Did Henry VI Have A Sex Coach?

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Henry VI didn't fit the medieval image of masculinity, or that much of a king, either.

Who gave sex education to someone of this stature? How did his controversial marriage to the French Margaret of Anjou effect his reputation? And what problems were they facing in the bedroom?

Joining Kate today is author and historian Lauren Johnson to help us get to know this misunderstood medieval monarch.

This episode was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

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All music from Epidemic Sounds.

Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone, it's me your host, Kate Lister. I'm just jumping in before the episode to ask you for a little favour.
0:07.6	If you are enjoying betwixt, and I hope that you are, we'd love it if you could vote for us for the
0:12.5	Listeners Choice Awards at the British Podcast Awards. If you follow the link in the show notes,
0:17.9	it should take you to the place you need to go and it would mean the world to us. We were shortlisted last year and the one before that and the one before that.
0:27.8	We were so close and it just made us want it even more. I think we can do it this year.
0:34.1	Right on with the show. Hello, my lovely Bertwicksters. It's me, Kate Lister. You are listening to Bertwicks the Sheets. But before I can let you keep listening to Betwicks the Sheets, before we can go any further together, I have to tell you once more. This is an adult podcast book and by adults to other adults about adulty things and an adulty way covering a range of subjects and you should be an adult too.
1:00.1	Now, thank for that because I feel safer. You feel safer? Let's crack on.
1:11.4	You know, royal bedchambers are odd places in the best times. Oh, they are.
1:16.1	Especially when you go back through history, it just gets weirder and weirder.
1:23.8	Everybody in the court and beyond is making every single tiny detail of what goes on there, their business.
1:28.2	And while I'm definitely not in the habit of being particularly sympathetic to royalty,
1:34.6	you can't help but think that that must have added a lot of pressure. I mean, how's anybody supposed to perform under such circumstances? It's amazing, anybody did. And one person who
1:40.6	definitely struggled was the rather sweet Henry the sixth.
1:45.1	You don't hear much about him, dear, and there may be a good reason for that.
1:47.9	And it's his bedroom that we're sneaking into today.
1:51.6	Because as you will find out, things weren't quite booming where they should have been.
2:04.8	No! where they should have been? What do you look for in a man?
2:06.4	Oh, money, of course.
2:08.0	You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
2:10.3	I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the button.
2:16.6	Now! No! by just turning enough and pushing the button. Yeah,
2:19.4	yes, social courtesy does make a difference.
	...

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