still lose everything. She just couldn't win.
You are right but "All that glitters..."
The Queens did have it tough but none were killed in battle or executed. Being male was a lot tougher. A third of the nobility (men) died violently during the WOTR.
It was only really in the Tudor period that women were executed.
By all accounts poor Henry even as a prisoner in the Tower of London was murdered at his prayers.
Worst that happened to a woman was loss of property and house arrest. Their greatest danger was in childbirth not the battlefield.
@@HistoryCalling Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for Queen Elizabeth Woodville as well. She had two Princes that survived to inherit after her husband, only for their fate to be lost history, and probably to her as well. Not to mention that her father and brother were executed by rebels for no reason with no real repercussions early in her reign, her mother was arrested for witchcraft (even though she was acquitted), and her son from her first marriage and her brother were executed without cause as well. She died with basically nothing after having been a Queen. At the very least Margaret got to go back home to royal relations in France.
And up to 65% of women died during or after childbirth.
Men could avoid war but women couldn’t avoid pregnancy.
@@HistoryCalling I might be wrong, but I’d argue in general that foreign queens like Margaret, and even Catherine of Aragon had some, however small, level of power because of their ties to foreign monarchs. Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Boleyn and poor Catherine Howard were just subjects and had no level of protection when their circumstances went down hill. You can sort of see this too when comparing Mary I’d strength during Edward VI’s reign and Elizabeth’s caution under Mary’s reign.
You are the first person to explain perfectly why Richard of York held his belief that he was the true heir. Thank you! I’m from the States 🇺🇸 but, a true Anglophile. I’ve tried educating myself about the monarchy of England, UK 🇬🇧.
Best luck with that! The family trees,, families barred, Salic law etc an absolute minefield but what makes it so interesting and challenging.
Edward III had a stack of kids, some by his queen some by somebody else who later became his queen. A lot of the Roses stemmed from them.
Richard of York's father, Richard of Conisbrough (heard of him?) was in a group that tried to execute Henry V at Southampton.
He was executed as a traitor.
If Henry V wanted to play it by the book he could have put a Bill of Attainder through Parliament which is what happened to traitors.
A Bill of Attainder meant the block for the culprit and the disqualification along with their possessions, of their family.
That's what made the Wars of the Roses such a "bloodbath".
That would have been the end for Richard Duke of York.
His uncle the earlier Duke of York was the highest ranking Englishmen killed at Agincourt. He was found without a mark on him and maybe had suffocated in his armour which many did. It was thick mud.
. Being a Duke his body was boiled so they could remove the flesh from the bones to transport the bones back to England. (Still interested in English history? 😉).
He was childless so his nephew Richard became the new Duke of York.
He married Cecily Neville as you know. Trouble is Cecily's father, Sir Ralph, had also had two families. Cecily was from his second, junior but richer family.
You can see where I'm going with this. The senior but poorer Neville family joined the WotR on the other side.
The Duke, Cecily's brother Richard Earl of Salisbury and Edmund Earl of Rutland, York's second son rushed up to Sandal Castle near Wakefield. Bad mistake. They should have stayed in London which was "Yorkist" or Ludlow near Wales.
Sandal was deep in Margaret's territory.
Richard Duke of York must have bern cheered when John Neville turned up. He said he would come to his aid and that off his step-brother by bringing troops.
It was a trap. He brought troops and it appears Richard went out of the castle to greet them. Bad move, he was a Lancastrian.
In one move Cecily lost her brother, her husband and one of her sons.
Margaret ordered York's head be placed over a gate to York (The city) with a paper crown placed on it and next to Salisbury's and Rutland's heads.
You never messed with Margaret of Anjou.
You're very welcome. It's a complicated family tree and to be honest, it took me a while to wrap my head around it and put together the diagrams, so I'm really delighted that they and my explanation are helpful to people.
@@English_Dawn (love the name 😂 btw) thank you for taking the time for that longer explanation! I’ll need to read your excellent response once again and more slowly to completely understand it. Thank you 😊
@@HistoryCalling - You are most definitely a great help! That’s why I get so much more out of your UA-cam videos than all the other English/British history.
I’m currently writing my MA dissertation on the Wars of the Roses, the successes and failures of the Lancastrians and Yorkists and why the Tudors won in the end. In my Lancastrian chapter, Margaret is a central figure and I’m going to write how it was her political astuteness that forced Richard of York to resort to military means to achieve his aims, including claiming the crown. While the Lancastrians were more politically successful, due to Margaret, they ultimately lost because the Yorkists were more militarily successful.
I think Margaret has had a terrible time over the centuries, due to portrayals like Shakespeare’s. In the end she was simply a mother who worked devotedly to ensure her son’s rightful inheritance as king, that’s the reason why she fought so hard against York and his allies, because she was mother to the future king and wanted to protect his rights as Prince of Wales and the future ‘Edward IV of the House of Lancaster.’
I was just looking through history programmes and came across this channel and, Aidan. You are studying my favourite part of history and I wish you all the best, even though its been a few weeks since your post.
Oh my gosh that family tree is amazing ! It explained far better than years of documentaries and history lessons!!!! I FINALLY understand the war of the roses 🤯
Thank you so much. That's particularly gratifying to hear because it took absolutely AGES to put it together (as it does with all those trees).
Your hooked! 😉 WotR was such a seminal period. It was the transition from the gothic to the modern world. Fabulous Church architecture and printing.
You know you are not allowed to sit on the fence. 😉 That's a Golden Rule! 😏
Are you a Yorkist or Lancastrian? White or Red?
Shakespeare gets a bad press in this last posting but he wasn't a bad old stick. Obviously not forensic, historically but an 8/10 from me.
Margaret Beaufort did not know he would be around a century later but made sure the tale he told was the one she had written.🙂
@@HistoryCalling No, thank YOU! I’ve always found history interesting but in a remote fact based way. I’ve spent the day rewatching everything with new eyes!
For the first time, I’m interested not just because it was a thing that happened a long time ago, but because these were real families and real lives that were turbulent and compelling.
Amazing work, it’s definitely much appreciated!
That is exactly what I was thinking!!
Not an educated historian, but life long fan and voracious reader. Your explanation of the War of the Roses and family tree made it clear. Thank you! 👑
Could you maybe put your playlists in order so that they can play automatically? At the moment there are lots of them that are part 2 before part 1 - and I love listening to them but have to be hands free so can’t flip back and forth. Love your channel!
Sorry about that. It's been a while since I went in and reordered them but I've made some adjustments now. Bear in mind that I've tried to put the videos in historical order, rather than the order in which I created them (for instance Jacquetta of Luxembourg's video appears before my videos on her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville, even though Elizabeth's videos were made first). This way videos on 1 person all appear together, like all the Anne of Cleves' videos appear one after the other in the playlists they are listed in. I hope that makes sense. Thanks for watching and for bringing this problem to my attention :-)
It is amazing to me that we have such detailed information about things that happened 600 years ago. I really enjoy how you enumerate the events. I would love to be a fly on the wall at some of the war councils that obviously took place. Information on the nuances that went into making decisions would be fascinating. I mean what were the leaders and supporters thinking that would motivate them to take part in a battle where possibly over 20,000 were casualties? Fun to muse, but we'll never know.
I'm the same actually. I'm interested in trying to understand the motives of some of these people because their mindsets were obviously so different to mine. Were they really just out to get whatever they could for themselves for instance, or did they really have the good of the country at heart? It's a question that could be asked of some world leaders even today (naming no names of course!)
@@HistoryCalling For myself, I don't think they conceived of the good of the country in the same way we might do. It, as they say, was not a thing. They might perhaps have gone so far as to think that they had better capacity to rule than their opponents, but on the whole it seems as if they were mostly convinced that the crown was property that they had a better right to than their cousins.
I just had one of those UA-cam mini surveys that ask "Is this video a good recommendation?" And I unequivocally and enthusiastically answered VERY GOOD with all the checkmarks as to why! You are indeed: ✅ Entertaining ✅ Informative ✅ Calming ✅ Educational ✅ Transformative and ✅ Interesting!
Thank you so much! :-) I think that kind of thing really helps with the algorithm, so it's much appreciated :-)
@@HistoryCalling just doing my duty, ma'am! Lol but in all seriousness, your channel deserves the recognition and growth. I hope the algorithm floods you with new viewership!
She was one hell of a woman. Unfairly maligned in Shakespeare's plays, being married to Henry Vi must have been a tough gig.
Absolutely. She was such a fighter, maybe even more so that Elizabeth I who gets a much better press. I really came to like her a lot whilst researching her.
