The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #253 ｜ Henry VI

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs. I shall be continuing the story this week all about the

00:00:25.160 life of Henry VI the little baby or the little boy the young man now as I'll start telling the story

00:00:31.720 the little baby of Henry V if you remember last time Henry V had died at an inopportune moment

00:00:38.420 in the middle of the wars of the Hundred Years War and left his younger brothers to look after

00:00:45.440 his baby son who's now growing up. If you remember last time I finished off last thing I said I think

00:00:50.840 was talking about how Henry VI had been married to one Margaret of Anjou when he was still in his

00:00:57.700 teens. So we'll pick up the story there I'll be reading from Professor Sir Charles Amon and

00:01:04.340 Sir Winston Churchill the history of the English-speaking peoples and the thing we'll have

00:01:08.880 to start getting into this week which is really the story of the wars of the roses is the family

00:01:14.140 tree. Now it's quite complicated at various times I'll should put up an image showing the family

00:01:21.540 tree to help it make sense because it is quite complicated but basically bear this in mind the

00:01:27.300 whole time is that nearly everyone involved in this are cousins. Sometimes the wars of the roses are

00:01:33.220 called the cousin wars and this is it in a nutshell there'll be lots and lots of characters here lots

00:01:38.460 of different people and I'll try and explain it as best I can and try and keep reminding you who's who

00:01:43.820 and who's related to who but it is complicated but in the most in a nutshell this is what it is okay

00:01:50.380 the old king Edward III had quite a few children and they themselves had quite a few children and when

00:01:58.340 it gets to the point where Henry VI is very very weak there's just lots of different branches of the

00:02:04.320 same family that all think they should really be the king instead of him because if you remember last

00:02:11.340 time I mentioned didn't I and I've talked about before how Henry IV Henry V's father our Henry VI's

00:02:17.480 grandfather had deposed a Richard II in 1399 so Edward III's children his oldest son Edward the Black

00:02:26.140 Prince that Richard II who was probably starved to death he was the only son of the Black Prince

00:02:32.860 so that whole line is finished the legit perfectly legit line ended there so then it's up for grabs

00:02:39.980 really I mean the next son Lionel so Lionel Duke of Clarence his family goes through the Multimers the

00:02:46.220 Multimer line and on to the Duke of York Richard Duke of York part of the Multimer line that's the next

00:02:52.680 son down from descended from Lionel Duke of Clarence and to make all these things more complicated being the

00:02:58.600 Duke Duke of York had passed between various parts of the family over a generation or two as well which

00:03:03.140 makes it even more confusing but anyway Richard Duke of York will come up here and you know he can

00:03:08.300 legitimately think legitimately claim that he's got a very very good right to be the king because Henry

00:03:15.480 IV and Henry V and now Henry VI they're all descended from the third son of Edward III John of Gaunt then

00:03:22.340 there's there's other members there's other branches of the family as well the the Beauforts they come down

00:03:27.520 through another son of Edward III the the Edmund Duke of York and and there's even more the Somersets are

00:03:33.820 part of the the Beaufort line so there's there's all different families okay and they all think

00:03:39.600 they've all got the blood royal so to speak and they all think that it's not necessarily right that

00:03:45.200 the the young man Henry VI has got the best claim okay so let me pick up the story reading from

00:03:51.480 Sir Charles Oman just after the point where um he's married to Margaret of Anjou okay so Charles

00:03:58.180 Oman says Gloucester and Richard of York saluted this wise marriage and treaty with loud cries of wrath

00:04:04.920 so they didn't like it remember Gloucester is one of Henry IV's younger brothers and meant to be

00:04:10.980 region in England and meant to be the protector of the young Henry VI and Richard Duke of York

00:04:17.400 is an uncle basically an uncle a cousin a branch of the same family okay and he becomes he's extremely

00:04:24.040 powerful he's one of the most powerful men in the whole country rich and powerful able to raise many

