There followed a sequence of skirmishes and confrontations in which neither side could claim victory for its cause; York exercised his power against other magnates without consulting the king, and at the beginning of 1452 denounced Somerset for the fall of Normandy and declared that his rival was about to surrender Calais to the French. York marched south with his supporters, but was forced to withdraw his challenge in the face of overwhelming numbers raised by the rest of the nobility. No large Yorkist ‘party’ was ready to fight for his cause, and the majority of the other magnates disapproved of what looked very much like armed rebellion. He was forced to submit and sue for pardon, protesting all the while that he had acted ‘for the good of England’.
It seemed that Henry VI had prevailed but then, as has always happened in the history of England, an arbitrary and unforeseen circumstance turned the course of events. In the summer of 1453 the king fell into a stupor or, in the phrase of the period, his wit and reason were withdrawn. The origin of this malady is uncertain, and may lie in the series of humiliations and misfortunes that had beset the king since the beginning of his reign. But there was one precipitate and immediate cause. The last battle of the Hundred Years War had just been lost by the English. The citizens of Bordeaux had asked to be returned to English sovereignty, and an army was duly sent to assist them under the command of the earl of Shrewsbury; in the subsequent battle the English were routed and Shrewsbury, trapped beneath his fallen horse which had been killed by a cannon ball, was despatched with a hand-axe. This was also the battle in which the region of Gascony was finally surrendered to the French.
So Henry declined into a state of catatonic silence and despondency that was to endure for the next eighteen months. He could not walk or even rise from a chair without help; he had no awareness of time, and lost the power of speech. A child was born to him and Margaret of Anjou, in the autumn of this year, but even the arrival of a son and heir did not enliven him. The duke of Buckingham brought the infant to the king at Windsor Palace and, according to a contemporary,
presented him to the king in goodly wise, beseeching the king to bless him; and the king gave no manner answer. Nevertheless the duke abode still with the prince by the king, and when he could no manner answer have, the queen came in and took the prince in her arms and presented him in like form as the duke had done, desiring that he should bless it; but all their labour was in vain, for they departed thence without any answer or countenance, saving only that once he looked on the prince and cast down his eyes again, without any more.
If he could have known or guessed the fate of the young prince of Wales, he would have had reason for his sorrow. Two months later the senior members of the council came to him, but ‘they could get no answer nor sign’.
In the absence of effective leadership the king’s council were obliged to turn to York; he was no longer heir apparent, according to the parliament house, but he was the senior nobleman in the kingdom. York had forgotten and forgiven nothing; he returned to London in the full heat of his anger. His great enemy, Somerset, was consigned to the Tower on the charge of betraying English possessions in France. York also declared that Somerset as well as the king and queen had effectively tried to isolate and to silence him. Margaret of Anjou had always opposed York, but her antipathy became all the more marked when it seemed possible that York might try to supplant her young son. Here were the seeds of the subsequent bloodshed. She turned York into an enemy by regarding him as one. She presented a Bill in which she was to be granted the power to govern the country and appoint the great officers of state but, in March 1454, York was declared to be Protector of the kingdom.
Five doctors had been appointed to watch over the ailing king. It was believed that the dung of doves, applied to the soles of the feet, induced healing sleep. Milk was very good for melancholy. But the eating of hazelnuts discomforted the brain. Green ginger, on the other hand, quickened the memory. Awareness returned to Henry slowly and by degrees. It was reported that ‘the king is well amended, and has been so since Christmas day … On Monday afternoon the queen came to him and brought the lord prince with her; then he asked what the prince’s name was, and the queen told him Edward; then he held up his hands and thanked God thereof. And he said he never knew him till that time, nor knew what was being said to him, nor knew where he had been whilst he was sick … He said that he was now in charity with all the world …’
