Henry the Fifth King of England
HENRY THE FIFTH, surnamed of Monmouth; b. in 1388, succeeded his father 20 March, 1413, and was crowned 9 April following. This martial prince, the hero of Agincourt, m. 3 June, 1420, Katherine, (born 27 Oct. 1401,) youngest dau. of Charles VI., King of France, and had an only child,
HENRY, Prince of Wales.
King Henry V. d. at Bois Vincennes, in France, 31 Aug. 1422. His widow m. a few years after SIR OWEN TUDOR, of whom we will treat in our genealogy of the Royal House of Tudor.
Henry the Sixth, King of England
HENRY THE SIXTH, surnamed of Windsor; b. 6 Dec. 1421, crowned King of England and France, at London, 6 Nov. 1429, and at Paris, 7 Dec. 1431. He m. 22 April, 1445, in Tichfield Abbey, MARGARET OF ANJOU, dau. of RENE,* titular King of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem, great-grandson of John, King of France, and by her, who closed her sad eventful history 25 Aug. 1480, had issue, an only child,
EDWARD OF LANCASTER, Prince of Wales, b. at Westminster 13 Oct. 1453, who m. in 1470 Lady Anne Nevill, second dau. and coheir of Richard, Earl of Warwick, the King-Maker, but was murdered the year after, subsequently to the battle of Tewkesbury. He died s.p. His widow became in the sequel Queen Consort of Richard III. "A small unadorned slab of gray marble," (we quote from Miss Strickland,) "in the Abbey Church of Tewkesbury, points out the spot where the last hope of Anjou's heroine, and the royal line of Lancaster was consigned without funeral pomp to an unhonoured grave among the mean victims of his victorious foe."
King Henry VI. d. in the Tower of London, (by supposed violence,) on the 22 May, 1471. "That night between eleven and twelve of the clock," writes the chronicler in Leland, "was King Henry, being prisoner in the Tower, put to death, the Duke of Gloucester and divers of his men being in the Tower that night." "May God give him time for repentance, whoever he was, who laid his sacrilegious hands on the Lord's annointed."
The last Lancastrian king lies buried at Chertsey Abbey.
* René of Anjou was the second son of Louis III., King of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Calabria and Anjou, and Count of Provençe. He m. Isabella, heiress of Lorraine, the direct descendant of Charlemagne.