00:04:30.180 many men from his own purse and got giant influence okay that's Richard Duke of York they Gloucester and

00:04:38.100 Richard Duke of York they said that the Earl of Suffolk who negotiated it the marriage between Henry VI and

00:04:45.160 Margaret of Anjou they said that he must have been sold to France he was working on behalf of France

00:04:50.500 this helps France this helps Anjou why didn't we marry him to an English girl oh princess duchess and

00:04:57.020 spoke of the surrender of the fortresses of Maine as treason to the English crown the greater part of

00:05:02.460 the nation believed them to be right for Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and Richard were both popular with

00:05:08.200 the masses and it soon became a matter of faith that the Beauforts and Suffolks had betrayed their

00:05:13.980 young master so as you can see the various branches cousin branches cadet branches of the what was the

00:05:19.320 house of Plantagenet now breaking apart and forming factions both accusing each other of not doing what's

00:05:25.880 in the best interests of the kingdom and Henry the king Oman goes on saying a strong king might have

00:05:33.700 crushed this unwise opposition to peace but Henry VI who had now passed his majority he was 18 was

00:05:40.920 anything but a strong king he was frail and feeble both in body and mind a simple soul much given to

00:05:48.600 exercises of piety and to quiet study he always sought some stronger arm on which to lean and when

00:05:55.280 he had chosen his friends wisely or unwisely he clung to them with the obstinacy that so often

00:06:01.560 accompanies weakness worst of all he had inherited a taint of madness from his grandfather the insane

00:06:08.040 king charles the sixth of france and from time to time his brain was clouded by fits of apathetic

00:06:14.180 melancholy now that's a way of saying a type of um selective mutism it seems that he would sometimes

00:06:21.740 just stop speaking just not say anything at all people would ask him questions and he would just

00:06:27.100 refuse to say anything or even something a bit worse than that according to various accounts that he was

00:06:32.520 sort of semi-comatose that his eyes were open right and he would eat if you put something in

00:06:39.740 his hand a fork or a spoon with food in it he would eat it if you put food in his mouth he would chew it

00:06:44.300 and eat it but beyond that would just stare into nothingness all day every day you could sort of

00:06:48.900 walk him towards the bed and put him in bed and he'd lay down could sort of get him out of bed and put

00:06:54.160 him in a chair you could move him around manipulate him a bit you he would eat right but he wouldn't say

00:06:59.560 anything and he'd just stare into blankness just stare at the wall all right and so and it's not

00:07:05.580 some sort of clever ploy it's that he's got a mental illness okay so an apathetic melancholy um

00:07:12.540 and sometimes if he wasn't completely suffering from that sometimes it was something very very close to

00:07:18.560 that so occasionally he would sort of murmur okay or no or yes or no but you know 99% of the time

00:07:26.440 just say nothing do nothing so it's a real problem that's terrible to be to have that when you're the

00:07:33.720 king in medieval times that's nowhere near good enough that's disastrous so even if he was a

00:07:39.660 normal person like a normal person like you or I that had their own mind and was prepared to stand

00:07:43.780 up for themselves to some extent sometimes even that's not good enough to be a normal person in

00:07:48.740 the 21st century like you or I that's far too weak still we would be considered far too weak you need to

00:07:54.880 be a crazily headstrong warrior really like a badass butcher type person Henry V a massive character

00:08:03.520 a super super strong personality and will a will of iron right so this this apathetic apathetic

00:08:12.200 melancholy that is terrible you're gonna be manipulated you're gonna be you'll immediately

00:08:18.140 become someone or some factions bitch they will make you a puppet and they will move you around

00:08:24.960 like you're nothing like you're just a piece a chess piece on their board it's it's the worst thing

00:08:31.160 okay I think you get it um Omar continues saying here Henry had learned to trust his great uncle

00:08:37.240 Cardinal Beaufort and his minister Suffolk he would never listen to any accusation against them

00:08:42.860 his views were shared by the fiery young queen who soon began to rule him by dint of her stronger