@@HistoryCalling Elizabeth's style was completely different. (By saying so, I don't mean Margaret disrespect!) I think that as far as possible Elizabeth wished to avoid conflict personally and as a ruler: "No war, my lords, no war." And she was a fabulous procrastinator--if things were left alone, they sometimes solved themselves. (As a result, she sometimes had to be forced into action.) She achieved her goals differently, but she generally got what she wanted--and she could be ruthless when she needed to be. A more wired and more subtle woman than Margaret, in a rather different set of circumstances.
Thank you. She is by far my favourite all time Queen consort. What an admirable, fast paced, chaotic life. She did it all.
She really did. I just wish she'd had a happier end (but that's for next week!)
Incredible work, yet again! I have read & watched COUNTLESS pieces of media on the Wars of the Roses and yours are easily the best out there! I'm constantly learning new things & seeing these figures with new perspectives through your retelling of their lives! I'm looking forward to the day you hit 1 million subs & I can say that I've been watching your content since way back when :)
Keep up the fantastic work, but also make sure that you're taking good care of yourself. Creating content is every bit as difficult as any other job & can be even harder due to the influence of social media on one's mental health. Don't forget to take breaks when you need them ❤ Trust me, we're not going anywhere!
I agree with AK 47 that Margaret's major challenge was having to go head to head with headstrong and ambitious men. This entry in your series is awesome; the amount of detail is so helpful to a novice like myself who's only starting to learn about The War of the Roses. I will anxiously await the next chapter of this thrilling chronicle. Happy St. Patty's Day (that video rocked as well)!
Thanks Stephen. Yes, her gender was a major hurdle for her. Happy belated St Patrick's Day to you too. Funnily enough that video I have on him did nothing last year and until this week was one of my poorest performing vids, however after this St Patrick's Day, it's had a MASSIVE boost in viewer numbers, which I'm very happy about. :-)
@@HistoryCalling 👍 Yes!!! Never fear; the best things always ascend given time.
Very interesting and well presented 👏. That family tree illustrates why this period in Anglo French history is so complicated and often difficult to understand.
Thank you. The trees always take a very long time to put together, but I really need them to help me keep track of everyone and I think they're invaluable for viewers too for the same reason.
Another lovely video! Would you be open to doing one on the lesser-known York siblings of Edward IV? They are seemingly forgotten for the most part, especially in historical fiction. The focus is always on the three sons of York, and later on the siblings of Edward IV’s wife, Elizabeth Woodville. Although it is understandable why this is so, it does leave the casual reader/viewer to assume Cecily Neville only had the three children: Edward IV, George Duke of Clarence, and Richard III. I would love to see you tackle the vast offspring of Richard and Cecily.
There were four sons of York. Sadly one perished with him at Wakefield.
HC has mentioned she may do a video on Margaret of York Richard's and Cecily's daughter. She also mentioned her capture at Ludlow.
Margaret became the second wife of the Charles the Bold the last Duke of Burgundy. He already had a daughter . Margaret got on well with her daughter-in-law.
The Duchy of Burgundy was much more than Burgundy in Eastern France. By marriage and conquest it enveloped modern day Belgium and the Netherlands. There lay the problem. The cities had become semi-autonomous with vast wealth.
When the Yorks' were on their uppers they would stay in the Netherlands. George and Richard were outposted to Uttrecht.
Sadly Charles the Bold saw little of Margaret as he spent a lot on arms and was trying to expand his Dukedom to the East. He fought Lorraine and Switzerland who combined to block him.
He lost the battle and his artillery at Murten and lost again at Grandson.
He had another go at Nancy (1477) regrettably he was killed and left Margaret a widow.
She and her Chancellor did a good job but because of the political feeling Ghent and Bruges, possibly Brussels, moved her court to Mechelen.
Die-hard Yorkists like De la Pole Richard's heir, the Earl of Lincoln turned up on Margaret's doorstep. She was a wealthy woman and bankrolled the Lambert Simnel rebellion.
The rebels were crushed at East Stoke in the last battle 1487.
She was instrumental in the Perkin Warbeck rebellion too which also ended in failure.
She is reported to have been dark haired and very tall.
She stage-managed the marriage of Mary of Burgundy, her daughter-in-law, to Maxmilian I the first of the Habsburg rulers of Burgundy.
Thank you. As Titus mentioned, Margaret of York/Burgundy would be the natural choice (for me at least) for another video. I've mentioned Edmund in passing too, but as he died at 17, there's not that much to say I'm afraid.
Haven’t even fully watched, but I just had to thank you again, History Calling! I trust your history implicitly, and your calm and reassuring manner of speech is just the bees’ knees. Love your accent, your channel, and your history. Many thanks! ❤️
Aww, thank you so much. That's very kind of you to say. I hope you enjoy part 2 as well.
I love this channel.
At 12:33 ff., the image on horseback is that of John Ball (not Cade), who lived about a century earlier and was associated with the
Peasants´ Revolt of 1381. His name is written on him as Jeha (superscore on the a, shorthand for Jehan, or John) Balle. The other figure, labeled Waultre le Tieulier, is Walter or Wat Tyler, a major figure in that rebellion.
Margaret was truly an amazing woman. Part what is so amazing is that during much of the conflict, Margaret was only a young woman in her twenties. It's hard to imagine someone so young having so much ability. But then I guess she was raised to be in the ruling class.
Yes, it is crazy when you think how young she was when all of this was happening.
@@HistoryCalling Did you realise that Richard of York, the younger brother of Edward V was married!
It really does give you a different perspective when you consider the strong women in Margaret's family. You cannot help but wonder what might of happened had Henry been a stronger king. Thank you again for a wonderful video. Many blessings x
Henry VI gets a "bad press". Take it with a pinch of salt. How does anyone encore Henry V !
He maybe just wasn't cut out to be a "warrior king". Sadly to make a name for yourself you had to go and fight the French! Edward IV and Henry VIII tried.
Margaret wasn't going to do that, her uncle was Charles VII whom St. Joan of Arc had put on the throne at Rheims.
However I think she saw enough in her son, evidence exists at Tewkesbury, that he could become like his paternal grandfather.
Sadly he was suspectedly stabbed in cold blood by the Clarence's after Tewkesbury.
If you suffer from the malady of catatonic trances it doesn't matter how good you were as a king, doesn't mean he wasn't capable in studious matters. He set up foundations.
Yes, had Henry VI been more successful as King and not lost the throne, I think history would be very different indeed. Prince Edward of Wales and Anne Neville might have had time to have children and perhaps their descendants would be on the throne now.
Always appreciate your clarification of family lineage. I find it easier to follow along than other videos. I don’t know if it’s your voice or choice of words. Probably both. 😁
Thank you. To be honest, the family trees are for me as much as my viewers. There are just so many people to keep track of and an annoying number of them were called Edward, Henry or Richard! :-)
Thank you for the way you stepped through the family tree that is the clearest explanation I've seen and I always struggle with who most of these people are. I'm currently on holiday in Paris, so bonjour!
Maybe you can search out the street, mainly an alley really sadly the scene of the murder of Duc Louis of Orleans and his servant ordered by the Duc of Burgundy, John the Fearless.
The repercussion of which the murder of the Duc of Burgundy at Montereau in the presence of Margaret's uncle later Charles VII gave England control in the Hundred Years War. It's the "Rue de Arblasts" (Crossbowmen) in the Marais. Louis had been visting an acquaintance who had had a baby and was on his way home to the palace of St. Pol.
You're very welcome. The family trees take ages to put together, but I need them as much as my viewers I think, to help me keep track of everyone. Of course what I show is the simplified version. If you saw the whole tree... yikes!
@@HistoryCalling not helped by the unimaginative naming convention they seem to have. ...you would think that all the marriages across Europe would lend itself to some variety.
@@English_Dawn alas today is my last day so no room for any unplanned visits. Versailles was the primary historic locale for this trip.
My Family is from Maine. I didn't know Margaret was from there or that it was "owned" by England at one time.
I admire her actions considering being stuck in a bad situation. That's a true test of character . I wonder if Henry was affected by mental illness or a physical illness that we just don't recognize now.? We tend ( especially as recent as a few decades ago) to think of mental problems as a physical weakness and a weak character ... but we are starting to realize parasites, bacteria and viruses can alter behavior. Thanks again for an interesting program.
Did I pronounce it correctly? I kept having to fight the urge to say it like the Americans do when talking about their state. The place (and sometimes people) names that I need to say in foreign languages are one of the trickier aspects of recording the audios for these videos. Yes, it's very sad that Henry was ill like that in an era before modern medicine. I do wonder what could have been done for him nowadays. On the other hand, he was fortunate that as a King, he was well looked after, despite his infirmities. Had he been a peasant, he might have been left out in the street to die.
