Henry V and Henry VI; Father & Son and how we should tour England

We plan to visit England (or as the Bard called it “this sceptred Isle”) next year; we haven’t decided whether to join the tour or to go on our own.

To me King’s College chapel of Cambridge University is a must see and yet it may not be in the itinerary of a commercial tour.  Henry VI founded King’s College and Eton College (for high school students).  For 400 years all students in King’s College came from Eton.

The story of building King’s College chapel is the story of medieval England that spans 100 years.  The foundation stone was laid in 1446 and completed in 1547 when Henry VIII died.  Edward VI, Richard III and Henry VII (the beginning of Tudor Dynasty) continued the project.

Richard III decreed that “the building should go on with all possible dispatch and to press workmen and all possible hands, provide materials and imprison anyone who opposed and delayed”; this doesn’t fit the sinister and evil character of Richard III portrayed by Shakespeare’s Richard III.

The difference of character of Henry V (father) and Henry VI (son) is as much as that of Hagar the Horrible (the intrepid Viking in comic strip) and his son, Hamlet who is always a book in hand.  Henry V is a charismatic warrior king who conquered France.  There are no women in Shakespeare’s Henry V except Queen Catherine.  It is all about the medieval warfare with aggressive war rhetoric.  Henry V’s speech rallying the troops before the Battle of Agincourt is classic.

I cannot find any tourist attraction associated with Henry V in England.  All the kingdoms he collected were lost by Henry VI: both France and England.  Henry VI was inept as a medieval king, leading to the Wars of Roses and his eventual murder in the Tower of London in 1471.  However the pious Henry VI founded two of the England’s greatest colleges with chapels unsurpassed and unrivaled by any college to this day.

Of course I want to see the King’s College chapel not only because of its rich history, but also its majestic building with magnificent ceiling vault.  And if we are fortunate enough we may be able to hear its chapel choir; a music made in heaven.

My niece (Miao Chih) got a Ph.D at Cambridge University; she certainly can tell us where to go and what to see like a “local”; she knows I would like to go to Eagle pub, not that I can enjoy a drink, but that was “Francis [Crick] winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life” in that fateful day in February 1953.  I also want to see where Sydney Brenner established the ‘elegant’ C. elegans as the model organism for genetic study.  I believe it was the C. elegans that “lured” her to the Cambridge University, leading to her publications in Science and Nature.

While in Cambridge University we’ll also see the Trinity College, another royal college founded by Henry VIII.  The illustrious alumni include Newton, Niels Bohr and Bertrand Russell.  It boasts 31 Nobel laureates out of the 87 won by members of Cambridge University.

Thus visit England on our own may be the way to go.