00:08:49.600 will so um just quickly to mention just quickly to say about this this sort of selective mutism

00:08:55.280 and staring just into nothing for days on end all day every day for days weeks or months on end

00:09:01.740 that actually came and went that's not what he was like all the time so sometimes he would be

00:09:06.460 sort of normal effectively normal although he was still weak and pious you know sometimes he was

00:09:11.580 like that and then sometimes he would go through these episodes which could last weeks or months

00:09:16.540 of the full-blown selective mutism staring into space so okay it wasn't like he wasn't like that

00:09:22.900 100% of the time it came and went but as I say even when he wasn't suffering from those episodes

00:09:27.900 he was still weak-willed weak-minded and inclined to let people walk all over him or be completely

00:09:34.600 dominated by his wife or by one or two of his favorites as it said there Cardinal Beaufort or

00:09:40.140 the Earl of Suffolk and so of course those people form a faction right they realize that their main

00:09:45.860 card the main reason why well the only reason they're in power so to speak is because Henry likes

00:09:50.580 them because Henry has picked them to be his his controllers effectively so they want to keep it that

00:09:56.680 way anyone else like Richard Duke of York or perhaps that would like to rest Henry VI out of their

00:10:03.440 control or out of their grasp and start manipulating him for himself they would they don't want that to

00:10:09.420 happen obviously because it's not in their interests so political factions grow up for and

00:10:14.420 against the king and his and his supporters his clique of powerful people okay Oman goes on after

00:10:21.660 after just saying there that his wife Margaret von Joux ruled him by dint of her stronger will

00:10:27.660 she is a very very strong woman very very strong-minded the opposite of a shrinking violet but we'll get into

00:10:34.380 all of that Oman continues here saying the truce of tour ie the peace between England and France

00:10:39.420 lasted for some five years during this space the factions in England grew fiercer than ever

00:10:46.080 and in 1447 came to a head at a parliament at Bury St Edmunds Gloucester was suddenly arrested

00:10:53.340 by order of Suffolk and the Queen and charged with treason so that's a big thing Gloucester's like the

00:10:59.780 uncle the the uncle of the king and um supposed to be basically the regent of England he's sort of

00:11:06.760 supposed to be king in all but name you heard last episode he was actually not a very good ruler and

00:11:12.440 he was weak and he had crazy harebrained ideas and fell in love and fell out of love and tried foreign

00:11:17.800 adventures that failed and all that sort of thing so it's not like he's a great shining example of

00:11:22.420 leadership or anything but nonetheless that the fact that Suffolk and Margaret von Joux just have him

00:11:27.760 arrested because he was one of the leaders of the sort of the the anti-king faction well it's not

00:11:34.020 even the king everyone knows the king is weak and a puppet so the king himself personally is you know

00:11:39.900 not really particularly much of this it's just who can nominally claim to be controlling him but okay

00:11:45.180 Suffolk and the Queen just arrested um Humphrey Duke of Gloucester you know and so that whole faction is

00:11:51.820 is taking a massive massive hit there includes Richard Duke of York and and Cardinal Cardinal

00:11:57.740 Beaufort he died within a few days the Duke of Gloucester right okay probably from an apoplectic

00:12:04.860 seizure and not from any foul play well we just don't know do we it's always suspicious when someone's

00:12:11.520 arrested and died of natural causes in custody within days did they did they but okay most historians do

00:12:18.780 think it just in this case anyway it may well have been natural causes but I'm always very very

00:12:24.660 suspicious about that sort of thing okay Oman goes on saying but it was natural that the rumor should

00:12:28.860 get abroad that Suffolk had secretly murdered him Gloucester was only outlived for a few months by his

00:12:35.600 lifelong rival the old Cardinal Beaufort their deaths cleared the way for the rise of new men the

00:12:42.020 Cardinal's place at the head of the peace party was taken by Suffolk and Edmund Beaufort Duke of

