Considering Henry the Sixth wasn’t strong, It’s very surprising he lasted so long . . .

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 26.

My mother’s other outstanding educational success was in the field of English history. It happened that in the early 1930s there appeared a book called Kings and Queens, by Herbert and Eleanor Farjeon, with illustrations by their niece Rosalind Thorneycroft. On one side of each spread was a picture of every monarch from William the Conqueror on, boldly and brightly colored, many of them striking attitudes vaguely reminiscent of those early nineteenth-century theatrical prints highlighted with tinsel; on the other was a short descriptive poem. My mother bought two copies, cut out the pages and pasted them onto a large four-leaf screen, the pictures in two vertical columns of six on each leaf, the poems between the columns. This screen stood in the nursery, constantly before my eyes, and I see it still. It endowed all the monarchs with personalities of their own—they were never just names—and it ensured that I would always know the order in which they came. To this day, if someone mentions, say, Henry VI, I see him instantly: second leaf, third picture down lefthand column, in a red gown with a large white headdress, and next to him a verse beginning:

Considering Henry the Sixth wasn’t strong,
It’s very surprising he lasted so long . . .

A year or two later, the same inspired team came up with a second volume called Heroes and Heroines. Alas, there wasn’t room for all of them on the screen, but my mother managed to add a selection; particularly clear in my mind is the picture of Julius Caesar and the second verse of his poem:

Caesar conquered Rome and Gaul,
Belgium, Germany and all;
Then, with very little fuss,
He came and saw and conquered us.