HENRY VI., surnamed of Windsor, was born there on the 6th of December 1421, being the only issue of Henry V. by his queen the Princess Catherine of France. He was consequently not quite nine months old when the death of his father left him king of England. Ilia reign is reckoned from the 1st of September 1422, the day following his father's death.
In the settlement of the government which took place upon the accession of the infant king, the actual administration of affairs is England was entrusted to the younger of his two uncles, Humphrey, popularly called the Good, duke of Gloucester, as substitute for the elder, John, dnko of Bedford, who was appointed president of the council, but who remained in France, taking his late brother's place as regent of that kingdom. Gloucester's title was Protector of the Realm and Church of England. The care of the person and education of the king was some time after committed to Richard de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, and to the king's great-uncle, Bishop (afterwards cardinal) Henry Beaufort.
The history of the earlier and longer portion of this reign is the history of the gradual decay and final subversion of the English dominion in France. The death of Henry V. was followed in n few weeks (October 22nd) by that of his father-in-law, the imbecile Charles VI. Immediately on this event the dauphin was acknow ledged by his adherents as Charles VIL ; and Henry VI. was alio proclaimed in Paris, and wherever the English power prevailed, as king of France. Tho next events of importance that occurred were the two great victories of Crevant and Verneuil obtained by the English over the French and their Scottish allies, the former on the 31st of July 1423, the latter on the 17th of August 1424. In the interim, King James of Scotland, after his detention of nearly twenty years, had been released by the English council, and had returned to his native country after marrying a near conuection of the royal family, the Lady Jane Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. One of the engagements made by James on his liberation was that he should not permit any more of his enbjects to enter into the service of France; the Scots who were already there were for the most part destroyed a few months afterwards in the slaughter of Verueuil.
This however was the last great success obtained by the English in France. From this time their dominion began to loosen and shake, and then to crumble faster and faster away, until it fell wholly to ruin. The first thing which materially contributed to unsettle it was the disgust given to the Duke of Burgundy by the marriage of the Duke of Gloucester with Jacqueline of Hainault, and their subsequent invasion and seizure of her hereditary states, then held by her former husbaud John, duke of Brabant, who was the cousin of the Duke of Burgundy. Although Burgundy, on being left to pursue his quarrel with Jacqueline, whom he aeon succeeded in crushing, after she had been abandoned by Gloucester, did not go to the length of openly breaking with the English on acconot of this matter, his attachment was never afterwards to be much relied upon, and he merely waited for a favourable occasion to change sides. Meanwhile another of the most powerful of the English allies, the Duke of Brittany, openly declared for Charles VII. Other embarrassments also arose about the same time out of the mutual jealousies and opposition of Gloucester and Bishop Beaufort, which at last blazed up into open and violent hostility. it required all the moderating 'prudence and atoadiness of the Duke of Mallonl to break as much as possible the shock of these various adverse occurrences. For some yearn accordingly Le had enough to do in merely maintaining his actual position. It was not till the close of 1428 that 10 proceeded to attempt the extension of the English authority beyond the Loire. With this view the siege of Orleans was commenced on the 12th of October in that year by the Earl of Salisbury, and, on his death from a wound received a few weeks after, carried ou by the Earl of Suffolk. The extraordinary succession of events that followed—the appearance of Joan of Are on the scene ; her arrival in the besieged city (April 29th, 1429); the raising of the siege (May 8th); the defeat of the English at the battle of Patsy (June 18th); the coronation of King Charles at Rheims (July 15th); the attack on Paris (September 12th); the capture of Joan at Compiegne (May 25th, 1430); her trial and execution at Rouen (May 30th, 1431)—all belong to the singular story of the heroic maid. [Aso, Joss/ or.]
The young king of England, now in his ninth year, had in the mean time been brought to Rouen (May, 1430), and was about a year and a half afterwards solemnly crowned at Paris (17th of December, 1431). The death of the Duchess of Bedford, the sister of the Duke of Burgundy, in November 1432, and the marriage of Bedford in May of the following year with Jacquetta of Luxembourg, aided materially in still further detaching Burgundy from the English connection, till, his remaining scruples gradually giving way under his resentment, in September 1435, he concluded a peaco with king Charles. This important transaction was managed at a great congress of representatives all tha sovereign powers of Europe assembled at Arms, with the view of effecting a general peace under the medi ation of the pope. On the 14th of September, a few days after the treaty between Charles and Burgundy had been signed, but before it was proclaimed, died the great Duke of Bedford. This event gave the finishing blow to the dominion of the English in France. In April 1436 the English garrison in Paris was compelled to capitulate. The struggle lingered on for about fifteen years more ; but although some partial successes, and especially the brilliant exertions of the famous Talbot (afterwards Earl of Shrewsbury), in Normandy and elsewhere, gave a check from time to time to the progressive dissolution of the English power, the prevailing current of events ran decidedly in the contrary direction. In 1444 a truce was agreed upon, to last till the let of April 1446; and in this interval a marriage was arranged between king Henry and Margaret, the beautiful daughter• of Rend, king of Sicily and Jerusalem, and duke of Anjou, Maine, and Bar. These lofty dignities however were all merely titular; with all his kingdoms and dukedoms, Reu6 was at this time nearly destitute both of land and revenue. Thus circumstanced, in return for the band of his daughter, he demanded the restoration of his hereditary states of Maine and Anjou, which were in the possession of the English, and the proposal was at length assented to. Nor was this cession of terri tory the only thing that tended from the first to excite popular feeling in England against the marriage. Margaret was a near relation of the French king, and had been in great part brought up at the court of Charles. The conuection therefore seemed to be one thoroughly French in spirit, and it is no wonder that the Earl of Sullblk, by whom it had been negotiated, became from this time the object of much general odium and suspicion, the more especially when it was found that Margaret, who soon eviuced both commanding talent and a most imperious temper, distinguished him by every mark of her favour, and made him almost exclusively her confidential adviser and assistant in winding to her purposes her feeble and pliant husband. The marriage was solemnised in the abbey of Tichfield, 22nd of April 1445, Suffolk having a few months before, on the conclusion of the negotiations, been created a marquis. The truce with France was now prolonged till the 1st of April 1449. Tho first remarkable event that followed was tho destruction of the Duke of Gloucester, who, although he appears not to have openly opposed the marriage, was certainly the moat formidable obstacle in the way of the complete ascendancy of Suffolk and the queen. Having been arrested on a charge of high treason, 11th of February 1447, he was on the 28th of the same month found dead iu his bed. lu the popular feeling, his death was generally attributed to the agency of Suffolk, who now, raised to the dignity of duke, became, ostensibly as well as really, prime or rather sole minister.