November
28
/ 2022
The year was 1453 and Henry VI, King of England, was having what could be reasonably called an annus horribilis. His sanity was unsteady and his leadership and decision-making capabilities were even worse. In addition, with the English loss in the Battle of Castillon against the French, the king had effectively lost the conflict later known to history as the Hundred Years’ War. With a bellicose English aristocracy to placate, this was a precarious turn of fate for the king indeed. The shock of this loss was so great that, upon the arrival of the news, the king became catatonic for about a year and a half. These factors, and others, including self-serving royal advisors, destabilized England in the mid-15th