@@HistoryCalling ha ha I don't know the best way to pronounce it but it sounds correct to me. LOL... Let's see what the Sharpshooters say.
Duke William of Normandy, William the Conqueror was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. That settled the dual kingdom for centuries.
The English kings owned large swathes of France . Mainly in the North.
In the North it was mainly Normandy, but also Maine, the Vexin, Ponthieu and Anjou.
The Norman kings and one queen who was already an Empress in the Holy Roman Empire (modern Germany) Matilda, ruled both sides of the Channel with differing success.
Matilda lost the civil war known as "The Anarchy" to her cousin Stephen of Blois. Stephen had no legitimate son (usually but not always it had to be a son - Salic law in France).
The treaty was Matilda who had married Geoffrey of Anjou would see her son (Henry II) named as heir.
Henry took as his badge the broom plant, Latin Plantaginsta. They became the Plantagenets and lasted until 1485 but the earlier ones were also known as a sub-group the Angevins being descended from Anjou.
Henry's mother Matilda and his queen Eleanor of Aquitaine the richest woman in Europe, were both termed "She-Wolves" for the record.
By marrying Eleanor Henry as king of England ruled from the Scottish border down the West side of France to Spain. It was huge and took some keeping.
The French Capetian king's ruled basically Paris, the I'll de France, Champagne, Burgundy, Picardy and Artois.
South Eastern France was a separate kingdom at that time - Savoy.
The English king and nobility spoke Norman-French where we get words like Government, Parliament, Appeal etc from. English wasn't used amongst the nobility until around 1399.
Henry II had four living sons by Eleanor. Henry Jnr, Richard (the Lionheart) Geoffrey and John.
Constantly at war with the French king and his sons over landed possesions it rocked to and fro. Some of his sons would rebel and join the French king. Not to be left out Eleanor joined her sons and fought Henry.
Henry made peace with his sons sporadically but had Eleanor imprisoned.
Henry lived in Chinon on the Loire but travelled widely. Richard and John were both born in Oxford.
Henry Jnr sadly pre-deceased his father. Geoffrey was made Duke of Brittany that left Richard king of England. Richard was king for 10 years. He spoke no English and lived only 6 months in England.
He was trying to expand his land in Chaluz in France when he was killed being hit by a crossbow bolt and gangrene set in.
The French king was Phillipe Auguste one of their abler kings.
John (Magna Carta) became king and tried to press his claim to French territories. John's nobles had rebelled and invited the French king to the English throne. You couldn't really make this up!
John died in 1216 leaving a young son, Henry III. The country was run by Willam Marshal the Regent. The French king went home.
Things went quiet for a while with a couple of Edwards but when Edward III came to the throne it all kicked off, big style. He started the Hundred Years War and the English gained a lot more of France.
He had a number of sons born when he was campaigning. Clues in the name!
John of Gaunt (Ghent Modern day Belgium).
Lionel of Antwerp (Modern day Belgium).
His eldest son Edward, Prince of Wales known as the "Black Prince" had a son Richard of Bordeaux.
It is from these that the families in the Wars of the Roses claimed lineage.
By military victories the English gained most of Northern and Western France. They married into the Spanish and Portuguese royal families.
Edward the Black Prince sadly pre-deceased his father and his son Richard II inherited the throne.
Richard was the last king to speak French and was reported as the person who invented the "handkerchief". [Who said history is dull! 😉]
He was usurped by Henry IV the first Lancastrian monarch.
Henry IV paid little interest to France instead went to Lithuania the last pagan country in Europe and fought there.
His son Henry V was the high-water mark in French territories.
Gradually Saint Joan of Arc, La Hire, Xantrailles & the Bureau brothers and a reluctance by English tax-payers meant territory was won back by the French.
Sir John Talbot Earl of Shrewsbury and his son John Talbot Viscount L'Isle were killed at Castillon in Gascony which effectively ended most French possesions.
The defeat at Castillon coincided with Henry VI having his first catatonic trance.
French and English territories were intertwined for centuries.
Thank you so much for showing interest. 🤓
If you want to check out this period and the politics the film "
@@od1452 After Henry V's death his brother John, Duke of Bedford won a great victory against the odds, some say as great as Agincourt, at Verneuil.
Want a challenge? Try pronouncing Verneuil.😉
No wonder it doesn't oft get mentioned.
It's actually pronounced "Ver-nyer". Honestly! 🙂
Conclusion: If you want to be remembered fight somewhere pronounceable.
Henry's grandfather, Charles VI of France, also suffered from mental illness, which perhaps Henry inherited. (Though his maternal half brothers seem to have been sane enough.)
As always very informative. Thank you for your time/effort
And thank you for watching and commenting :-)
Great narrative and wonderful images some of which I haven't seen elsewhere in books etc. You bring a lot of common sense to the debate about MoA. I'll be watching more of your content. Many thanks!
You have to give it to Margaret, she must have had nerves of steel and the strength of several men. How she coped with setback after setback is astonishing. If only she had been given the power as she asked for, maybe history would have been different. Her greatest challenge - male prejudice yet again.
Yes, she was one tough cookie and I agree her main challenge was being female. Had she been a male, her strength and fortitude would have been lauded and had anyone called her a wolf, it would have been intended as a compliment.
Especially when you think about the time this happened. Women have enough challenges today. Back then it was like challenged to the Nth degree. She had more balls than an entire army of men
Yes it was tough but male prejudice?
How many women were killed in battle or executed during the Roses?
The danger to most women was in childbirth. One third of the nobility (men) died violently. Even gentle Henry VI was murdered at prayer.
Her own son was reportedly murdered in cold blood after Tewkesbury.
I think Henry VII was 7th in line for the throne at one stage but the other six either died or were killed.
Worst that happened to women was loss of property, house arrest or exile. If Margaret had been male she probably wouldn't have lived long.
She and the other Margaret by sticking around and plotting ensured their House would win.
Women did take part in medieval wars. There is a website from Cambridge university that gives details of women at war from 1066 onwards. Many women went to war with their husbands, they resupplied the men mostly but there are some listed that took part. Other websites will give details of other women warriors all over the world, Joan of Arc being just one. My point was that as Queen of England and as a French princess, her knowledge of governing a country may have been superior to that of some of the noblemen who took control of England. Her voice and regal position were over ruled by men. This is prejudice/discrimination as we know it. Plenty of Queens have proven themselves as able leaders, Catherine of Aragon was left in charge by Henry 8th, both his daughters ruled. It is just so noticeable that foreign Queens were allowed to rule eg Margaret's grandmother Yolande ruled several times whilst her husband was elsewhere fighting. Margaret would have probably been a better monarch than her husband, but men in this country would not allow it. Prejudice.
@@English_Dawn The worst that happened to women was having absolutely no control over their lives they didn’t even choose who they married. Then they were expected to be breed cows for whoever they were married to with a high risk of death as you pointed out. There was plenty of male prejudice then
Clearly her biggest challenge was the varying sanity of her husband Henry VI. During his periods of disability, she would politically make repairs to the situation, which Henry, when lucid enough, would destroy as if nothing had happened when he was 'out'. If he had died from a chance arrow or from disease during the time he was in hiding, say, early 1460s, his son would have become, very confusingly, 'Edward IV'. The Wars can be confusing enough, but imagine it with two Edward IVs!
"Who do you follow?" "The tall one!". "We follow the younger, prepare to defend yourselves, traitors!". We were spared this, but it may have saved her son, if not the thousands that would fall in what could have been even more protracted warfare. Thanks for bringing some balance to the story.
In 1453 the Hundred Years War came to an end. It was Henry's first catatonic trance. Thousands of soldiers coming home, unemployed.
Lots of businesses in London saw trade in supplies disappear.
She was a Valois. She never got on well with London.
Let's be honest Henry was brought up with strife. The cost of the war, high taxes, Jack Cade's rebellion because of the high taxes. Politically England was at daggers drawn. Henry V's brother Humphrey wanted to fight the War. Cardinal Beaufort, Suffolk and Somerset, the last two having fought in it, knew it was best probably to make peace.
The two camps fell out and were only kept apart by John, Duke of Bedford. This is the childhood Henry had had.
Sadly Bedford died young in Rouen. Very few monarchs could have held England together. Lots of soldiers plying for hire.
The Percies and Nevilles had been at loggerheads for years but only reached arms once. The Nevilles were in two branches. The younger, junior branch were beligerant with the Percies. They also had a land dispute with the Beauforts in Glamorgan.
