![]() ![]() ![]() Fearing that Somerset was out to destroy him, York tried to seize power in 1452. Over the next two years, York sparred continuously with Somerset, who also held a claim to the throne through the Beaufort family, a branch of the House of Lancaster. He returned from Ireland in 1450 and assumed a seat on the king’s council, where he pushed for reforms and for the prosecution of those, like Somerset, whom he believed responsible for the loss of England’s possessions in France. York considered himself the best man to steer England through its unrest. By August 1450, the French had reconquered Normandy, and by October 1453 they had retaken Gascony as well. Meanwhile, England’s grip on its French territories under Somerset’s leadership was rapidly slipping away. York correctly interpreted the appointment as banishment and stayed in England as long as he could before sailing to Ireland in 1449. To do so, in 1447 Henry appointed York to serve as Lieutenant of Ireland. His opposition to French-born Queen Margaret’s push for peace with France had made the Duke of York a powerful enemy at court, and Henry gave in to his wife’s wishes to rid the country of the troublesome duke. In 1446, Henry appointed Somerset to serve as Lieutenant of France, replacing York. The only child of Henry V and Catherine Valois, Henry lacked his father’s sharp mental faculties and his martial abilities, and he had to depend on others to help him retain England’s possessions in France, which consisted of Normandy in the north and Gascony in the south. These factors were fertile ground for an explosive rivalry that developed between Richard Plantagenet, the third Duke of York, the most powerful and wealthy noble in the realm, and Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, the king’s favorite minister. Military defeat in France, civil unrest, and royal favoritism had been the shameful hallmarks of his nearly two-decade-long reign. Indolent, weak-willed, and prone to periodic fits of madness, King Henry VI had let England slide downhill since coming of age in 1437. ![]()
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