00:12:47.260 Somerset men a far lower stamp than the old churchmen who though proud and worldly had always

00:12:53.680 done his best to serve England Suffolk and Somerset were busy self-important self-seeking men and coveted

00:13:00.240 power and office for their own private ends the Duke of York who succeeded to Duke Humphrey's position

00:13:06.740 was a far more capable man but he was committed to the hopeless unpractical program of perpetual war

00:13:13.700 with France so just to say Richard Duke of York now comes on to the scene in a much bigger way and

00:13:20.240 he is pretty badass he's much more in the vein of Henry V or the Duke of Bedford someone like that he

00:13:28.020 can and does fight battles personally fighting backers he's got a very very very strong personality

00:13:33.400 ball-headed super strong will type guy you know he's hard hard as nails and so battle lines are

00:13:41.320 starting to be drawn politically at this point politically you know Suffolk and Margaret of Anjou

00:13:46.360 on one side and the Duke of York and various others on the other and the Duke of York is basically

00:13:51.100 sort of taken at the position of one of the most if not the most powerful man in the country not

00:13:57.780 exactly regent because the king is now old enough technically he's in his majority technically he's

00:14:02.840 a grown-up now the king he's actually a man at this point but nonetheless there'll be people in

00:14:07.860 parliament that could really wield much more power than the king or someone like Margaret of Anjou will

00:14:13.360 try to wield power through the king you know she'll say or Suffolk will say the king says this the king

00:14:18.920 decrees this the king wants xyz actually the king's done nothing he's sitting there in silence it's them

00:14:24.760 it's them and so it's down to other people someone like Richard Duke of York to say uh wait a minute

00:14:29.720 no is it let's you know come on what's going on sort of thing haven't you just arrested the Duke of

00:14:35.560 Gloucester now he's suddenly died like what are you guys acting as tyrants okay Oman goes on here

00:14:41.720 saying his position that of Duke of York his position too was rendered difficult by the fact that Duke

00:14:49.120 Humphrey's death had made him next heir to the throne after the feeble young king as I mentioned

00:14:54.500 Duke of York is descended through Clarence Edward III's second son Clarence i.e. an older brother

00:15:00.920 than John of Gaunt I mean there's an argument to be made that this Richard Duke of York should just

00:15:05.520 be king not that he's next after Henry VI he just should be king now okay there's there's an argument

00:15:11.000 a fairly strong argument but okay for there was now no other male of the house of Lancaster surviving

00:15:17.260 the queen Suffolk and Somerset began to look on him with suspicion and he had to walk warily

00:15:23.680 lest charges of treason should be brought against him as they had been against his cousin Gloucester

00:15:28.900 meanwhile he was feigned to accept the position of Lord Deputy of Ireland which kept him out of harm's

00:15:35.300 way so he knew as strong as he is he knew that the the party of power Suffolk and and Margaret of

00:15:43.820 Anjou that he is Henry's mate there and therefore their main rival if anyone would want to usurp the king

00:15:51.480 it would be Richard Duke of York so okay they make him Lord Deputy of Ireland which means you do have

00:15:57.300 to go out to Ireland it's a rural island or big parts of it anyway so he's sort of out of harm's way

00:16:03.020 effectively Omar says okay he continues saying in 1449 the truce with France which had accompanied

00:16:10.700 the king's marriage was broken by the gross fault of his minister Suffolk some of the Norman garrisons

00:16:16.640 were left so long unpaid that they broke into mutiny crossed the border and sacked the rich

00:16:22.520 Breton town of Fourgrese probably mispronouncing that failing to get satisfaction from Suffolk for

00:16:30.120 he for this outrage Charles VII the king of France declared war Normandy was now in the charge of

00:16:36.580 Somerset a man of very different caliber from Richard of York who had held it against such odds in the days

00:16:42.900 before the truce of Tours the French on invading the duchy swept the English before them with an ease