The Percies had strengthened their grip on power in the 1300's, the Nevilles rose in the 1400's.
The younger Nevilles saw their chance with Richard, Duke of York.
1st St. Albans was fought in the streets, primarily between the Nevilles and Percies. Percy, Beaufort and Clifford lay dead. The king actually was hit by an arrow in the neck.
The Yorkist's said "sorry" to the king.
At Shrewsbury Henry V turned 16 fought in his first battle and got the wound.
Down the road 68 years later his grandson just turned 17 fought in his first battle.
You can see where I'm going with this!
Edward IV at 6ft 4ins and dressed in his normal black armour was a fearsome figure. Never lost a battle he was involved in.
During the battle Edward IV and Edward Prince of Wales, dressed in his white, red and black heraldic device met in single-combat. For a long time they fought and Edward Prince of Wales gave as good as he got. A grizzled warrior and a young boy but the grandson of Henry V.
Lastly they were pulled apart by their own sides.
The battle seemed to be going the Lancastrian way but after making inroads Somerset was not supported. The battle turned against them.
Afterwards it is held that Edward the Prince was found wandering about and surrendered to Clarence's men, then sadly was killed in cold blood.
I am sure Margaret saw these qualities in her son, that he could make a great king.
One of those "Might have beens".
He was buried next door in Tewkesbury Abbey.
On their way back to London the York's killed Henry VI when he was kneeling in prayer in the Tower.
Margaret lost both her son and husband within days.
Yes, two Edwards IV would have been a nightmare. We'd have to call them Edward of York and Edward of Westminster to differentiate. It's confusing enough that for a brief spell there were two Prince Edwards, both the eldest son of the man who claimed to be King (although the future Edward V wasn't Prince of Wales at the same time as Henry VI's son, so that's something).
Yes, a video about a strong woman of the past! I needed this after one hard day! Thank you :-)
You're welcome. More to come on Margaret next time too :-)
Great video. I hope you one day make a video on my favorite female character in English history, Empress Matilda.
Oh she's already on the list. I love the whole 'escaping in the snow dressed in white' part of her story. :-)
@@HistoryCalling 👍👍👍
@@HistoryCalling Henry II wow, mother and wife. Two "she-wolves".
He always called himself Henry "FitzEmpress" after his mother and when the richest woman in Christendom Eleanor her daughter-in-law, married Henry he owned land from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees.
Heard the tale of Matilda being lowered in a basket dressed in white. Not sure that was actually accurate. Deserves to be. 😉
I know of the value of forensic history but it's also about people, not just sticking pins into a butterfly on a board. There must be a happy medium. If there was no primal source testimony you have to join the dots up anyway with imagination using the morés of the time not through the prism of today's society.
It's also not far from Oxford castle to Beaumont Palace (site near the Randolph Hotel) that Henry and Eleanor returned to have Richard and John.
Eleanor took her sons' side in their rebellion against Henry :-(
He pardoned his boys but had Eleanor mewed up in prison.
Apparently Eleanor rode across France in her 70's or so to find Richard a wife the story goes. If it isn't true it deserves to be. ☺
Its mind blowing hearing about important Lancasters when I'm a lowly guitar player living on a goat farm. Quite the dichotomy. Thanks for giving me inspiration with your skills and knowledge. Lvya
Important is a relative term. You're important too, just not to medieval dynastic politics in England :-) Personally though, I think we're all lucky not to be important in that way. It might get us killed!
@@HistoryCalling I see your point. Lol. Thanks for the encouraging words. Really appreciate all you do. Please keep doing what you do.
i don’t know a ton about her however it’s amazing hearing all about her versus how’s she’s portrayed on screen!!
Wait until part 2! 😉
Yes, I have to say I don't think she gets a fair deal when shown on screen.
@@HistoryCalling for sure!!!
I think that being a queen in a country that never fully appreciated her talents and abilities (mainly due to her gender), and being vilified for what was really normal behavior when a monarch was incapacitated or absent was her greatest challenge. It was perfectly normal for a queen to be regent when her husband was abroad, and there was no reason why those rules shouldn't have been stretched to include mental incapacity. It seems to me that it would have been the logical move to have Margaret govern (especially since the prince wasn't of age) in his stead until such time as Henry's recovery. I think that she was the right queen for the wrong king very much like Matilda of Boulogne, Isabella of France, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Parr who all suffered from the consequences of their husbands' deficiencies.
I think effectively Margaret did rule. She was there in Council when practically all the important decisions were taken like at Coventry pre-Blore Heath.
The backdrop was almost impossible for her. It was not being a woman but being French which was her drawback.
Still sore after the ending of the Hundred Years War and soldiers in their thousands returning.
Not a surprise that London that had the most to gain politically and financially from continuing the war was Yorkist. Edward IV even tried re-igniting it.
Margaret was always more popular elsewhere. After 1st. St. Albans and the capture of Henry VI she went to Lancastrian Tutbury & Kenilworth.
Henry V was a hard act to follow for anyone. Henry's brother John was a great uncle to have. He knighted young Henry in Leicester at the Parliament of Bats and also had him crowned in France the only king ever to have been crowned in England and France.
Sadly John was tasked to look after France which by all accounts he administered very well.
His brother Humphrey was a firebrand and had responsibilities in England.
If Henry VI had been brought up by his uncle John things might have turned out very different.
He gets a bad press but his Council did really well in the circumstances. Sadly Archbishop John Kemp the Chancellor died. The Chancellor was the person who ran Parliament and the link between the monarch and Parliament.
England was riven by 2 parties. The War Party led by Humphrey (later Richard Duke of York) and the Anti-War Party led by the Duke of Suffolk.
Margaret inherited this situation.
Most people never saw a monarch or knew what they looked like and knew anything about the Council.
They knew paying for the war in France was turning out expensive hence a depleted Treasury and Jack Cade's rebellion.
On the bright side Henry & Margaret had a son, Edward of Westminster. By all accounts he was like his paternal grandfather and Margaret must have seen that. He fought Edward IV a renowned warrior to a standstill when he was only 17 in his first and only battle during the battle. Sadly to be probably murdered after the battle when surrendering. Case of what might have been. He was Henry V's grandson after all.
Yes, her gender and English attitudes to female rulers during this time was a real handicap, I agree. I like the line about being the right Queen for the wrong King too. That's a good way to put it.
Have you done a video on Isabella of France? You should, she was fascinating.
Would. Be grateful to hear..,history, without, attitude. Is it just the voice!?
This has turned into one of my favorite channels. You always make me think..
Aww, thank you. That's very kind of you to say :-)
Aww, thank you. That's very kind of you to say :-)
doing war of the roses for my Alevels and you really are saving me with these videos
Happy to help. Best of luck with your exams. :-)
@@HistoryCalling Thank you !!
Great video, thanks! Yolande of Aragon fascinates me- would love a video on her, too!
Yes, I enjoyed the little bit about her I read too. I don't know if she's famous enough for a video about her to do well though :-(
@@HistoryCalling Maybe St. Joan of Arc. You feel her presence in Rouen.
What really did she say to the Dauphin together at Chinon?
After crowing him at Rheims why didn't he pull out all the stops to ransom her from the Burgundians instead of the English?
Why in Bernard Shaw's "St Joan" does he refer to the Earl of Warwick as the "Kingmaker". It was his father-in-law Richard Beauchamp!
@@HistoryCalling I will watch it as long as you are the one posting. Don't know much about her but am really looking forward to learning it from you.
@@HistoryCalling maybe even a short video would get her out there a bit more?! Or a post on your channel....pretty please 😂. Whatever, thank you for brilliant videos that are chock full of correct, non-sensational, wonderful CORRECT history which are thoroughly enjoyable! I love your channel as a whole and as a fellow historian ❤.
Thanks!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DONATING TO THE CHANNEL. I hope you enjoyed hearing about Margaret of Anjou. She's one of those women who gets overlooked quite often, but she had an incredible story.
I get so excited for your uploads! I’m so happy I found your channel. Thanks for all your hard work!
Hi Katie. You're very welcome. Thank you for watching, commenting and supporting. :-)
Good episode. Life was precarious in those days. Margaret fought well when her husband was incapable but in the end she lost it all. But she kept trying &’that’s the mark is a good queen .
She certainly did. In the bigger picture she didn't lose it all. She dropped the ball until it was picked up by the other Margaret. But she kept her House in the game against the traitor Yorkists. It was the two Margarets' TOGETHER that won the Wars of the Roses.
An apocryhpal tale.
A French chronicler had written to his king "England has two kings, one is the Earl of Warwick the other one escapes me" (Edward IV).
