Henry VI of England - Legacy

Legacy

Henry's one lasting achievement was his fostering of education; he founded both Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. Continuing a career of architectural patronage begun by his father, these (King's College Chapel and Eton College Chapel respectively) and most of his other architectural commissions (like his completion of his father's foundation of Syon Abbey) each consisted of a late Gothic or Perpendicular-style church with a monastic and/or educational foundation attached. Each year on the anniversary of Henry VI's death, the Provosts of Eton and King's College, Cambridge lay white lilies and roses, the floral emblems of those colleges, on the spot in the Wakefield Tower at the Tower of London where the imprisoned Henry VI was, according to tradition, murdered as he knelt at prayer.