Henry VI 6 December β 21 May was King of England from to and again from to , [ 1 ] and disputed King of France from to The only child of Henry V , he succeeded to the English throne upon his father's death at the age of eight months; he succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI , shortly afterwards. Henry was born during the Hundred Years' War β , at the beginning of its third phase , in which his uncle, Charles VII , contested the Lancastrian claim to the French throne , which had been ratified by the Treaty of Troyes He is the only English monarch to have been crowned King of France, following his coronation at Notre-Dame de Paris in His early reign, when England was ruled by a regency government , saw the pinnacle of English power in France.
However, subsequent military, diplomatic and economic problems damaged the English cause by the time Henry was declared mature enough to rule in The young king faced military setbacks in France, as well as various political and financial crises in England, where divisions among the nobility in his government began to widen. In contrast to his father, Henry VI was described as timid, shy, passive, benevolent and averse to warfare and violence.
His reign saw the near total loss of English lands in France. In β partially in the hope of achieving peace β Henry married Charles VII's niece, the ambitious and strong-willed Margaret of Anjou. The peace policy failed and war recommenced: France rapidly recovered much of the territory held by the English, including the English monarch's ancestral lands in Aquitaine and the conquered Normandy.
By , Calais was the only English-governed territory on the continent. Henry's domestic popularity declined in the s, partly due to the revelation that a large, strategically important territory the county of Maine had been secretly returned to the French. Political unrest in England grew rapidly as a result; the lynching of Henry's key adviser, William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk , provoked a major rebellion in Factions and favourites encouraged the rise of further disorder in the country: regional magnates maintained increasing numbers of private armed retainers , including soldiers returned from France, with whom they fought regional conflicts e.
Starting in , Henry had a series of mental breakdowns , rendering him unable to rule. Power was duly exercised by quarrelsome nobles , headed by the leaders of cadet branches of the royal family : Richard, 3rd Duke of York and Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset developed a fierce political rivalry and jostled for power in Henry's government.
