Book Review: "Henry VI" by James Ross

I have probably said this countless times for those of you that have been here forever and a day - but here we are again and I am still reading one book about each and every English Monarch from Edward the Confessor onwards. So far, I have read a book about: Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror, William II, Henry I, Stephen, Matilda, Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V and now, we move on to the baby king himself - Henry VI who became king at only a few months old whilst his father died from dysentry abroad. When you think about it, a baby that little having his father die of a destabilising illness abroad - that has really got to mess the child up no matter whether he is the king or not.

The book opens with the death of Henry V and the ascension of Henry VI and even though England should be happy for the new king, there is a kind of sorrow that rips across the country at the loss of the king at such a young age. Henry V is in his 30s when he passes away from illness and, by the end of his reign, must be carried around instead of walking. As we move through the book, we get an insight into Henry VI's attitude towards his reign with the author showing that Henry VI was a pretty good kid who did as he was told even though there was a few rebellions in his time. Unfortunately, I think we are all perfectly aware of what happens at the end of Henry VI's reign and why it happens. Apart from the rebellions, we get to see that Henry VI opened Eton College and was basically a patron for learning, reading and goodness. Even as he grew up even more, the man was adverse to being the war lord his father was.

The book goes over what happened when Henry VI came of age in 1436 and what initially happened when he took over his own kingship. Things, as they always are in English History, are a bit rocky to begin with, people tugging and pulling at the king's favour and such. There is so much politics in this book to do with France that I thought my brain was going to turn to mashed potato. One thing we do learn though is that even though a lot of the stuff is out in the open, there is a huge amount of secrecy around the English Court at this time. Rebellions would soon rise up in the 1450s and this would mark particularly bad for the crown.

There is a lot of talk about Henry VI's mental state. Now, in the previous books about kings and queens, the one thing I saw is that there was always talk of their mental state: the dillusion of King Richard I, the anxiety of Henry IV, the narcissism of Richard II, and Edward II's depression. Henry VI is said to have some sort of 'mental weakness' that was inherited from his past family members. Even though we cannot know whether that is actually true, it could explain some key things about his personality.

I think that the best thing that this book covers is the 1910 opening of Henry VI's tomb to realise that his hair was still matted with dried blood, discovering that he was possibly beaten to death or died via blunt force trauma to the head. It is really interesting that his hair was still on his head, but that there was also dry blood to in order to give us a suggestion, all these years later, to how he died in the Tower of London.