After the estrangement of Warwick and his visit to Margaret then in exile, she kept him kneeling in her presence for 15 minutes before she allowed him to rise.
She was a Valois!
Thank you. Yes, losing her husband, son and ultimately her chance at the throne was tragic (but that's for next week!)
Very interesting! I can't wait to see part two.👍
Thank you. Brace yourself though. Margaret didn't get a fairy-tale ending unfortunately.
18:10 sounds like early onset dementia, my father was diagnosed with this at 54, although I believe he was much younger at his time
Henry VI was 31, which would be really young for early onset dementia.
Also, the fact that Henry VI more or less fully recovered (if he didn’t, he probably would have made a recovery if the war of the Roses didn’t break out) means that I don’t think it was that.
I know that Tudors get you the best views BUT if you're looking for more topics, can you do a video on the Duchess of Alba? (Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart)
I do actually have a little something on her over on my Patreon channel :-)
She was admirable in terms of her brave nature but she was particularly bloodthirsty too . Once she asked her seven year old son how their enemies should be treated and was very happy when the boy said that their heads should be cut off !!
🤣🤣🤣here here 🤷♀️what can you do
It was the Plantagenets, what were you expecting 🤣
Umm... You do understand it was a Machiavellian age right? If she was not like that they would've lost everything much sooner. Ruling with fear was necessary then.
She wasn’t “particularly” blood thirsty. It was the Middle Ages.
Great video looking forward to the second part.
Thank you 👍
riveting tale - Margaret and Richard walking hand in hand would have been such a bizarre spectacle
I know. If it wasn't there in the original records it would be hard to believe. I can only imagine both were gritting their teeth through the whole thing.
@@HistoryCalling - that was a lot of new information for me - I now have a new concept of Margaret having mainly the Bard's version of her of course - so interesting - ty - 🛸✨
Yes, Shakespeare was very unfair to her really, but I suppose he was writing the history of the winning family (ie Elizabeth I's ancestors).
@@HistoryCalling - you have better sources than he was working with I'd say - and it was one of his earlier plays - he got better
@@HistoryCalling He may have been historically "unfair," but he gave her probably the strongest role in the entire Henry VI trilogy (and had to bring her back in Richard III). I get the feeling she was a bit of a "fan favorite" -- the woman you love to hate:) He knew a fascinating character when he saw one and must have delighted in his "creation."
I never thought much of Margaret of Anjou. But now I'm going to have to do a little reading 📚 on her. She did have a lot on her plate 🍽 and at such a young age.
She did. I didn't know that much about her either before researching this video and the next one but I ended up feeling a lot of sympathy and admiration for her. She really didn't have it easy at all.
Thank you so much. One of two heroines of the Royal House of Lancaster. 🌹
Not so sure her husband was the cypher he is popularly depicted as but was not charismatic like his father. Obviously ill health played it's part.
The vast majority of the people would be unaware of court politics and even what she looked like but feeling from the loss of the Hundred Years War after Castillon in 1453 and the thousands of returning soldiers must have been almost insurmountable for the niece of Charles VII.
Even so she must have had enough charisma herself to keep the majority of the nobles on her side despite periods when she was without her husband either through illness or his regular captures.
After 2nd St. Albans London shut it's gates to her army. London was an outlier, politically. Probably feeling the loss politically and economically of the French territories more.
The WOTR lasted from 1455-1487 but it was not continuous fighting. For most communities they were untouched by any fighting. It would be unusual to see an army passing through.
Margaret's strength was always outside London. She doesn't seem to have had even the slightest problem in raising armies despite losing battles roughly at 2:1. People would flock to her standard in a heartbeat outside London DESPITE her being French.
London appears to be the exception not the rule and remained a Yorkist fiefdom until Richard III. Edward IV knew that and seemed to have spent much time there from Northampton onwards. The only time there has ever been two Commissions of Array was after Mortimer's Cross. Henry raising his forces in the Midlands & the North and Edward in the South.
Very few people as a proportion would ever have seen a monarch or even known what they looked like before photography. People had a loyalty to a monarch but you couldn't take that for granted. She must have had something recognizable in nobles and commons alike to risk dying for.
Her estrangements from the York's was palpable. Up to Northampton it was about the king's advisors. At Northampton it was for the crown itself.
Even when in exile Margaret was a magnet, her husband was in the Tower. It is a tragedy she didn't trust Warwick enough to join forces. The day she landed he was killed and had almost won until the weather intervened. This allowed Edward to face them piecemeal.
Edward was recognised as being better than his father and at 6ft4in and in his black armour won the battles he fought in yet at Tewkesbury he is said in one interlude to have fought in a single-combat with Margaret's son, Edward Prince of Wales in his red, white and black colours. Although being in his first battle at 17 not unlike his paternal grandfather nearby at Shrewsbury 68 years earlier, he was impressive and reportedly gave good as he got until they were pulled apart. A great what might of been?
Maybe like another Margaret and her son, Margaret saw enough in her son to be worth fighting for, maybe even like his paternal grandfather.
Thank you. I hope you like next week's instalment too :-)
@@HistoryCalling She deserved better than to finish in obscurity. Her son could have (as in my edited note) been another 'Henry V". Maybe seeing that in him helped spur her through numerous adversities.
She had kept Warwick waiting on his knees in front of her for fifteen minutes when they met to form an alliance. Warwick! Waiting! What a woman! A French chronicler had previously stated that "There were two kings in England, the Earl of Warwick and someone else I can't remember (Edward IV)".
Even at a low ebb in exile she had him wait humiliatingly. That's all you need to know about her, there in that one incident. Why so many people would risk dying in her service.
Do you think in your wildest dreams that Cecily "Proud Cis" or any other York woman would get even close? She was a Valois and knew it!
I never understood why Richard Duke of York was considered to have a better claim to the throne than Henry VI. He was descended from Lionel through two women. I didn't think descent through women counted. If it did, Lionel had an older sister, Isabella, who had living descendants at this time so why wouldn't one of them be able to claim the throne? They were French, though.
As a man, Lionel's claim and the claims of his descendants trumped Isabella and her descendants. It's like the way Prince Andrew and Prince Edward (and their children/grandchildren) are ahead of their older sister Princess Anne (and her children/grandchildren) in the modern line of succession.
Got interested in the War of the Roses due to Philippa Gregory's series. I know she's contriversial 👀 but I really liked the books, and found Margaret facinating
Please note Margaret lost her son and husband but she never lost the Wars of the Roses. This dragged on until 1487 and her side (Lancastrian/Tudor) won.
What she did was buy time. A woman of less stern stuff could easily have capitulated.
The "Yorks" were an accident waiting to happen and would implode. The Lancastrian House just needed to buy time and pick up the pieces.
Unless you were a Henry V not sure any monarch could have staved off what happened and Henry V's own brother Humphrey was a major cause.
There was a precedent to The Love Day and a very young Henry VI saw that too and divided state of his reign and inheritance.
The War Party under Humphrey and the Peace Party under Cardinal Beaufort had already come to blows.
The most underestimated John Duke of Bedford forced the parties together and for the knighting of Henry VI has held a Pariament in Leicester.
Strict rule. No weapons to be worn. Only a stick. It became known as the "Parliaments of Bats".
Sadly John was needed to hold onto English territories and died young.
No one else could "knock their heads together". It was just a matter. if time before open warfare erupted.
It was against this background that Henry as a small boy was brought up and in this febrile atmosphere that Margaret at 15 arrived. Being a Valois didn't help to ease her in to the people's affection, especially in London.
Very good! Great job!
Thank you :-)
i’m sooo late! cant wait to hear about this 😍
It's never too late to learn about history :-)
@@HistoryCalling you’re so right! i absolutely love learning about the wars of the roses so this was right up my alley!!
@@HistoryCalling you’re so right! i absolutely love learning about the wars of the roses so this was right up my alley!!
Hi
Great information, as always-I am reading Alison Weir’s book of The War of The Roses and your blogs of the women involved is much appreciated. I would like to know if that look at the city of London at 25.40 is commercially available. If so, would it be possible for you to provide information as to where I could purchase it.
Thank you for your great informational work and the very professional way they are presented.
It is certainly an informative view and I hope you can get it. 🙂
It shows the old St. Paul's Cathedral (pre-Great Fire of London in 1666). Where Richard Neville's (Earl of Warwick The Kingmaker) body was put on public display after the Battle of Barnet). There was an open-air pulpit outside where public announcements were made during the WOTR.
On the river front is Blackfriars where the divorce proceedings of Catherine of Aragon were held in the presence of Cardinal Carpeggio were she gave a superb defence case.
