Humphrey Duke of Gloucester Part 19

[565] So Waurin, iii. 164; Monstrelet, 569. Pierre de Fenin, 602, gives 50,000 men, and Dynter, iii. 861, estimates the army at 60,000.

[566] Pierre de Fenin, 601.

[567] Waurin, iii. 137, 138; Monstrelet, 564; _Chronique des Pays Bas_, 388; Dynter, iii. 859-861.

[568] Pierre de Fenin, 602; Waurin, iii. 167.

[569] So Monstrelet, 569; Waurin, iii. 165. Pierre de Fenin, 602, says the siege lasted twelve days.

[570] Dynter, iii. 861-863; Monstrelet, 569; Waurin, iii. 165-167; Pierre de Fenin, 602.

[571] _Cartulaire_, iv. 451; St. Remy, 472.

[572] Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, ii. 401-404. The letter is undated, but owing to its allusions to the recent invasion of Hainault, it seems to have been written at this time.

[573] Dynter, iii. 864.

[574] Monstrelet, 570; Waurin, iii. 170-174; Dynter, iii. 864. The English forces despatched to follow St. Pol are estimated at 6000 by St. Remy, 472, 473, while the _Chronicon Zanfleet_ in 'Amplissima Collectio,' v. 416, suggests that the only reason why St. Pol did not attack those who followed him was because some of the Brabant n.o.bles in his army were in Gloucester's pay.

[575] Monstrelet, 570; Waurin, iii. 169, 170.

[576] Stowe MS., 668, ff. 33, 34; Monstrelet, 565; Waurin, iii.

139-145; St. Remy, 474.

[577] Stowe MS., 668, ff. 34, 35vo; Monstrelet, 566, 567; Waurin, iii. 145-152; St. Remy, 474.

[578] Stowe MS., 668, ff. 35, 36vo; Monstrelet, 567, 568; Waurin, iii. 153-157; St. Remy, 475, 476. The various authorities differ as to the dates of the letters. For the first letter the Stowe MS., Waurin, and Monstrelet have January 12, whilst St. Remy has it as January 22. For the second letter the dates are Waurin and Stowe MS., March 13; Monstrelet, March 3; St. Remy, March 12. For the third letter, Monstrelet and St. Remy give March 16; Stowe MS. and Waurin, March 26. I am inclined to follow the Stowe MS. all through.

[579] Waurin, iii. 159-163; Monstrelet, 568, 569.

[580] Pierre de Fenin, 603.

[581] Waurin, iii. 161-169.

[582] Stevenson, _Letters and Papers_, ii. 390, 391.

[583] Waurin, iii. 175; Pierre de Fenin, 603.

[584] _Particularites Curieuses_, 97, 98. This demand was made on March 21.

[585] _Particularites Curieuses_, 99. The letter reached Mons on March 29.

[586] Dynter, iii. 864.

[587] _Ibid._, iii. 865.

[588] On a MS. copy of Froissart's _Chronicles_--MS. francais, 831, of the National Library at Paris--these words are written at the end of the text: 'Plus leid n'y a Jaque de Baviere; la meins amee est Jaque; plus belle n'y a que my Warigny, nulle si belle que Warigny.' The interpretation is not plain, but the inference is that Jeanne de Warigny was the object of Gloucester's affections while he was in Hainault. This lady had married Henri de Warigny, one of Jacqueline's esquires, in 1418, and though she was of no lineage herself, her husband came of one of the oldest families in Hainault. The MS. in which this is found once belonged to Richard, Earl of Warwick, but the writing is not in his hand. For a discussion of this matter see Kervyn de Lettenhove, Froissart, ii.

260-263, also Beitrage, 274, 275, and Putnam, _A Mediaeval Princess_, pp. 305-309.

[589] _Particularites Curieuses_, 90.

[590] Pierre de Fenin, 603; St. Remy, 476.

