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The English Monarchs
Henry VI
In this widely acclaimed biography, Bertram Wolffe challenges the traditional view of Henry VI as an unworldly, innocent, and saintly monarch and offers instead a finely drawn but critical portrait of an ineffectual ruler. Drawing on widespread contemporary evidence, Wolffe describes the failures of Henry’s long reign from 1422 to 1471, which included the collapse of justice, the loss of the French territories, and the final disintegration of his government. He argues that the posthumous cult of Henry was promoted by Henry VII as a way of excusing his uncle’s political failures while enhancing the image of the dynasty. This edition includes a new foreword by John Watts that discusses the book and its place in the evolving literature.
Reviews of the earlier
“A brilliant biography that brings us as near as we are ever likely to come to this elusive personality.” — Sunday Times (London)
“A powerful, compulsively readable portrait.” — Observer
“Much learning, skillfully deployed as here, evokes pleasure as well as admiration.” —R.L. Storey, Times Literary Supplement
Reviews of the earlier
“A brilliant biography that brings us as near as we are ever likely to come to this elusive personality.” — Sunday Times (London)
“A powerful, compulsively readable portrait.” — Observer
“Much learning, skillfully deployed as here, evokes pleasure as well as admiration.” —R.L. Storey, Times Literary Supplement
432 pages, Paperback
First published February 5, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 7, 2026
Bertram Wolffe’s Henry VI is notable for its rejection of the image of Henry VI as either the absent king around which government revolved and political players jockeyed for power nor the well-meaning, kindly and pious man who was, simply, too “good” to be an effective king. The Henry that emerges is one quite distinct from what has come before or after. Another notable aspect about this book is the almost-universal rejection of Wolffe’s Henry by subsequent historians.
Wolffe’s Henry is a boy eager to take on the responsibility of personal rule and who gradually assumed control over the government following the death of the elder of his surviving uncles, John, Duke of Bedford, in 1435. But for all the promise of his youth and ancestry, Henry lacked both judgement and experience and was easily swayed by his favourites. Wolffe details both Henry’s excessive trust and generosity as well as his excessive distrust and cruelty. It was these problems of Henry’s rule that lead to collapse of the English position in France altogether and to the collapse of Lancastrian rule into civil war. In other words: Wolffe’s Henry was no saintly duffer or absent figure but a highly flawed, often vindictive figure who bears the most, if not all, responsibility for the failures of his reign.
It’s this extreme view of Henry that has proven to be so controversial. The current edition is published with a preface by John Watts that provides an overview of the book’s reception and flaws. It’s difficult to find any historian who accepts Wolffe’s conclusions – indeed, as Watts points out, Wolffe’s Henry VI was swiftly overshadowed by Ralph Griffiths’s The Reign of King Henry VI, which still serves as the academic standard on Henry’s reign.
I remained sceptical of many of Wolffe’s arguments. Sometimes, it seemed he stretched the evidence beyond what it can reliably tell us about events and personalities or that he attributed too much responsibility to Henry when other figures in government may have held equal, if not more, responsibility.
Wolffe’s revisionist view of Henry contrasts against his more traditional view of the members of Henry’s court. Figures like Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk have been the subject of revisionist histories that have successfully challenged their poor reputations – but Wolffe is critical of their influence and behaviour – even as he notes that “Suffolk was the scapegoat for Henry's own failures”. This traditional view of Henry’s court is also seen in Wolffe’s sympathetic handling of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who has more recently been cast as the arch-villain of Henry VI’s reign. While I have mixed feelings about the new interpretations of Beaufort, Suffolk and Gloucester (particularly the latter, the “arch-villain” take is extreme and cannot explain his popularity), it does meant that Wolffe’s view of Henry’s court feels somewhat outdated. Additionally, Wolffe’s discussion of Margaret of Anjou’s role in government is limited but wholly negative, hewing to traditional narratives about her queenship that have since been convincingly challenged.
Naturally, this is due to the age of the book - published in 1981, it is now 45 years old and has never been revised (Wolffe died in 1988), beyond the addition of John Watts’s preface in 2001. What Watts would have made of the revised views on Gloucester, Suffolk and Cardinal Beaufort can only be guessed at. Nevertheless, one must read this biography knowing that in some regards it is now outdated and may have even been outdated upon its publication.
