Editing Henry VI of England (section)

== Imprisonment and death ==
[[File:The site of Henry VI's death.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|The Wakefield Tower in the [[Tower of London]], which is treated as Henry VI's place of death for ceremonial purposes]]

Henry was imprisoned in the [[Tower of London]] again and, when the royal party arrived in London, he was reported dead. Official chronicles and documents state that the deposed king died on the night of 21 May 1471.<ref name="weir"/> In all likelihood, his opponents had kept him alive up to that point, rather than leave the Lancastrians with a far more formidable leader in Henry's son, Edward. However, once the last of the most prominent Lancastrian supporters had been either killed or exiled, it became clear that Henry VI would be a burden on Edward IV's reign. The common fear was the possibility of another noble using the mentally unstable king to further their own agenda.

According to the ''[[Historie of the arrivall of Edward IV]]'', an official chronicle favourable to Edward IV, Henry died of [[melancholia]], but it is widely suspected, however, that Edward IV, who was re-crowned the morning following Henry's death, had ordered his murder.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Santiuste |first=David |date=2012 |title=Victory of York: The Battle of Tewkesbury, 1471 |journal=Medieval Warfare |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=43–48 |jstor=48578632}}</ref>{{Efn|Either, that with Prince Edward's death, there was no longer any reason to keep Henry alive, or that, ''until'' Prince Edward died, there was little benefit to killing Henry. According to rumours at the time, which persisted for many years, Henry VI was killed by a blow to the back of the head, whilst at prayer in the late hours of 21 May 1471.{{Sfn|Wolffe|1981|p=347}}}}

Sir [[Thomas More]]'s ''History of Richard III'' explicitly states that [[Richard III|Richard]], who was then the [[Duke of Gloucester]], killed Henry. More might have derived his opinion from [[Philippe de Commines]]' [[Philippe de Commines#Mémoires|''Mémoires'']].<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Commynes |first=Philippe |title=Mémoires |date=2007 |publisher=Droz |editor-last=Blanchard |editor-first=Joel |volume=I |location=Geneva |page=204}}</ref> Another contemporary source, ''Wakefield's Chronicle'', gives the date of Henry's death as 23 May 1471, on which date Richard, then only eighteen, is known to have been away from London.

Modern tradition places his death in Wakefield Tower, part of the [[Tower of London]], but that is not supported by evidence, and is unlikely, since the tower was used for record storage at the time. Henry's actual place of death is unknown, though he was imprisoned within the Tower of London.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Lauren |title=Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry Vi |publisher=Head of Zeus |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-7849-7964-5 |location=United Kingdom |pages=561–566}}</ref>

King Henry VI was originally buried in [[Chertsey Abbey]] in [[Surrey]], but in 1484 Richard III had his body moved to [[St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle]].<ref name="weir"/> When the body was exhumed in 1910, it was found to be {{Convert|5|ft|9|in|cm}} tall with a damaged, abnormally thin skull and the fore-leg bone of a pig substituting his missing right arm. It was initially thought the damage to the skull indicated a violent death, however due to the difficult nature in identifying cause of death from bones alone, as well as the previous redisposition of his body, such evidence is inconclusive.<ref name="White 1982">{{Cite journal |last=White |first=W. J. |date=September 1982 |title=The Death and Burial of Henry VI, A Review of the Facts and Theories |url=https://richardiii.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/06-78-The-Death-and-Burial-of-Henry-VI-A-Review-of-the-Facts-and-Theories.pdf |journal=The Richardian |publisher=The [[Richard III Society]] |issn=0048-8267 |oclc=621663739 |pages=70–80 |via=richardiii.net}}</ref>{{volume needed|date=November 2024}}