[591] Waurin, iii. 175; Monstrelet, 571; Cotton MS., Cleopatra, C.

iv. f. 33.

[592] St. Remy, 476; _Cartulaire_, iv. 549.

[593] Waurin, iii. 176; Monstrelet, 571.

[594] This date is established by a letter written by Gloucester to Jacqueline on his way home; _Particularites Curieuses_, 112.

[595] _Chronique des Pays Bas_, 388.

CHAPTER V

THE PROTECTORATE

With Humphrey's return from Hainault the second phase of his life ends and the third begins. His early life had been that of a soldier; he had celebrated the death of his brother by making a bid for the position of an independent prince; now he was to devote the rest of his days to political intrigue, and it is perhaps in this last phase that his career a.s.sumes its greatest interest. Undoubtedly his actions during the minority of his nephew have more importance in the history of his country than those of his earlier years, and from them we are enabled to realise more clearly the various threads of his policy and the governing influences in his life. Henceforth Humphrey's whole energies are devoted to English politics. His discarded d.u.c.h.ess may flit across the stage, for a brief moment he may revert to his early partic.i.p.ation in the French war, but these are merely unimportant incidents in a busy political career. The rest of his life, too, is entirely moulded by the opposition he experiences. The spirit which had inspired the limitation of the Protector's power was to meet him at every turn, and throughout the next twenty years all English history was to find its central theme in the great struggle between the Duke of Gloucester and the Beaufort faction. Barely six months after his departure from England, Humphrey had returned to find preparations being made for the holding of Parliament, and it is probable that he had timed his departure from Hainault so as to be present at this meeting, fearing lest some hostile move should be made against him in his absence. On April 27 the young King was brought up from Windsor, and, being met at the west door of St.

Paul's by Gloucester and Exeter--the protectors of his kingdom and his person respectively--was lifted out of his chair by them and escorted to the choir, where he was 'borne up and offred.'[596] Three days later he was present at the opening of Parliament, that his uncle might remember that he was the servant, not the master of the realm.[597]

1425] ATt.i.tUDE OF THE COUNCIL

After so inglorious and impolitic a proceeding as his recent campaign Humphrey might well have expected criticism of no light kind from the strong faction opposed to him, and if we are to believe the French chroniclers, such criticism he did receive at the hands of the Council,[598] but no traces of this are to be found in the official records. Nay more, there is ample evidence that the Protector's influence both in Parliament and Council was considerable. Not only in the face of a revenue deficit of 20,000 did Parliament grant him a loan of 40,000 marks to be paid within four years, but the Lords of the Council agreed to act as sureties for its repayment;[599] in a dispute between the Earl Marshal and the Earl of Warwick for precedence Parliament decided in favour of the former, who was not only a supporter of Gloucester, but had also commanded his troops in Hainault;[600]

finally the wardship of the estates which devolved on the young Duke of York by the death of the Earl of March was given to the Protector.[601]

It seems hardly credible that Gloucester would have been given so much, or have championed his friend so successfully had his influence not been predominant. That he had met with some opposition cannot be doubted, for the six months' power enjoyed by the Bishop of Winchester during his nephew's absence was not likely to make him content with a secondary position, and therefore bitter, and undoubtedly justified, criticism was probably levelled at Humphrey by his rival. It may be that high words pa.s.sed between them; at any rate it was not to be long before their mutual recriminations became a danger to the state. It is about this time, therefore, that the struggle between the two chief men in the kingdom pa.s.sed from the stage of political rivalry to that of personal compet.i.tion. Gradually Gloucester and Beaufort become bitter personal enemies, and the state of distrust inaugurated at the beginning of the reign, now becomes a contest which the full bitterness of individual dislike tends to increase every day. Henceforth no stone is left unturned by either of the men to damage the position and reputation of his rival.