Henry VI is a slow going, at times dense read and because Wolffe sometimes favours a thematic over a chronological approach, it can be easy to become adrift and lose sense of what events are happening at what time. Because this often draws on events rarely discussed as part of the typical narrative of Henry’s reign, this can be frustrating and left me eager to delve deeper into Griffiths’s much more comprehensive study of Henry VI’s reign.
This isn’t to say that it’s not worth reading Wolffe’sHenry VI. It’s thought-provoking, asking us to rethink the way we see Henry and his reign. Wolffe highlights the collapse of Lancastrian France as a pivotal cause in the development of the Somerset-York feud and the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. This is in contrast for the still-popular view that the Wars of the Roses emerged from factionalism and domestic dispute, most notably the feud between Cardinal Beaufort and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Both likely played large roles in creating the conflict that became the Wars of the Roses.
Wolffe’s outright rejection of the hagiographic account of Henry’s life by John Blacman is provocative but too arbitrary. It is hard to accept the often default view (and Watts’s own belief, asserted in Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship) that Henry was incapable of rule and in effect an absent king. Wolffe certainly challenges us to imagine Henry as not just an active participant in his own reign but as its chief architect. Is it believable? Perhaps.
Personally speaking, Wolffe’s view of Henry intrigues but does not convince. I’ve long been sceptical of the view that Henry was so saintly that he could do nothing wrong and Wolffe’s account not only casts doubt on this characterisation of Henry but also accords him a great deal of agency in his reign. However, the degree to which Wolffe assigns him sole responsibility for his actions and credits it to an apparent malicious streak is hard to accept.
Wolffe’s Henry is a child-king who shows promise as a youth but is incapable of maturing into a good king, lacking in experience and judgement but self-obsessed and unable to distinguish good counsel from bad, resulting in the disasters of his reign. Yet this calls to mind the stereotypical, “Lancastrian” view of Richard II and begs the question: if Henry was so personally disastrous as a ruler, why did it take so long for the problems of his reign to come to a head and why did Richard, Duke of York fail to receive the necessary support to oust Henry? Why, even after Henry’s kingship had been untenable for years, did he become venerated as a saint by commoners, despite Yorkist disapproval? Something deeper must have been going on and Wolffe’s view fails to account for what seems to be a personal affection for Henry amongst his nobles and the broader population.
Somewhat ironically, given that Wolffe’s and Watts’s Henrys are the polar opposite of each other, I found myself feeling much the same towards them. Both are too extreme in their approach to Henry VI to fully agree with, but they are both books that I feel must be read and considered, not dismissed out-of-hand, if one wishes to understand Henry VI and his reign. However, it does make me question the choice to have Watts write the preference of Wolffe’s biography – naturally, Watts would be highly critical of a view that is so contrary to his own, and it would perhaps be more helpful to have a scholar whose views on Henry are more moderate introduce this book.
As an aside, there are some issues with the physical book. The first is that the text has obviously been produced from a scan of a previous edition that has been scaled up, resulting in visual noise around each of the letters. It is still legible but distracting. Secondly, early on a discussion references an illustration which, according to the footnotes, is on the cover of the book. This is no longer the case, nor is the illustration included in the plate section.
Wolffe’s Henry is a boy eager to take on the responsibility of personal rule and who gradually assumed control over the government following the death of the elder of his surviving uncles, John, Duke of Bedford, in 1435. But for all the promise of his youth and ancestry, Henry lacked both judgement and experience and was easily swayed by his favourites. Wolffe details both Henry’s excessive trust and generosity as well as his excessive distrust and cruelty. It was these problems of Henry’s rule that lead to collapse of the English position in France altogether and to the collapse of Lancastrian rule into civil war. In other words: Wolffe’s Henry was no saintly duffer or absent figure but a highly flawed, often vindictive figure who bears the most, if not all, responsibility for the failures of his reign.
It’s this extreme view of Henry that has proven to be so controversial. The current edition is published with a preface by John Watts that provides an overview of the book’s reception and flaws. It’s difficult to find any historian who accepts Wolffe’s conclusions – indeed, as Watts points out, Wolffe’s Henry VI was swiftly overshadowed by Ralph Griffiths’s The Reign of King Henry VI, which still serves as the academic standard on Henry’s reign.
I remained sceptical of many of Wolffe’s arguments. Sometimes, it seemed he stretched the evidence beyond what it can reliably tell us about events and personalities or that he attributed too much responsibility to Henry when other figures in government may have held equal, if not more, responsibility.
