Succeeding both his father, Henry V, and his grandfather Charles VI, Henry VI (1422-61) became king of both England and France in 1422 - while still under one year of age. England was ruled effectively by a Regency Council, while in France, the king\'s uncle, John, Duke of Bedford, continued the conquest begun by Henry V. Scots armies played a key role in maintaining French resistance south of the Loire, despite Bedford\'s great victory at Verneuil in 1424. Following the raising of the siege of Orleans by Joan of Arc in 1429, and the Burgundian desertion of the Dual Monarchy in 1435, the English were forced back into Normandy.
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