The Minority of Henry VI, King of England and of France

Abstract

A king’s minority is the antithesis of personal kingship. By a considerable margin, Henry VI is the youngest monarch ever to mount the English or British throne. Born at Windsor castle on 6 December 1421, there was no time in his conscious early life when he was not king of England, for Henry was hardly nine months old when his father, the lionized Henry V, died on campaign near Paris in the early hours of 31 August 1422, aged thirty-four. The child’s subsequent minority accordingly lasted longer than that of all other young English kings. In addition, Henry VI became king during an intensive war whose ultimate aim was to substitute the English for the Valois monarch in France, thereby creating what became known as a “dual monarchy” of unprecedented ambition. In quite exceptional circumstances, therefore, Henry of Windsor undertook extraordinary responsibilities and obligations that in practice others would have to discharge for him for at least a decade and a half. The arrangements that were accordingly made in the autumn of 1422 had personal, political, and constitutional implications for England’s kingship that were unique and arguably more significant than those arising from other royal minorities.