If you were Henry, everything started splendidly and ended badly. He was born King of England and much of France. He died in the Tower of London murdered by his successor. He outlived his son, went mad, and manifestly was unfit for the job of ruling Medieval England. He would have been an ideal constitutional monarch, but lived in a time when he had to ride and fight.
He was good at praying, founding schools, and being a decent chap.
Whenever I curse my chances, I recall Henry VI, a figure so trapped by fate and unfit for his role that the young Shakespeare could not write him a good line in three plays, and I realize that there are worse things than not getting what I want. I might be Henry VI: start with what I want and then lose it.
This is oddly cheering to me. Nobody can escape hard times and failure, not even kings and the “lucky.” Knowing this makes the injustice and troubles of life somehow bearable. The problem with them is not that they are undeserved, of course they are often undeserved, but that I view them as a “problem.” They are sad . . . wail and weep. The late Medievals did not repress their emotions and nobody should hold a party when sent to the Tower of London.
What is it that I expect?
Justice? This side of Paradise nobody gets justice (thank God) even when they deserve it. It is our world, we broke it, we keep trying to fix it, and when we finally make it a total epic failure, our time will end. Fortunately, none of us is stuck in this world for very long.
What is it that I expect?
Justice? The other side of death everybody will get justice tempered with mercy. Grace is freely extended to those who will receive grace and all the accounts will be settled. There will be no gratuitous pain left because eternity will work all of it out and redeem it. Every crooked thing will be made straight. Rough places will be made smooth.
That is certain.
Henry was no great king, but his suffering, including his bouts of madness, taught him saintliness. And this gift is available to me now. They can throw me in the Tower, but they cannot take my chance to love God from me. No culture is so degenerate that Holiness is not available simply by looking up to the stars. No terror can take my peace away if my peace is in Jesus.
So I can be sad, very sad, and yet content: Jesus is King. He knows. He keeps accounts and to His credit He will judge with mercy and grace: everyone, me included. They say (and who really knows) that as he was in prison, good King Henry (so weak a ruler, so ennobled by suffering as a man) prayed this prayer:
O Lord Jesus Christ, who has created
and redeemed me,
and hast brought me unto that which now I am:
thou knows what Thou wouldest do with me:
do with according to Thy will,
for Thy tender mercy’s sake.
Amen.
Jesus had redeemed Henry and was redeeming him. It was not God’s will that Henry come to the Tower or be stabbed. Evil men chose freely and badly, but God was not caught off guard and used His omnipotence and unlimited time to bring good to Henry. In this sense, God brought Henry to the Tower because what Edward the bloody upstart meant for evil, God meant for good: for Henry, for Edward, for England, for all of creation.
The calculus of the cosmos where the action of every agent, the choice of every animal, and the free will of every being is all seen, taken into account, and bent toward goodness is so great that no man can reckon it. We do not know most of these choices, not even those of human agents. We cannot see.
Henry knew because reason had taught him (God bless Medieval logic!) that God was in control. He was bending history to justice and had eternity in which to make it so.
I know it too. Evil is still evil and always will be, but God will bring the greatest possible good out of it.
A guide once told me that Henry died at the wrong time. If the Reformation had not come to England so quickly after his death, Henry VI would have become a saint of the Catholic Church. Perhaps this is so. It fits Henry’s life that he missed out (again) on public acknowledgment and honor. He only left his prayer, Eton College, and an image of a good man who ruled badly, but died well.
God save good King Harry. . . and me, for Thy tender mercy’s sake. Amen.
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