1425] JACQUELINE DESERTED

Nevertheless there is no evidence that Gloucester's Hainault policy had reaped that universal condemnation in England which it so richly deserved. Bedford, it is true, saw the danger of alienating Burgundy, and he had done his best, first to avert the provocation of his anger, and secondly to minimise the effects of that provocation, but even he seems to have felt considerable sympathy for his brother,[602] and perhaps he remembered that the late King might be held largely responsible for the turn of events. Englishmen generally seem to have looked with kindly eyes on this mad expedition, for there was about it some of the glamour of mediaeval romance in appearance if not in reality, whilst Jacqueline herself had won golden opinions in England, where her unhappy lot had obtained universal sympathy.[603] For Gloucester, however, the romance of his marriage with Jacqueline, such as it had been, was quite worn off, and he had already transferred his affections to the lady who was to bring him far greater disaster than did his foreign bride. Amongst Jacqueline's ladies-in-waiting there had been a certain Eleanor Cobham, daughter of Reginald Cobham of Sterborough in Kent,[604] and she had accompanied her mistress to Hainault. When Humphrey had returned to England he had brought her with him, and it seems that it was about this time that she became his paramour.[605] At any rate Hainault ambitions play henceforth but a very small part in Humphrey's life, for though we shall find that later he took some steps to send aid to his unfortunate wife, yet he never showed the slightest inclination to return to her side, a fact which caused no small scandal at a later date.

Meanwhile at Mons things had been going ill for Jacqueline. Her husband had no sooner turned his back, than the Brabanters rose again, and the citizens of Mons, unmindful of their recent promise, refused to support her.[606] On June 6 she wrote a most pathetic letter to Gloucester, telling him how the citizens had come to her on the third of that month,[607] and had shown her a treaty signed by the Dukes of Brabant and Burgundy, uniting her dominions under the rule of the former, and confiding the care of her person to the latter. In spite of her entreaties all help had been refused her, and she pointed out how her sufferings were due to the love she bore her English husband, begging him therefore to come to her help, though he seemed to have forgotten her existence.[608] In a second letter of the same date she alluded to a suggestion made by Gloucester that she should once more flee to England, a course which she declared it was now too late to adopt. Indeed, this was soon proved to be the case, for these letters were intercepted by Burgundian emissaries,[609] and within five days she was being conducted a prisoner to Ghent.[610]

1425] DUEL WITH BURGUNDY FORBIDDEN

Though Jacqueline's letters never reached their destination, the news of her imprisonment soon came to England, and Parliament promptly showed its sympathy with her by pet.i.tioning that amba.s.sadors should be sent to treat with Burgundy for the release of 'my Ladies' persone of Gloucester,'[611] and at the same time the Chancellor was empowered to draw up letters-patent under the great seal appointing the queens-dowager of England and France, and the Duke of Bedford as mediators between Burgundy and Gloucester, with a view to the abandonment of the duel that had been arranged.[612] To neither of these provisions would Humphrey make any objection, for though he had not been the challenger in the matter of the duel, yet he had doubtless welcomed it as a way of securing his retreat, and had never intended to take it seriously; at any rate he made no preparations for the fray, whilst his opponent had gone into strict training, and was having special armour made for the occasion.[613] This att.i.tude on the part of Duke Philip points to a strong personal dislike of Gloucester, a dislike which dated probably from the days when he had been slighted at St. Omer; nevertheless, it is strange that he had ever thought that such a duel would be allowed to take place. Bedford, ever ready to appease the strife which had arisen over this Hainault affair, gladly undertook the duty a.s.signed to him by Parliament, and when in September he summoned a council of arbitration to meet at Paris, his brother willingly nominated the Bishop of London as his representative thereat, whilst Burgundy grudgingly appointed the Bishop of Tournay to guard his interests.[614]

Bedford tried to avert the duel as eagerly as he had endeavoured to reconcile the conflicting claims of Brabant and Gloucester earlier in the story of the Hainault struggle,[615] and his efforts were a.s.sisted by a papal Bull, which forbade the personal combat in no measured terms.[616] Armed with this authority, the council at Paris decided on September 22 that a perusal of the letters written by the two parties in the dispute convinced them that neither side had any right to demand satisfaction from the other,[617] a decision which disgusted the Burgundian envoy, but which afforded entire satisfaction to Gloucester's representative.[618]

