Henry VI., the only child of Henry V. and Catharine of France, was born at Windsor on 6th December 1421. As he was not quite nine months old when his father died, his uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, was appointed to govern France, and another uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, to be protector of England in Bedford's absence, with a council appointed by parliament to aid and control him, the parliament declining to appoint him regent, though the late king had desired it. After twenty-four years' captivity, the Scotch king, James I., was set at liberty in the hope of securing peace on the northern border. In France, the incapable Charles VI. having died, his son the dauphin assumed the title of Charles VII., and went on fighting with the English. His army, commanded by the Scottish Earl of Buchan, now constable of France, was almost annihilated by the English at Verneuil (1424). But this victory was the last great success obtained by the English in France, and their power, which could only be maintained by force, gradually crumbled away. Gloucester's marriage with Jacqueline of Hainault (1423) during the life of her husband, John of Brabant, had strained the alliance with Burgundy, which soon after lost its strongest link by the death of Bedford's wife, Duke Philip's sister, in 1432. In 1429 the siege of Orleans was raised by the French, inspired by Joan of Arc (q.v.); and after this the English power declined steadily, in spite of their having burned Joan as a witch in 1431. Henry was crowned king of England at Westminster in 1429, and king of France at Paris in 1431; but the struggle, though continued for twenty years, was seen to be desperate. Bedford, the only great and statesmanlike leader on the English side, died in 1435; Paris was recovered by the dauphin in the following year; Normandy was completely lost by the fall of Cherbourg in 1450; and ultimately, in 1453, the English were expelled from all France (Calais excepted), greatly to the true advantage of both countries.
Disputes between Gloucester and his uncle, Cardinal Beaufort (q.v.), the powerful Bishop of Winchester, as well as war with France, prevailed during the king's minority. Besides being bodily weak, Henry inherited the mental infirmity of his grandfather, Charles VI. of France. In 1445 a wife was found for him in the strong-minded Margaret of Anjou; and in 1447 the Winchester party, supported by her, succeeded in having Gloucester arrested for high-treason. Five days later he was found dead in his bed; but that he was murdered there is no proof, and such evidence as we have tends to the opposite belief. Beaufort, who had served the state faithfully for fifty years, survived his nephew only six weeks, and after his death everything went wrong. The want of strength in the king, as well as in his title to the crown, was an invitation to every form of faction to display itself. Jack Cade (q.v.), an Irish adventurer who pretended to be a Mortimer, obtained a temporary possession of London; but the citizens overcame him and his pillaging followers, and he was killed in Sussex. The true representative of the Mortimers was Richard, Duke of York, and he was one of the unquiet spirits of the reign. As a descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III., his title to the crown was superior to that of the king, who was descended from the Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of that monarch, and he laid claim to the crown with more or less openness, according to circumstances. His influence and address were so great that in 1454, on the occasion of the king's weak mind being entirely eclipsed, he was appointed protector by parliament. On the king's recovery he was indisposed to give up his power, and levied an army to maintain it. On 22d May 1455 the first battle of St Albans was fought, and the Yorkists were victors; the Duke of Somerset, the queen's favourite minister for the time, was slain, and the king himself was taken prisoner. This was the first battle of twelve that were fought between the Houses of York and Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses (for an account of the struggle, see ROSES, WARS OF THE; see also EDWARD IV.). A return of Henry's disorder made York again protector in 1455-56; and on his recovery the poor king vainly strove to maintain peace between the duke's faction and the queen's. Margaret headed the Lancastrian forces, and never relinquished the struggle; but in 1461 Edward IV. was proclaimed king, and in 1465 Henry was captured and committed to the Tower. In 1470 Warwick restored him to the throne, but six months after he was again in Edward's hands; and at Tewkesbury (4th May 1471) his son was slain and Margaret taken prisoner. Edward returned to London on the 21st May; and that night Henry was murdered in the Tower. Margaret was ransomed by Louis XI. in 1475, and returned to France. Henry had lost both the kingdoms to which he had succeeded, and seen all his friends die vainly for his sake. The most unfortunate of kings, his reign stands out in English history as one long disaster. He himself was a just and merciful prince, pious, pure, and generous; but the gentle and saintly scholar, with his fits of imbecility, was no fit monarch for times so rough. His highest claim on our gratitude is that he founded Eton College and King's College, Cambridge.
See Stubbs; Gairdner's Lancaster and York, and his introduction to the Paston Letters (vol. i. 1872).