Wolffe’s revisionist view of Henry contrasts against his more traditional view of the members of Henry’s court. Figures like Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Suffolk have been the subject of revisionist histories that have successfully challenged their poor reputations – but Wolffe is critical of their influence and behaviour – even as he notes that “Suffolk was the scapegoat for Henry's own failures”. This traditional view of Henry’s court is also seen in Wolffe’s sympathetic handling of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who has more recently been cast as the arch-villain of Henry VI’s reign. While I have mixed feelings about the new interpretations of Beaufort, Suffolk and Gloucester (particularly the latter, the “arch-villain” take is extreme and cannot explain his popularity), it does meant that Wolffe’s view of Henry’s court feels somewhat outdated. Additionally, Wolffe’s discussion of Margaret of Anjou’s role in government is limited but wholly negative, hewing to traditional narratives about her queenship that have since been convincingly challenged.
Naturally, this is due to the age of the book - published in 1981, it is now 45 years old and has never been revised (Wolffe died in 1988), beyond the addition of John Watts’s preface in 2001. What Watts would have made of the revised views on Gloucester, Suffolk and Cardinal Beaufort can only be guessed at. Nevertheless, one must read this biography knowing that in some regards it is now outdated and may have even been outdated upon its publication.
Henry VI is a slow going, at times dense read and because Wolffe sometimes favours a thematic over a chronological approach, it can be easy to become adrift and lose sense of what events are happening at what time. Because this often draws on events rarely discussed as part of the typical narrative of Henry’s reign, this can be frustrating and left me eager to delve deeper into Griffiths’s much more comprehensive study of Henry VI’s reign.
This isn’t to say that it’s not worth reading Wolffe’sHenry VI. It’s thought-provoking, asking us to rethink the way we see Henry and his reign. Wolffe highlights the collapse of Lancastrian France as a pivotal cause in the development of the Somerset-York feud and the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. This is in contrast for the still-popular view that the Wars of the Roses emerged from factionalism and domestic dispute, most notably the feud between Cardinal Beaufort and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Both likely played large roles in creating the conflict that became the Wars of the Roses.
Wolffe’s outright rejection of the hagiographic account of Henry’s life by John Blacman is provocative but too arbitrary. It is hard to accept the often default view (and Watts’s own belief, asserted in Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship) that Henry was incapable of rule and in effect an absent king. Wolffe certainly challenges us to imagine Henry as not just an active participant in his own reign but as its chief architect. Is it believable? Perhaps.
Personally speaking, Wolffe’s view of Henry intrigues but does not convince. I’ve long been sceptical of the view that Henry was so saintly that he could do nothing wrong and Wolffe’s account not only casts doubt on this characterisation of Henry but also accords him a great deal of agency in his reign. However, the degree to which Wolffe assigns him sole responsibility for his actions and credits it to an apparent malicious streak is hard to accept.
Wolffe’s Henry is a child-king who shows promise as a youth but is incapable of maturing into a good king, lacking in experience and judgement but self-obsessed and unable to distinguish good counsel from bad, resulting in the disasters of his reign. Yet this calls to mind the stereotypical, “Lancastrian” view of Richard II and begs the question: if Henry was so personally disastrous as a ruler, why did it take so long for the problems of his reign to come to a head and why did Richard, Duke of York fail to receive the necessary support to oust Henry? Why, even after Henry’s kingship had been untenable for years, did he become venerated as a saint by commoners, despite Yorkist disapproval? Something deeper must have been going on and Wolffe’s view fails to account for what seems to be a personal affection for Henry amongst his nobles and the broader population.
Somewhat ironically, given that Wolffe’s and Watts’s Henrys are the polar opposite of each other, I found myself feeling much the same towards them. Both are too extreme in their approach to Henry VI to fully agree with, but they are both books that I feel must be read and considered, not dismissed out-of-hand, if one wishes to understand Henry VI and his reign. However, it does make me question the choice to have Watts write the preference of Wolffe’s biography – naturally, Watts would be highly critical of a view that is so contrary to his own, and it would perhaps be more helpful to have a scholar whose views on Henry are more moderate introduce this book.
As an aside, there are some issues with the physical book. The first is that the text has obviously been produced from a scan of a previous edition that has been scaled up, resulting in visual noise around each of the letters. It is still legible but distracting. Secondly, early on a discussion references an illustration which, according to the footnotes, is on the cover of the book. This is no longer the case, nor is the illustration included in the plate section.
