Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI

Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI by Lauren Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It all began with an all-conquering father, who died before he had to face too much struggle to keep what was conquered and some bickering uncles who fought for power and sacrificed the boy king in the process.

History is not kind to kind people. Henry VI was a kind man, but a bad king - quite in a similar fashion to Charles I, Louis XVI and Nicholas II, who all were said to be loving, family men and still somehow ended up executed by the people they were meant to rule. Henry VI was a kind man, but a bad king in a similar way in which Edward IV was lecher, but a successful ruler. The antithesis between Henry and his usurper is evident all throughout this book. As is the antithesis between Henry and all the people who fought to keep him in a position of power that he probably would have been better off without.

The book starts by saying that it all could have been avoidable and that everything that happened was based on the foundation laid in Henry's childhood and upbringing. I would have given this book five stars had I thought it proved that. Yes, his upbringing was chaotic and a struggle for power led around his person was the cause of that, but he is hardly the only king to have gone through that - let's just think of Louis XIV who came out of a similar childhood as a strong king.

Henry's personality was surely influenced by his education, but different people are influenced by the same education in different ways. I would not say that this book proved beyond a shadow of a doubt, that had Henry had a more even childhood, he would have turned out differently.

Nevertheless, Henry's personality is the key to the Wars of the Roses, even more so than the Yorks', who would never have ended up on the throne had the king been different. And this the author manages to show.

I would recommend this book strongly to all the newfound fans of the Wars of the Roses, appeared as a result of mainstream books making the subject more popular (yes, you know who I'm talking about). It shows a different perspective, the Lancastrian one, without steering away from what made the Lancastrians lose this war.

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