Who Murdered Henry VI?

Partly depends on the method used. Despite the legends, daggers are unlikely.

Could have been smothered or drowned, but if you don't want marks then you don't want a struggle, so the best and kindest option would have been to give him a sleeping draught first. (Wouldn't I make a good murderer?)

The sources on the whole suggest that, Warkworth notwithstanding, Henry didn't die until Edward and Richard were well ensconced in Kent with their men on the Fauconberg-mopping-up operations, so the murderer cannot have been someone they took with them (not much help since we do not have a list of the men they took). Ironically, the Yorkists still in the Tower would almost certainly have included those never suspected - i.e. Queen Elizabeth and her brother Rivers. (Could Warkworth's source possibly have told him that on the night in question the Queen's brother was in the Tower with many others, but he got it wrong?)

It would have to be someone Edward trusted to keep quiet, to the degree that he could confidently sound him out. it would be less obvious if the person worked at the Tower, but given the circumstances that may not have been necessary. We have the names of a couple of King Henry's attendants (Robert Radclyff and William Sayer, both esquires) from the final salary payments made to them, which happen to survive in an extant fragment of Tower accounts, and it might be possible to see if either of them got a big reward afterwards or alternatively came to an untimely end. All I know is that William Sayer was attending the Duke of Exeter in the Tower until autumn of 1471, but after that the record runs out.

And yet we have no evidence, and I really hesitate to cast suspicion on anyone without good cause.

Partly depends on the method used. Despite  the legends, daggers are unlikely.

Could have been smothered or drowned, but if you don't want marks then you don't want a struggle, so the best and kindest option would have been to give him a sleeping draught first. (Wouldn't I make a good murderer?)

The sources on the whole suggest that, Warkworth notwithstanding, Henry  didn't die until Edward and Richard were well ensconced in Kent with their men on the Fauconberg-mopping-up operations, so the murderer cannot have been someone they took with them (not much help since we do not have a list of the men they took). Ironically, the Yorkists still in the Tower would almost certainly have included those never suspected - i.e. Queen Elizabeth and her brother Rivers. (Could Warkworth's source possibly have told him that on the night in question the Queen's brother was in the Tower with many others, but he got it wrong?)

It would have to be someone Edward trusted to keep quiet, to the degree that he could confidently sound him out. it would be less obvious if the person worked at the Tower, but given the circumstances that may not have been necessary. We have the names of a couple of King Henry's attendants (Robert Radclyff and William Sayer, both esquires) from the final salary payments made to them, which happen to survive in an extant fragment of Tower accounts, and it might be possible to see if either of them got a big reward afterwards or alternatively came to an untimely end. All I know is that William Sayer was attending the Duke of Exeter in the Tower until autumn of 1471, but after that the record runs out.

And yet we have no evidence, and I really hesitate to cast suspicion on anyone without good cause.

Alan wrote:

King Henry VI was originally buried in Chertsey Abbey; then, in 1484, his body was moved to St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, by Richard III. When the body of the king was found several centuries later, diggers found it to be five foot and nine inches. Light hair had been found to be covered in blood, with damage to the skull, showing that the king had indeed died due to violence [Wiki's Reference... http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_11.htm]
So it would seem he could have bludgeoned to death.

Marie replies:

I find it very unlikely, as the body was put on display in London with melancholy as the official cause of death.

I'm afraid the account by the antiquarian eye-witness William Henry St John Hope of the examination of Henry VI's remains in November 1910 is about as scientific and impartial as Tanner & Wright's report on the Bones in the Urn - in other words not very.

The bones were exhumed and examined in 1910. It was found that the body had been disarticulated at the time of reburial in 1484, the bones being laid in a small lead-lined casket placed inside a full-sized coffin. It also appeared that those preparing the body for reburial may have taken away some bones as religious relics (see below). So Henry was not reburied intact, which is important to bear in mind.

Dr. A. Macalister, Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge, was the expert who removed and conducted a visual examination of the bones, and his report, written the following day, says just this:

"The bones are those of a fairly strong man, aged between forty-five and fifty-five, who was at least 5 ft. 9 in. in height (he may have been an inch taller, but I give the minor limit).

The bones of the head were unfortunately much broken, but as far as they could be pieced together they were thin and light,, and belonged to a skull well-formed but small in proportion to the stature. Some of the roof bones (occipital and temporal, frontal and parietal) had become ossified together at the sutures. The few teeth found (second molar upper right, and first molar upper left, second bicuspid lower right) had their crowns very much worn down. The portion of one side of the lower jaw found had lost its teeth some time before death.

There were nearly all the bones of the trunk, of both legs, and of the left arm; but I found no part of the right arm.

From the relative positions occupied by the bones, as they lay in the leaden casket when opened, it was certain that the body had been dismembered when it was put in. If the body had been buried in the earth for some time and then exhumed, it would account for their being in the condition in which we found them. It might also account for the absence of the bones of the right arm, as well as the accidental enclosure of the left humerus of a small pig within the casket.

I am sorry that I can add nothing more. The state of the bones was so unsatisfactory that I could make no trustworthy measurements."

St John Hope remarks that Macalister had not commented on the fact that "the contents of the box were still somewhat moist. . . One other feature was noticeable, that to one of the pieces of the skull there was still attached some of the hair, which was brown in colour, save in one place where it was much darker and apparently matted in blood." Hope notes that there are extant accounts for the purchase of spices, wax and linen cloth for King Henry's burial, indicating that his body was embalmed and wrapped in cerecloth, but does not even suggest the possibility that the dark staining that he (but not Prof. Macalister) saw on the hair could have been from the embalming, or from the earth in which the remains had previously rested?

Personally I find this whole suggestion highly suspect. If there was really blood-stained hair on one of the bones of the skull, how did Professor Macalister fail to notice it? How could the stain be identified as blood without testing? Why was any such bloodstain - an absolute give-away - not washed off when the body was stripped and prepared for public display? Hope quotes Warkworth and Hall in his article, and was on his own admission seeking for evidence to prove that these actually were King Henry's bones as no inscription was found on the coffin.

By the by, the article reference is W. H. St. John Hope, 'The Discovery of the Remains of King Henry VI in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle', from Archaeologia, Vol 62, Part 2, 1911.

Eileen wrote:

Marie: Ive had no success in trying to find part 2 of Helen Maurer's article on line. Would the Barton Library have a copy?

Marie:

Yes, indeed.

Doug and Carol, I agree that we have no proof Henry was murdered, and though the timing is highly suspicious coincidences do happen.

It seems that Henry had just heard of his son's death, because the official version of his death (in The Arrivall) was:

The certaintie of all whiche [the deaths at Tewkesbury] came to the knowledge of the sayd Henry, late called Kyng, being in the Tower of London; not havynge, afore that, knowledge of the saide matars, he toke it so great dispite, ire, indignation, that, of pure displeasure, and melencoly, he dyed the xxiij. day of the monithe of May."

If his skull had been crushed, either by bludgeoning or by a fall, it would surely have been remarked at the time. The idea did indeed arise some years later that the body had bled, but the idea was that this was because he had been stabbed to death with a dagger.

If it was murder, we can surely be confident that he would have been despatched by some means that left no visible signs.

Given that the remains, at the time of the reburial, consisted only of bones, perhaps they rattled about in their box during transit to Windsor, and that this could be what caused the break-up of the fragile skull?

I seem to recall that when I looked into Duke Humphrey's death, I discovered that the justices had been called to Bury St Edmunds, suggesting that the plan really had been to have Gloucester arrested and tried, not murdered.

Marie