Further downstream {to the right) you should see Baynard's Castle. Baynard's Castle was the home of Cecily Neville and the Yorkist HQ during the WOTR.
Sadly huge numbers of buildings in the view were lost in the Great Fire.
The view point is from the near bank from which now houses the Shard, the tallest building in London.
The old city was walled with gates, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Billingsgate etc. and was packed with churches. Sadly few survived, about half and were rebuilt, like St. Paul's, by Sir Chrstopher Wren.
The Tower of London survived but few others did.
Of note in the picture is the Temple. The Temple Church survives. The famous Victorian painting of the nobles choosing roses took place in the Temple Gardens.
It's where the City of London and the City of Westminster meet.
Many bishops had a London residence.
It is noteworthy in Shakespeare's "Tragedy of Richard III" the "strawberries scene" in the Tower Richard has John Morton the Bishop of Ely send to his palace Ely Place for strawberries.
Ely Place was were Fleet Street meets Cheapside . It's church, St. Ethelburga's survives. The River Fleet enters the Thames next to Blackfriars in the picture.
The artist is standing near the site of Bermondsey Abbey (next to the Shard). Bermondsey Abbey was a Benedictine Convent. It was where Queen Katherine the widow of Henry V & Owen Tudor and grandmother of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth the widow of Edward IV and grandmother of Henry VIII retired as nuns.
It is an informative picture of a London sadly comprehensively gone . I hope you find what you're looking for. 🤗
If you look down at the bottom of the image the details of where it's from are there (I pretty much always cite anything that's come from an archive, museum or gallery, even if it's public domain). This one is from the Library of Congress. Thanks for watching :-)
Just curious @historycalling Do you know what the wooden looking upright structures are in the art in the 13:20 segment? They appear ab the middle of the picture and are just inside the gate, next to the tree. I just can’t figure them out 🤷🏻♀️ OH! Another question- why were royalty depicted as standing on animals?
Wondered about those structures, but still haven't found what they are.
Margaret d' Anjou had a great well of determination and resilience. It is impossible not to respect that. However, it seems to me that she suffered from poor political acumen and had no talent for choosing chief supporters or reading the nuances of her own situation. The Wars of the Roses were a tragedy for England and for the participants. One of the hardest things I think Margaret faced was having to raise her son in the middle of these wars, without the traditional households and aides provided for the upbringing of a royal prince.
I agree with most of that. However I opine that Margaret was acutely aware politically. The Dukes of Somerset, Northumberland, Exeter, Buckingham (originally) the Earl of Oxford etc and practically all the nobility was on her side.
It was largely just the Duke of York and his wife's Neville relations and only one branch of them that where Yorkists. The Duke of Norfolk Mowbrays & Howards, were Yorkists as were the Herberts in Wales. Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham joined them later.
The Tudors were always Margaret's supporters.
It wasn't Margaret's gender that was a problem so much. She never struggled to raise English supporters. It was the aldermen and merchant class of London.
Her nationality was probably the problem. 2 years before the Hundred Years War ended and coincided with Henry's first catatonic trance.
York threw his weight about and had Somerset thrown in the Tower.
The merchants would have supplied the troops and with them returning home the business dropped.
It must be remembered that the Hundred Years War for the French was about chivalry a French notion, until perhaps 1415 or so.
Though Edward III and Henry V talked about historical possesions particularly Gascony it was really an economic exercise. Soldiers got paid and agreed to serve for a certain period and though rules existed i.e. forbade Church property, looting was agreed.
London lost s lot of business. The Anti-War Party the House of Lancaster, was unpopular in London.
One of the summones against Margaret was the looting after Ludford and Wakefield by her troops.
Ludford and Wakefield were Richard of York's personal lands.
Well done! I believe Edward lV would bestow a nice title to you for your research into his legitimacy!
@HistoryCalling Where'd you get thew picture of the wooden cradle?
Now there's an interesting question. Cecily was no pushover and she and Richard were certainly a power couple, but I wonder if Margaret might have been even tougher?
I think there would have been an explosion if she had married Richard Duke of York.
She ordered his head put over Micklegate Bar (gate) in the city of York wearing a paper crown alongside Edmund, son and Salisbury, Cecily's brother.
She got on reasonably well with Cecily. Cecily appears to have spent the large part of her time having a family and stayed out of politics.
Being a Valois Margaret naturally gravitated around the Anti-war Party of Cardinal Beaufort, Duke of Suffolk and the Duke of Somerset.
Richard inherited the War Party leadership from Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
The die was already cast.
"Petrol, meet Mr. Match!".
So now I can't wait for next Friday. It's really interesting that at that time the French accepted women in positions of power while at the same time being ruled by the Salic law for their ruling family. Whereas the English would be ruled by two women in the next century.
Yes, there are oddly opposite each other in that way, aren't they?
Three if you count Lady Jane Grey. 🙂
I think by the late 1450's Margaret was a "de facto" ruler when her husband was incapacitated or captured.
I don't think her gender was the issue more her nationality. This was particularly so in London. London had profited probably more than most by the Hundred Years War. Castillon (1453) signalled the end of the Hundred Years War and troops were flooding back without employment.
They needed someone to blame, who better than the niece of the French king?
She was on the back foot to start with. 1453 marked Henry's first catatonic trance. Margaret was in at the deep-end.
The merchants and aldermen of London backed Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in keeping the War going. His place was taken by Richard Duke of York. As lieutenant in Rouen he had been owed a lot of money by the crown.
Sure she had advisors but she naturally inclined to the Anti-war Party.
Most nobles supported her. The Yorkists had a very narrow base. Mainly the Younger Nevilles and oddballs. The Dukes of Norfolk would support them but as Earl Marshal at 1st. St. Albans the Duke of Norfolk was on Henry's side.
After 1st. Albans, her husband captured, she was decisive. Always was, always on hand to make the big calls. Somerset, Percy and Clifford were dead.
She took charge, set up court in Tutbury. She knew she would get more support outside London even then.
She summoned a Council at Coventry and excluded the Yorkists.
The young Somerset, Percy and Clifford came to her side. She was their hope.
Thank You
The average age of menarche in the 15th century was likely 17 to 19, as historians best guess, some young women not even getting their menses until their early 20's. Though not all young women got it at that age (see Margaret Beaufort for an unusual outlier), and many high born women got theirs much sooner than normal folk, the reason was likely the same: diet and body fat. Wealthy women had better access to foods that made them gain weight/keep weight on, and were often not close to their fathers (a noted key factor in lowering age of menarche) so the fact was that girls from wealth/nobility reached the critical 17% body fat needed to trigger menarche, and up to the 22% body fat needed to reliably menstruate. That said, because the average was so late, it's not impossible they had their first periods in their late teens, and as most young women have irregular periods for the first 5 to 10 years of menstruating, it's not at all unexpected for them to not become pregnant till their early to mid 20's. Added to that is the fact that not all medieval men were cads, and some evidently waited till they both felt ready to consummate their relationship which, as opposed to what you might think, many couples were not pressured to consummate ASAP, especially if they were betrothed/married while children together and thus had their entire lives to have children, or where the girl was still very young, where her older husband would take care to not impinge on his wife's honor or risk blowback from her powerful family for not treating his young wife with respect. Added to that they weren't stupid back then and knew that successful pregnancies happened when the mother was fully grown, and pregnancies before the young woman was fully grown were far more dangerous for both the mother and her baby, and they wanted to reduce as many possible risks (hence the origin of expectant mothers' confinement in the last trimester of their pregnancy, an act meant to protect the mother and her baby from disease, preserve their bodily safety and create an environment as safe as possible for the birth, insofar as they understood things).
So yeah, the fact that they didn't start having kids while these women were in their teens isn't weird at all!
Well said. Margaret Beaufort's case was certainly an outlier--she could have repudiated the marriage which had taken place before she was 12, the canonical age of consent. And her husband was one of the more caddish sorts--he was going to war and wanted to impregnate her if possible before he left, even though she was so young. Nice guy.
I found Edmund and Edward 1 are both my Grandfather's ! It was "interesting " to find out! Makes me wonder how convoluted my Ancestry will turn out.
I love ur history....!!!!
I wonder sometimes...what would've happened had Margaret and York actually put aside their pride and decided to work as a team to better England...they would've been a hell of a power couple.
They haven't made the: historical Queen ( my mother said hysterical and in tears or should be) whose life I envy. Dear God what precarious lives from birth !
she was a queen 👑 and a legend 💫💫💫💫thank you she my favourite 🤩
I find her fascinating too. I didn't know that much about her until I researched this and next week's videos, but I really came to like (and pity) her.
