1 Henry VI: Personality

1 Henry VI: Personality

1. Education

   • He had received the best tuition available at the time
     • From Richard Beauchamp, the Earl of Warwick

2. Governance

   • John Capgrave - reported that the naval + coastal security of the kingdom was neglected

3. Military leadership

   • The first English king never to command an army against a foreign army
   • Left the kingdom's military leadership in the hands of others
     • His uncles - Duke of Bedford + Duke of Gloucester
     • Duke of Somerset, Duke of Suffolk + Duke of York
     • Even his wife, Margaret of Anjou, showed a greater inclination towards military action

4. Advisers

   • According to Abbot John Whethamstede, Henry could 'not resist those who led him to unwise decisions'
     • Henry was a man of weak character, who relied too much on the advice of those around him
       • Clearly not a good judge of character + those around him knew how to manipulate him
         • Their manipulation of him became decisive when he began to suffer mental problems that eventually led to a temp lapse into insanity in 1453
   • According to John Blacman, Henry VI was a good man but a bad king who became a 'fool of God'

5. Assessments of Henry

   • Judgements of Henry in the 15th Cent would have been distorted by the propaganda of civil war + later opinions of Yorkists/Tudors
   • Polydore Vergil
     • Henry 'preferred peace before wars, quietness before troubles...there was not in this world a more pure, honest and more more holy creature'
       • Henry was a very pious man
         • However, he had not won the support of the Pope, Pius II
   • J. R. Lander
     • Wrote that, Henry had 'developed or degenerated into a man who could hardly have been worse equipped to meet the stresses' of governing a kingdom'