00:16:48.860 that astonished even themselves the peasants and townsfolk rose against their masters on every side

00:16:54.720 and gave the invaders their best help the French that is town after town fell Rouen the capital of

00:17:01.660 the duchy was betrayed by traitors within the gates and the unhappy Somerset had to fall back on

00:17:07.360 that town with Cherbourg and half floor was soon all remaining to the English on Norman soil so the

00:17:14.740 tide of the hundred years war has very very much turned in favor of the French and against the

00:17:21.120 English we're now on on the back foot and have been for quite a while now right we haven't really

00:17:25.900 been on the front foot since the first few years after Henry V's death but it's all starting to truly

00:17:32.480 collapse now and in fact it all does start imploding with increasing speed Oman says this terrible news

00:17:39.480 stirred up great wrath and indignation in England against Suffolk and Somerset because they were

00:17:44.040 supposed to be in charge an army was hastily got ready at Portsmouth and sent over to Cherbourg with

00:17:50.040 orders to join Somerset at Cannes but the French threw themselves between and forced the army of

00:17:55.940 succor to give them battle at Formigny at this disastrous fight well nigh the whole English

00:18:02.200 force was destroyed overwhelmed by an attack from the rear at a moment when it was already engaged

00:18:07.800 with the superior French army in front only its general Sir Thomas Kyriel and 400 men were granted

00:18:14.000 quarter while no less than 3,000 were slain and that was in April 1450 this disaster settled the fate of

00:18:21.520 Normandy Somerset was compelled to surrender Cannes and returned covered with ignominy to England the

00:18:28.660 other garrisons yielded one after another and nothing remained of all the mighty conquests of Henry V in

00:18:34.820 northern France end quote so just to remind you we've been fighting on and off the English and the

00:18:39.980 French have been fighting on and off for northern France whether it's Normandy, Picardy, Maine all parts

00:18:47.860 of France for centuries and centuries you know it's been back and forth William the Conqueror a Norman

00:18:53.320 conquers England but then not that long after a few generations later we've got someone like a figure

00:18:58.960 like Henry II who controls all of it himself and then during the ages of Richard the Lionheart and John

00:19:06.820 we win some we lose some during the age of Edward the first we win some we lose some during the age of

00:19:14.260 Edward the third we win a lot we get it all back keep it for a few generations then we lose some again

00:19:20.300 then Henry V turns up and we win it all again and now we've lost it all again nearly all again so it

00:19:26.200 just goes back and forth back and forth back and forth this is a period where we've with the English

00:19:30.640 lose it nearly all of it okay and it's not that long ago is it it's only a generation ago that we'd won

00:19:36.680 it all in glory in glory under Henry V of a glorious high tide one of the high watermarks and you know

00:19:44.260 within one generation it's all lost again okay let Oman go on again he continues he says

00:19:49.720 even before Formigny had been fought i.e. the battle where the English lost and the French won

00:19:55.860 or Carl had fallen grave troubles had broken out in England okay so some starting the real

00:20:02.500 Wars of the Roses basically or the very first kernels of it really sort of begin at this stage

00:20:08.560 you know the hunch it's easy to think of it as that the hundred years war peters out or ends

00:20:14.500 and all that energy if you like is transferred in on itself blasts in on itself in England yeah all

00:20:22.940 that sort of martial energy is uh focused inwards and becomes an internal war the Wars of the Roses

00:20:29.940 the Cousins War all the families all the rich and powerful people that should have been winning

00:20:34.420 in their own eyes should have been winning glorious Edward III Henry V style victories in France

00:20:40.720 well they can't do that now so they all turn on each other basically there's obviously more to it

00:20:45.260 than that but you know you can think of it that way a bit we hope you enjoyed that video and if you

00:20:51.360 did please head over to lotusseaters.com for the full unabridged video

00:20:55.240 bye

00:20:59.180 you

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 08, 2026

PREVIEW： Epochs #253 ｜ Henry VI - Part 2

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