@@HistoryCalling ⭐️⭐️
@@HistoryCalling Professionalism aside and I know the value of evidence but this IS the WotR. Gothic was changing to Modern. You could arguably start in 1333 around Sluys but by the 1450's, sure universal suffrage was centuries away but the establishment was there. You could recognize most of today's institutions in embryonic form.
You cannot be "detached" and cold. It's not in the rules. Everyone simply has to pick a side like the painting in the Temple Gardens.
Pick your rose and stay with it!
🌹 or 💮😉
Or you'll be locked up in the Tower!
😁
My great great grandmother is Jequetta Woodville, she was Margret of Anjou's best friend and her first lady in waiting.
Jequetta of Luxembourg daughter was Queen elizabeth Grey York my great Aunt. She was considered to be the most beautiful woman to ever grace the English throne.
I am one of the last Plantagenets through this line & of the Wyatt's.
I am the great granddaughter of Sir Thomas Wyatt the orginator of the Sonnet. My maternal grandmother is Lorene Wyatt Crump Clark who died 7 springs ago at the age of 100.
She showed me at the age of 6 the book " The Amazing wyatts," at which I am listed four pages from the back.
I am hoping that soon I will meet my ancestors at which I have many of my great grandmothers abilities which were misrepresented in the mimi series " The White Queen."
This demention is almost over in so well, a new realm is on the horizon.
😎
🧐
Hopefully you'll enjoy my videos on Elizabeth Woodville then. She's next on my list for my Women of the Wars of the Roses series.
Do you think it possible that in hindsight that Henry VI would have been happy to ceed the throne (abdicate) to Richard Duke of York but couldn't due to the pressure of the courts both at home and abroad, that he really had no choice in the matter?
Could you pls do Phillips of hainault next?
Elizabeth Woodville is next in this series, but when it's done I'd be happy to come back to Philippa if people are interested in her.
@@HistoryCalling yes, pls. And more people from Edwards iiis era if its not too much to ask. For instance his children. Or the founding members of the garter. Thomas Holland, his wife Joan of Kent. There are many interesting characters from that time.
So sorry to correct your video but Margaret was actually not called the She Wolf of France. That was Isabella of France, the wife of Edward II of England
They have actually both been called that name. I appreciate you being polite in your comment though, as I get a lot of people who are quite snotty when they think I have something wrong so it's always nice to see someone with good manners :-)
@@HistoryCalling as a fellow historian I really appreciate your videos
@@HistoryCalling Hello HC.
Sorry I'm a week behind but...
Ooh ooh Kenilworth! I was there last week!
No problem. I'd love to go to Kenilworth too :-)
@@HistoryCalling I’m sorry. Had I thought I could have sent you the pictures! If you want I still can?
But it’s a wonderful place.
Thank you 🙏
You’re welcome 😊
She was strong wasn’t she? I think her biggest drawback was her husband. In her mind, I think she wiped him off ( though never showing it) and pinned all her hopes on her child. Whether the boy was Henry’s child will , perhaps, never be known - unless DNA is done. I was watching one of those DNA shows and it showed that somewhere, a couple of hundred years ago, some one was very naughty as there is a break in The line. Was Henry ever alert enough to ‘ do the deed required’, - sounds as if his religious beliefs also turned him away from ‘conjugal duties . A mystery eh? Who’d blame her for turning to someone else for comfort. Well, the whole country would I guess. Thank you, look forward to next week. 👍👍👍👵👵👵👵🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺
Henry VI perhaps isn't the cypher he's made out. His father was a hard act to follow by any standards. The Hundred Years War was turning out expensive and the Treasury depleted.
Most people before photography would not have known the monarch least still the court and the war and anti-war factions and never saw an army.
Margaret was a Valois. When in exile Richard Neville the Kingmaker turned up to form a pact she had him wait on his knees for 15 minutes. He was perhaps the second richest guy in England after Edward IV.
She humiliated him thus.
You saw HC's excellent video on the wounding of Henry V in his first battle?
Fast forward 68 years to nearby Tewkesbury and Margaret's son's first battle at 17.
Edward IV was a legendary warrior. Never lost a battle he was in. 6ft4ins and dressed in black armour.
During Tewkesbury Edward IV and Margaret's son Edward the Prince of Wales, in his red, black and white surcoat, fought in single-combat. A young lad and a seasoned campaigner. Edward Prince of Wales gave as good as he got and they had to be pulled apart by their own sides. It is re-enacted by enthusiasts and the incident.
Sadly after the battle the young prince reportedly surrendered and was murdered in cold blood by the Clarence faction.
The Prince was interred in Tewkesbury Abbey.
As HC says it is easy and common to cast slander though no one realistically has done so in his case. Probably he had the genes not only of his father but his paternal grandfather and could have made a remarkable king. 🤔
I've wondered the same and of course there were rumours at the time, but it's interesting that Henry always acknowledged Edward as his son. It's hard to see why he would do that if he knew there was no possibility of it being true. Of course he may have slept with her once and then she went and slept with someone else and conceived with that someone, but we'll never know.
Yes, I've read about that break in the family line too, but we'll almost certainly never know where it occurred.
His religious beliefs would not have been a barrier, I suspect. I do think he, like his queen, has gotten some bad press over the centuries. Is there anything in the record which would have precluded his fathering a child other than adverse contemporary speculation? There may have been a current and incorrect belief that a man who was not charismatic enough to be a strong king might have been incompetent in every field.
So sad😢😢😢😢😢
I knew you'd "fall" for Margaret once you got to know her:)
Anyone who keeps Richard Neville Earl of Warwick waiting 15 minutes on his knees for an audience was born to power. Noble Valois.
She was pretty awesome :-) I just wish she'd had a happier ending. She'd certainly earned it (but that's for next week).
@@HistoryCalling Not great when her boy is murdered in cold blood. He could have been like his paternal grandfather, she probably saw that or when her husband was killed kneeling at prayer when the Yorkists hit London. That's the Yorkists for you.
Being in relative poverty for someone born so high can be seen as a poor ending. Not as poor as Buckingham's ending though. It's all relative.
Thanks for this i love videos on the british royal family
You're welcome and me too! :-)
If wars could be won by determination and a belief in one's own claim then Margaret would have won but unfortunately life just doesn't work that way. I feel sorry for her because all she wanted was for her son to get what he was entitled to by birth.
Yes, she had a really raw deal. She did nothing wrong, fought tooth and nail for her husband and son and yet lost everything.
Edward IV is lauded as a warrior king, 6ft4ins and dressed in black armour, won all of the battles he took part in. Yet at Tewkesbury he met his match. 17 year old Edward Prince of Wales in a lull in the battle fought in single combat with Edward IV and gave as good as he got until they were pulled apart.
It was his first battle not far from his paternal grandfather's first battle 68 years earlier. A young Henry V and Margaret must have seen the potential in her son and spared no effort.
One of the great might have beens had he not been probably murdered in cold blood by the Clarence's. He lies in the adjacent Tewkesbury Abbey.
Margaret kept the Royal House of Lancaster 🌹 in the game until the other Margaret finished the job.
In an age of male privilege it was the Lancastrian females that won the Wars of the Roses.
Have you ever thought of starting a discord server for your channel?
I actually don't even really know what that is, although I've heard the term.
I wonder if Margaret would have been as strong as she was if Yolonde of Aragon hadn't been her grandmother. If you want to learn more about Yolanda of Aragon's involvement in the ending the 100 years war please read the Maid and the Queen by Nancy Connolly.
Oh wow! I finally got a chance to watch crazy schedule! Yeah this woman went through a lot! In the series The white Queen I feel they portray her as aggressive but now I feel she had to have some kind of armor as a defense mechanism. I look forward to part 2 on Friday!!!
Yes, having now read more about her I think they could have done a better job with her portrayal in that show too, as they seemed to paint her as very unpleasant and somehow deserving of the losses she suffered. I suppose they wanted to show Elizabeth Woodville as the heroine though. Margaret Beaufort didn't come out of it looking too great either as she seemed a little deranged at times and a child murderer (of the Princes in the Tower).
@@HistoryCalling yes I’ve noticed that they did that with Elizabeth Woodville! I don’t know much about Margaret Beaufort but would love to learn more about her….hint hint lol! Jk! I can read up a bit about her myself in the meantime, IF you decide to do one on her! I feel these are all strong and unique women in their own way!
i wish they adapted the war of the roses as a show. maybe hbo should do it. oh wait.
Isabelle of France , wife of Edward the Second , was the she-wolf of France ; not Margaret of Anjou .