From this time forward Gloucester seems to have abandoned all idea of securing his hold on the government of his wife's inheritance. He did not resign all claim to Holland and Hainault, nor did he refrain from occasional a.s.sistance to Jacqueline, or from attempts to secure the recognition by Rome of the legality of his marriage; but he had come to realise that personal intervention on the Continent would mean political extinction at home, where he needed all the prestige of his popularity amongst the commonalty and the power conferred by his position and lineage to withstand the manoeuvres of his great rival, Henry Beaufort. For Beaufort was entrenched in a strong position. A man of determined will and restless energy, with powerful family connections, of royal blood, if not in the line of succession, and well versed by long experience in the affairs of the kingdom, he stood in marked contrast to his nephew, who was lacking in resolute purpose, and had spent most of his active life in the French wars, with few opportunities of gaining political experience. Above all, whilst Beaufort was constantly lending money for purposes of state, Gloucester was equally constant in his demands for royal loans or an increased salary, a fact which gave the former an immense financial hold on the kingdom. Such a power as that wielded by the Bishop of Winchester was not to be despised, nor was it to be left unopposed by one who aspired to be the chief governing power in the state; but there was yet another reason which impelled Humphrey to confine his main efforts towards maintaining and improving his position in England, the roots of which lay in his own character. When he had set out light-heartedly to a.s.sert his right to control the dominions of Jacqueline, he had thought it to be an easy task. He now knew that it was only by a prolonged effort that he could succeed in Holland and Hainault. Such an effort he was totally incapable of making, for he had none of that determination which characterised his father and at least two of his brothers. Brilliant and versatile as he was, these qualities preordained him to prefer a life of political intrigue to that of hard fighting against a firm and steadfast foe. His fickle nature delighted in the kaleidoscopic changes of party warfare, and to that warfare he devoted the best part of the rest of his life, forgetting his dreams of foreign dominion in that strife where the interests of the moment predominated. He was a child of circ.u.mstance, and lived only for the pa.s.sing moment, and as such he found his true _milieu_ in the faction fights which preceded the Wars of the Roses.

1425] EXPEDITION TO HAINAULT

Yet while he devoted himself mainly to matters of English politics, Humphrey did not abstain from all interference in Hainault affairs.

There was no question with him of abandoning an enterprise fraught with danger to his country. So long as Jacqueline could keep up the struggle, he would encourage her, in the hope that some day he might reap the advantage, and it was in this spirit that he wrote to Martin v., complaining that the divorce decree against Brabant had not yet been granted, and urging him in the interests of Europe generally to hasten the matter to a conclusion favourable to the Countess.[619] At the same time the situation in Hainault looked more promising. The exertions of English amba.s.sadors to secure Jacqueline's release had been rendered unnecessary by her escape from her captors,[620] and she had signalised her regained freedom by a victory over her a.s.sailants at the little village of Alfen. The Duke of Brabant was rendered still more anxious by rumours which reached him to the effect that a force of some 20,000 strong, under the personal leadership of Gloucester, was about to reinforce his enemies, that the Scotch King, in remembrance of his recent marriage alliance with the House of Lancaster, was coming with 8000 more, and that contingents from Ireland and the English army in Normandy were destined to join the victorious troops of his militant Countess.[621] The exaggeration of this report was obvious, but, nevertheless, a force was being collected in England, and towards the end of the year it sailed under the leadership of Lord Fitzwalter, in all some thousand men. In the early days of 1426 these troops landed on the coast of Zealand, only to be almost annihilated with the majority of Jacqueline's native troops in the neighbourhood of Zierikzee by the Burgundian forces. The remainder straggled back to England, having 'prevayled nothing.'[622]