May 21, 2020
Readable History of Henry VI's Reign
John Watt's introduction to this book nearly caused me not to read it. Watt basically disparages the author's findings and it's a critique of Wolffe's work rather than a standard introduction. Introductions shouldn't be so negative. I gave up reading the introduction half way through, reading it after I'd finished the book when it made more sense and wasn't off-putting.
I discovered much reading this history. I thought the French conquests of Henry V had largely been lost during Henry VI's minority. Not true. Medieval England couldn't cope with a weak ruler especially one who lost his senses. Whether Henry was incompetent and wilful, as Wolffe alleges, or weak and easily manipulated as others suggest during his more sentient moments, it cost him his crown, life and the termination of the Lancastrian dynasty.
John Watt's introduction to this book nearly caused me not to read it. Watt basically disparages the author's findings and it's a critique of Wolffe's work rather than a standard introduction. Introductions shouldn't be so negative. I gave up reading the introduction half way through, reading it after I'd finished the book when it made more sense and wasn't off-putting.
I discovered much reading this history. I thought the French conquests of Henry V had largely been lost during Henry VI's minority. Not true. Medieval England couldn't cope with a weak ruler especially one who lost his senses. Whether Henry was incompetent and wilful, as Wolffe alleges, or weak and easily manipulated as others suggest during his more sentient moments, it cost him his crown, life and the termination of the Lancastrian dynasty.
November 26, 2024
I've read the (Yale) English Monarchs series from Athelstan to Henry 6.
They are all of a very high quality, and this one is no exception. But it's a strange book. I don't remember any author in the series whose dislike of his subject was so obvious. Kings reigned but also had to rule, is Wolffe's neat formula, and he outlines Henry's failures as a ruler with an unusual lack of charity.
The other unusual feature of this book is a 14 page introduction by John Watts criticising the book and outlining what Watts thinks Wolffe got wrong. Half way through it I was wondering why an outdated book with so many flaws was still being published.
If you're going to read this book, skip the introduction and consider reading it when you've finished.
They are all of a very high quality, and this one is no exception. But it's a strange book. I don't remember any author in the series whose dislike of his subject was so obvious. Kings reigned but also had to rule, is Wolffe's neat formula, and he outlines Henry's failures as a ruler with an unusual lack of charity.
The other unusual feature of this book is a 14 page introduction by John Watts criticising the book and outlining what Watts thinks Wolffe got wrong. Half way through it I was wondering why an outdated book with so many flaws was still being published.
If you're going to read this book, skip the introduction and consider reading it when you've finished.
September 6, 2025
very good but quite long tbh. :3
February 9, 2017
Probably more like 3.5 stars.
I read this for research for a history essay for uni. Wolffe provides an extremely detailed and comprehensive look at a king whom I've tended to ignore or gloss over due to my Yorkist tendencies in the ensuing Wars of the Roses. (That being said, I find his queen, Margaret of Anjou, an incredibly fascinating woman.)
The rating of only 3.5 stars is mostly due to the fact that at times I found myself overwhelmed by the incredible amount of information that was given, or felt that perhaps there was too much attention to a small person/event that could have been examined in fewer paragraphs/pages.
I read this for research for a history essay for uni. Wolffe provides an extremely detailed and comprehensive look at a king whom I've tended to ignore or gloss over due to my Yorkist tendencies in the ensuing Wars of the Roses. (That being said, I find his queen, Margaret of Anjou, an incredibly fascinating woman.)
The rating of only 3.5 stars is mostly due to the fact that at times I found myself overwhelmed by the incredible amount of information that was given, or felt that perhaps there was too much attention to a small person/event that could have been examined in fewer paragraphs/pages.
July 29, 2007
I have to read certain historical biographies for my current research, but in my own geeky way, I have to admit that most biographies, even ones of 14th/15th c kings of England, can be pretty cool. Can you imagine being king of England AND France before you were 10? Plus, all of these odd spiritual/supernatural legends sprouted up around this young king, especially after his death. I don't know... it's just so strange to think about.
December 2, 2016
There is quite a lot of facts here about the minutia of Henry VI's life, but it isn't very engaging, and you aren't left with much sense of the man as a whole or the wider context of the War of the Roses.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews