Editing Henry VI of England (section)

== Ascendancy of Suffolk and Somerset ==
[[File:Salut d'or.jpg|thumb|''Salut d'or'', depicting Henry as King of England and France, struck in [[Rouen]]]]

In 1447, the king and queen summoned the Duke of Gloucester to appear before parliament on the charge of treason. Queen Margaret had no tolerance for any sign of disloyalty toward her husband and kingdom, thus any suspicion of this was immediately brought to her attention. This move was instigated by Gloucester's enemies, the earl of Suffolk, whom Margaret held in great esteem, and the ageing Cardinal Beaufort and his nephew, [[Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset|Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Somerset]]. Gloucester was put in custody in [[Bury St Edmunds]], where he died, probably of a heart attack (although contemporary rumours spoke of poisoning) before he could be tried.{{Efn|With the King's only remaining uncle dead, there were many, though no obvious, candidates to succeed Henry VI to the throne if he died childless. Henry VI's grandfather [[Henry IV of England|Henry IV]] had inaugurated a trend of favouring male succession by his deposition of [[Richard II]] in 1399. By this logic, the most senior candidate in the royal family, through [[male line]] descent from [[Edward III]], was Richard of York, or his rival Edmund Beaufort (the Earl of Somerset) in case the Beaufort line was declared eligible to succeed (Henry IV had barred them from succession due to their initial illegitimacy). Through [[primogeniture]], however, which was the traditional method of English succession, the legitimate successor would be [[Afonso V of Portugal]] through his descent from [[Philippa of Lancaster|Henry IV's eldest sister]], but his status as a foreign monarch made him very unlikely to become king. An alternative line of succession would be the descendants of [[Elizabeth of Lancaster, Duchess of Exeter|Henry IV's second sister]], whose son was [[John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter]]. A fifth candidate to the throne was [[Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby|Margaret Beaufort]], who was the [[heir general]] of the [[House of Lancaster]] (through Henry IV's semi-legitimate brother, [[John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset|John Beaufort]]), if the Beaufort family was admitted into the succession line. She would later marry Henry VI's maternal half-brother [[Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond]], and originate the Tudor claim to the throne.}}

The Duke of York, being the most powerful duke in the realm and also being both an [[agnate]] and the [[heir general]] of [[Edward III]] (thus having, according to some, a better claim to the throne than Henry VI himself), probably had the best chances to succeed to the throne after Gloucester. However, he was excluded from the court circle and sent to govern [[Lordship of Ireland|Ireland]], while his opponents, the earls of Suffolk and Somerset, were promoted to [[duke]]s, a title at that time still normally reserved for immediate relatives of the monarch.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keen |first=Maurice |title=England in the Later Middle Ages |date=1973 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-4150-2783-0 |location=London |page=438}}</ref> The new duke of Somerset was sent to France to assume the command of the English forces; this prestigious position was previously held by the duke of York himself, who was dismayed at his term not being renewed and at seeing his enemy take control of it.

[[File:Henry_VI_by_Georg_von_Ehingen.png|thumb|Manuscript depiction of Henry VI c. 1457]]

In the later years of Henry's reign, the monarchy became increasingly unpopular, due to a breakdown in law and order, corruption, the distribution of royal land to the king's court [[favourite]]s, the troubled state of the crown's finances, and the steady loss of territories in France. In 1447, this unpopularity took the form of a Commons campaign against [[William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk]], who was the most unpopular of all the king's entourage and widely seen as a traitor. He was impeached by Parliament to a background that has been called "the baying for Suffolk's blood [by] a London mob",<ref>Hicks, M. A., ''The Wars of the Roses'' Yale 2002, p. 67</ref> to the extent that Suffolk admitted his alarm to Henry.{{Sfn|Griffiths|1981|p=677}} Ultimately, Henry was forced to send him into [[exile]], but Suffolk's ship was intercepted in the [[English Channel]]. His murdered body was found on the beach at [[Dover]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Paston Letters |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |editor-last=Davis |editor-first=Norman |pages=26–29 |chapter=Letter 14}}</ref>

Henry's mental health began to deteriorate in the late 1440s. He exhibited possible signs of paranoia (the arrest of Duke Humphrey in 1447) and grandiosity (the scale of his plans of expansion for Eton Chapel in 1449 and King's College in 1446). By 1449, Henry had many critics questioning his ability to rule due to his mental health.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Bark |first=Nigel |date=October 2002 |title=Did schizophrenia change the course of English history? The mental illness of Henry VI |journal=Medical Hypotheses |volume=59 |issue=4 |pages=416–421 |doi=10.1016/S0306-9877(02)00145-7 |pmid=12208181}}</ref>

In 1449, the Duke of Somerset, leading the campaign in France, reopened hostilities in [[Normandy]] (although he had previously been one of the main advocates for peace), but by the autumn he had been pushed back to [[Caen]]. By 1450, the French had retaken the whole province, so hard won by Henry V. Returning troops, who had often not been paid, added to the lawlessness in the southern counties of England. [[Jack Cade]] led a rebellion in [[Kent]] in 1450, calling himself "John Mortimer", apparently in sympathy with York, and setting up residence at the [[White Hart]] Inn in Southwark (the [[hart (deer)|white hart]] had been the symbol of the deposed [[Richard II]]).{{Sfn|Griffiths|1981|p=628}} Henry came to London with an army to crush the rebellion, but on finding that Cade had fled kept most of his troops behind while a small force followed the rebels and met them at [[Sevenoaks]]. The flight proved to have been tactical: Cade successfully ambushed the force in the Battle of Solefields (near Sevenoaks) and returned to occupy London. In the end, the rebellion achieved nothing, and London was retaken after a few days of disorder; but this was principally because of the efforts of its own residents rather than those of the army. At any rate, the rebellion showed that feelings of discontent were running high.<ref>Sevenoaks Preservation Society: ''The Rising in Kent in 1450 A.D.'', J.K.D. Copy in Sevenoaks public library.</ref>

In 1451, the [[Duchy of Aquitaine]], held by England since [[Henry II of England|Henry II]]'s time, was also lost. In October 1452, an English advance in Aquitaine retook [[Bordeaux]] and was having some success, but by 1453 Bordeaux was lost again, leaving [[Calais]] as England's only remaining territory on the continent.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}}