The term "she-wolf " wasn't applied to Isabella until Thomas Gray described her thus in a poem of 1757. Shakespeare had called Margaret of Anjou "she-wolf of France" in his history plays of Henry VI. Neither Isabella nor Margaret was referred to as "she-wolf" during their lifetimes, or any other vicious nickname..
As Kat has pointed out (and as I mentioned in the video) they were both referred to by that name and Margaret actually got it first.
@@katjack2780 Neither was called she wolf during their lifetime perhaps because nobody dared to . They both rightly deserved it tho' .
Male preference primogeniture meant that Lionel’s line was bypassed because his descendant was female. The next in line would have been Gaunt’s legitimate Lancastrian heirs by his first wife. Not the Yorkist-Mortimer line.
Margaret was DEFINITELY a woman that was ahead of her time. Her 5-article bill wanting herself to govern, for example.
Margaret of Anjou most likely didn’t cheat on Henry VI.
It was a common slander towards women in influential positions, and towards the children of those women.
Nothing about Henry VI suggests that he was unable to sire a child.
Genetics is such a lottery. Henry VI obviously inherited the mental illness from his mother’s family, yet there’s no hint that her other two sons, Jasper and Edmund Tudor suffered similarly.
I'm a little confused. I thought Isabella of France, wife of Edward II, was the "She wolf of France". Was there more than one?
Yes
They are both referred to that way
I don’t know enough history to know why
Thank you, Julie!
What Julie said :-)
I'll just repeat my comment of earlier: The term "she-wolf " wasn't applied to Isabella until Thomas Gray described her thus in a poem of 1757. Shakespeare had called Margaret of Anjou "she-wolf of France" in his history plays of Henry VI. Neither Isabella nor Margaret was referred to as "she-wolf" during their lifetimes, or any other vicious nickname..
Kat is right but Doctor Helen Castor in her book explains about Thomas Gray and William Shakespeare and makes the case for 7 "She-Wolves".
Matilda.
Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Isabella.
MARGARET OF ANJOU.
... and more spuriously ...
Lady Jane Grey.
Mary Tudor.
Elizabeth I.
Not sure they were "She-Wolves" particularly Lady Jane Grey who seemed to have been manipulated and used as a puppet and they weren't French.
Saint Henry VI, ( intercede for us and all who tarnish your name)
We share a birthday 🥳
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤amen
She did pretty well considering who she was married to, and that’s coming from a staunch Richard of York supporter.
Ah the comments are a treat. I'll read more in the early morning.
🍎
See (or rather read) you then. :-)
@@HistoryCalling The second listening really drew me in. Looking forward to next week's pt2. I'm sure there are other presentations on Margaret worth a go.
Your well informed followers comments along with your replies thumbs ☝ thumbs ☝
Cheers
I think it's wrong to underestimate Margarets influence over Henry. Henry could be unwisely influenced and Margaret was a forthrite young lady at times so it is not hard to imagine her influence over Henry who was a weak king overall.
Margaret was married at 14 to man nearly a decade her senior and who had been king for practically his entire life.
It’s hard to imagine that she was the one pulling the puppet strings, at least for the early years.
I almost wonder if, despite it being “a different time” some adult men felt weird trying to get teenage wives pregnant. That could be why it took so long for Cecily and Margaret to get pregnant the first time. Cecily may have had difficulty in pregnancy and birth if Richard had kept trying too hard to produce heirs when she was so young, like Margaret Beaufort.
She sounds like she’d have been an excellent Queen Regnant. Goes for a lot of the Roses queens, I think
Effectively that's what she was. Henry may have had catatonic trances and was prisoner various times.
She had a problem with London, particularly the bourgeoisie who had lost a lot of trade after the end of the Hundred Years War. The fact she was a Valois was more of a problem than I think her gender. She was born to rule in Angers, her gender was not an issue.
It was unusual in England for a woman to be Queen Regnant but she took to it like a duck to water and troops and generals flocked to her.
Even in exile in Angers when Richard Neville Earl of Warwick turned to her, she made him kneel in front of her for 15 minutes. She certainly was a Queen Regnant.
Elizabeth, Edward's Queen, seemed to spend a lot of time giving birth but did visit the the odd place. I doubt if she would have been a Queen Regnant.
Prince Edward's widow, Anne Neville, became Queen of Richard III, had their son but had a rough life. Her father had been killed at Barnet then her first husband killed at Tewkesbury. Clarence, her brother-in-law, tried to grasp her properties.
Both she and Richard then lost her son and were overwhelmed. She spent a lot of time at Middleham her childhood home. Died in London.
Elizabeth, Henry VII's wife seemed to be very happy and also had a large family. Horrendously she died in childbirth.
Henry's mother Margaret Beaufort who had invested so much in his upbringing was a power behind his throne having herself titled "Lady Margaret the King's Mother" and carefully choosing the Court.
Absolutely. It's hard to know who was tougher, her or Elizabeth I.
Was the Alice mentioned Chaucer's daughter? (Somerset's wife?) You couldn't really have an ex king hanging around. Too many people have their hopes bound up in the other! Even in the 20th century, after abdication, they didn't want him in the country. (At least they didn't kill him!) I don't know why, I always mix her up with Eleanor of Aquitaine)
Alice was the granddaughter of Chaucer. The Duke of Suffolk was her third husband.
@@katjack2780 Ah! Thank you! I knew I read something about it but, of course, I can't remember the fiddly details.
@@loretta_3843 I know the feeling:) I find myself having to go back and check details to make sure I've gotten things right. But I've spent most of my life as a researcher, so it's now second nature to "look it up."
The Tudors managed to kill off those of Alice's male descendants who didn't enter the church, or die in battle. Her granddaughters married but never had surviving issue, and the one remaining granddaughter was a nun. Chaucer's line died out completely.
I believe her biggest problem was with her weak husband who ignored his wife. Her dowry may have not been large but to me she was an attractive young lady but I guess the king was not going take his vows seriously as the money..in my opinion she deserved better but unfortunately for her it's not up to me .
Love Her!
She was married to a useless king who seemed to be more in need of a mother or caretaker than wife. If only her husband as competent as her they won’t have met such ending.
Marie Antionette as well, but she was raised to be "arm candy" and not to be a queen. Margaret was raised to be queen. Personally, I believe that if MariaTheresa had raised her 2 surviving daughters Antionette and Carolina to be Empresses and not to be vain, ineffective, bubbleheaded tarts Marie Antionettes fate might have been different, even if Marie Antionette had just kept up the illusion that her useless, incompetent, childish husband was still "in charge". Only 8 of MariaTheresas 16 kids survived childhood, 3 had no kids/no kids that survived to adulthood. Joseph (Holy Roman Emperor after his mother, had 2 kids that did not survive).
Only Leopold (Holy Roman Emperor after his brother Joseph died) had 14 of his 16 kids survive to adulthood, 8 childless/no surviving children,
MariaCarolina, 7 of 17 kids survived, 2 had no kids,
Ferdinand, (7 of 10 kids survived, 4 with no kids),
and MarieAntionette (1 of 3 kids survived).
I've often wondered how strong was Margaret's affection for the imbecilic Henry VI? Did she love him at all, toward the end? Did she ever truly love him, once she realized how pathetically weak and ineffectual he was, as she must have seen early in their marriage?
Good question. He seems to have been kind enough to her, so I would imagine she felt some affection for him at least, but they were very different and it's hard to see it as a great love affair. I could imagine her being very frustrated with him.
@@HistoryCalling I keep getting an image of her beating her head against a stone wall while Henry just sits there staring off into space.
Yes, given the lack of understanding and treatment of mental health issues at the time, it's difficult to imagine how hard it must have been for her to see him like that, not know what was wrong and not be able to help him. Instead she had to watch his power drain away from him and go to the Duke of York instead.
Don’t you talk bad about the kind and gentle Henry VI
@@dwightschrute900 Kind and gentle he was, but these were handicaps in the kings of his day, poor man.
No seriously people, does anyone believe that ‘prince Edward’ was actually Henry VI’s son???😂 The guy relegated all his royal duties to various nobles, so there’s a good chance that included providing an heir🙈 If ‘prince Edward’ had become the king, England would have been ruled by a chap whose mother was French and father was some random guy😆
Looks like duke of York and his allies didn’t want the rest of Europe to laugh at their country (well apart from craving power for himself!)
PS Margaret wanted power and would use anyone, including her own son or mentally ill husband, to get it. I’m not criticising, just stating the fact😐
There's no reason to suppose that Henry VI could not have fathered a child. None of his behavior precluded his being capable of fatherhood.