Renewed Crises And Challenges 1449-61

Question 1

What are the arguments for Henry VI being ‘deeply religious but impractical’ (3)?

Answer 1

• Henry was ‘personally devout’ and spent large amounts of time in prayer
• Henry founded two institutions for the education of priests: Eton (1440) and King’s College Cambridge (1441)
• Blacman’s ‘compilation of the meekness and good life of Henry VI’ gives evidence for this view, and Blacman knew the King personally from 1444 to 1461, however, Blacman was a priest that recast Henry’s failings as spiritual values
• Against: Henry Tudor organised a campaign to canonise Henry, thus contemporary sources may be exaggerated

Question 2

What are the arguments for Henry VI being ‘completely inactive and unsuited’ (1)?

Answer 2

• Watts argues that Henry was an ‘exceptionally ineffective and insane King’, ‘more a vacuum than a personality’ and that the King was tolerated only due to respect for the hereditary monarchy, despite his ineptitudes

Question 3

What are the arguments for Henry VI’s rule being doomed to fail, regardless of the influence of his personality (3)?

Answer 3

• Henry V had been an incredibly successful monarch and comparing him to Henry VI increased impressions of Henry VI’s inadequacy
• Henry inherited a poor financial situation: his father’s campaigns had been very expensive and so was the maintenance of French territory
• Henry was left to govern two kingdoms without a role model having shown him how to handle his advisers

Question 4

What was the Treaty of Tours, 1444?

Answer 4

• Arranged by the duke of Suffolk
• Henry was to marry MoA, no dowry was provided, the wedding was expensive
• Maine was to be surrendered to France at the end of a two-year truce

Question 5

What are the arguments for MoA being a ‘victim of circumstance’ (3)?

Answer 5

• Factionism already existed in the English court: there was a pro-war group (Gloucester) and a pro-peace group (Suffolk and Somerset)
• The circumstances of her marriage, such as the lack of a dowry and the surrender of Maine made her very unpop.
• Contemporary chroniclers were all male and shared misogynistic views about women in power and the majority of chroniclers were yorkist supporters seeking to justify the yorkist claim

Question 6

What are the arguments for MoA being a ‘perpetrator of hate’ (3)?

Answer 6

• MoA actively opposed York, seeing him as a threat to Henry and her son although he was the senior male relative of the King and the natural choice as the King’s support in gov. and there’s no evidence that York aimed to seize the crown, he wished to be a counsellor and PotR
• Lancastrian armies were notorious for pillaging and rape, and MoA encouraged Henry to take action against the Yorkists in the parliament of devils (1459)

Question 7

What were the effects of MoA and Henry VI on England (3)?

Answer 7

• MoA replaced York with Somerset, who subsequently presided over multiple disastrous defeats in France as CIC
• MoA’s aim to isolate York caused a rift between him and the King, the First Battle of St Albans resulted in a Yorkist victory in which Somerset was killed and branded a traitor
• After the battle, York was made Protector again and Warwick was made Captain of Calais

Question 8

What were the causes of Cade’s rebellion (2)?

Answer 8

• Local grievances in Kent against Lord Saye (King’s treasurer, known for violence and cowardice) and William Crowmer (corrupt local sheriff): these men threatened destruction after Suffolk’s body washed up, a preemptive rebellion began
• High taxation to fund the unsuccessful HYW and royal corruption: Somerset presided over disastrous defeats and royal advisers were accused of misusing their influence to accumulate royal wealth

Question 9

What were the key features of the rebellion (5)?

Answer 9

• Rebels marched on London and rejected a delegation sent by the King in June 1450
• There was mutiny in the royal army: former soldiers attacked the property of ‘enemies of the realm’ and retainers of the King aswell as nobles joined Cade
• A document of grievances was produced
• Henry ordered Saye’s imprisonment, who was later executed by the rebels, then feld to Warwickshire
• The violence in London caused Londoners to defeat Cade in July

Question 10

What was the significance of Cade’s rebellion?

Answer 10

• The King’s favour was no protection against attack, shown by Suffolk’s murder
• Symbolised a serious breakdown in law and order: Saye’s body was brutally abused
• Londoners, citizens of England’s financial and governmental centre, ejected Cade to prevent further looting, not out of royal loyalty

Question 11

What were the reasons for Suffolk’s unpopularity (5)?

Answer 11

• Negotiated the Treaty of Tours
• In 1449, he advocated an English attack on Fougeres: French retaliation caused the loss of English noble’s French assets
• He stood accused of financial mismanagement and having had a part in causing the 370k pounds of royal debt
• Accused of abusing his influence to win royal patronage, such as being granted the lordship of Guines
• Also accused of trying to strengthen his claim to the throne by marrying Margaret of Beaufort

Question 12

When and how was Suffolk murdered?

Answer 12

• 1450

- He was banished, but intercepted by a privateering ship and murdered