Henry VI at Towton, North Yorkshire by William Dyce. 1860. Oil on panel. 14½ x 20 inches (37 x 51 cm). Collection: Guildhall Art Gallery, London. Bequeathed by Charles Gassiot. Accession no. 661. Reproduced courtesy of the City of London Corporation, London, and available for reuse under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan
The Battle of Towton was a decisive engagement during the War of the Roses. It was fought on 29 March 1461 at a hamlet near Tadcaster in Yorkshire, between the Yorkist forces of Edward IV and the Lancastrian army of Henry VI. The victory went to the House of York, securing the throne for Edward. Henry VI had been a weak, indecisive, and ineffectual ruler and following the battle he fled the country to Scotland with his wife and son.
Dyce's painting shows Henry VI, as depicted in William Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part 3 at the moment in Act II, Scene 5, when he has withdrawn from the field of battle and reflects on the harshness of his lot and his wish for a simpler life:
Would I were dead! If God's good will were so;
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
Oh God! methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
Although Shakespeare had Henry VI sitting on the ground during his soliloquy, in Dyce's painting he is standing, a solitary figure with feet wide apart, and looking downward with a melancholy expression on his face displaying his deeply felt emotions at the loss of his kingdom. Pointon, however, found "the ex-kings's gesture and facial expression are unhappily theatrical and the picture lacks the solemnity and vitality of David [David in the Wilderness] " (165). Henry is holding a book, likely a Bible, in his left hand. Dyce based the facial features of Henry VI on an engraving by George Vertue that had been published in 1732 in the second edition of The History of England by Paul de Rapin-Thoyras and Nicolas Tindal. The barren background, including the tree to the left, the vegetation, the boulders, and the rocky wall of a ruined cottage are all handled in a detailed Pre-Raphaelite fashion.
Copper engraving by George Vertue. 11 1/4 x 7 3/8 inches (28.5 x 18.6 cm)
. Private collection. Image courtesy of the author.
Dyce never exhibited this work at the Royal Academy and, in fact, it was never exhibited anywhere during Dyce's lifetime, perhaps because it was unlikely to appeal to popular taste. It is difficult to fathom Dyce's interest in painting this unusual subject in the first place. Melville offered this possible explanation: "A devout churchman with a keen interest in intellectual matters and learning, he would have been attracted to the figure of Henry VI, who was renowned for his piety and founded two great educational establishments, Eton College in 1440 and King's College, Cambridge in 1447. Burdened as he was at the time he painted this picture, by the onerous task of the Palace of Westminster frescoes, Dyce may have sympathized with Henry's predicament and his desire to be freed of all responsibility" (184). Pointon felt it was significant that "William should have chosen to present this figure as anti-hero, the king who is down on his luck, no better than a shepherd … William's Henry VI is typical not only of the artist's interest in individuals isolated or more as less solitary, in moments of intense mental or spiritual activity (Joash, Beatrice, George Herbert, Christ) but also a new sort of historical subject painting which was developing at this period in which celebrated and royal personages were presented as ordinary people" (165).
Bibliography
"Battle of Towton." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Web. 27 December 2024.
Henry VI at Towton, North Yorkshire. Art UK. Web. 27 December 2024.
Martineau, Jane. Shakespeare in Art. London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2003, cat. no. 88, 244-45.
Melville, Jennifer. "Henry VI at Towton." William Dyce and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision. Ed. Jennifer Melville. Aberdeen: Aberdeen City Council, 2006, cat. 54, 184-85.
Pointon, Marcia. William Dyce 1806-1864, A Critical Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
Shakespeare in Western Art. Tokyo: Isetan Museum of Art, cat. 57, 118 & 184.
Created 5 February 2015
Last modified (commentary added) 27 December 2024