Humphrey Duke of Gloucester Part 49

176). All the facts suggest that Wheathampsted was once again mistaken with regard to the events which surrounded his friend and patron's death, and that a will was made by Gloucester, but suppressed by his triumphant enemies, and probably in the end never completely executed.

APPENDIX D

GLOUCESTER'S RESIDENCES

There are indications that Duke Humphrey possessed several houses scattered about the country in which he dwelt from time to time. We have seen him residing and holding his Court at Pembroke Castle (_Rot.

Parl._, iv. 474); on one occasion, at least, he was resident at his manor of Penshurst in Kent (Oriel MS., x.x.xii.); and he is said to have at one time dwelt at the Manor of the Weald, near St. Albans (Newcome, _History of Abbey of St. Albans_, 510). Another story declares that he held the castle of Devizes and had a mansion there (Holkham MS., p. 68), but there is no trace of the possession of the castle in official records, and it is known to have been demolished towards the end of the reign of Edward III. It would seem likely that he resided at Leicester and Pontefract at certain times, as on the fly-leaf of a book that he gave to his wife there are scribbled certain accounts relative to his household, dated at the two above-named places (Sloane MS., 248). The most famous of Gloucester's residences was the one situated at Greenwich. This mansion is supposed to have been a royal residence as far back as the days of Edward I.; Henry IV. was constantly resident there, and from it his will is dated. Henry V. gave it to Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, for his life, and within two years of the latter's death, we find it in the possession of Duke Humphrey (_St.

Albans Chron._, i. 32)--possibly under the provision in Henry V.'s will that gave all his castles in the south of England to his youngest brother (_Test. Vetust._, i. 21). Henceforth it was Duke Humphrey's favourite resort, and between 1432 and 1437 he transformed it into a far more important house than it had been hitherto. He was given permission to increase his possessions in the immediate neighbourhood by exchanging some lands for seventeen acres belonging to the Carthusian Monastery of Jesus of Bethlehem at Shene (_Ancient Pet.i.tions_, File 113, No. 5612; _Rot. Parl._, iv. 466; _Ordinances_, iv. 136-138), and ultimately he surrounded the manor with a wall, embattled the mansion itself, and built towers and turrets within the park, one of which stood on the spot on which Greenwich Observatory is now placed. The house was surrounded by a park of some two hundred acres, most of which had been enclosed and afforested by special permission of the King (_Rot. Parl._, iv. 498, 499; _Ordinances_, iv. 136-138; _Cal. Rot. Pat._, 277). Both in official doc.u.ments and in letters written from Greenwich this residence is called 'the manor of Plesaunce,' and at Humphrey's death it reverted to the Crown and was inhabited by Henry VI., when Jack Cade's rebellion had made the capital unsafe (Fabyan, 623). Edward IV. enlarged and furnished this palace, Henry VII. spent much time there, his son Henry VIII. and his grand-daughters Mary and Elizabeth were all born there. At the Restoration, the King pulled down the old building, and in the days of Humphrey's seventeenth-century biographer hardly a stone of it was left; and a new building was rising on the site (Holkham MS., p. 68). This new house, by the gift of William III. and Mary, became, and still is, the National Hospital for Seamen. (See _Gentleman's Magazine_, New Series, vol. xiii. pp. 21-24; 'Cygnea Cantio auctore Joanne Lelando,' in Leland's _Itinerary_, ed. by Thomas Hearne (Oxford, 1768), vol. ix. p.

17.)

Besides his residence in Greenwich, Humphrey possessed a house in London, 'a place callid the Duke's Wardrobe atte Baynardes Castel in London, otherwise called Waterton's Aley' (_Rot. Parl._, v. 239). This mansion was situated on the banks of the river, just west of Paul's Wharf, and bounded on the north by what is now Queen Victoria Street. It has been thought that this was the same site as the original castle of Bainard and the Fitzwalter family (Stow's _Survey of London_ (London, 1720), Book i. pp. 60, 61), though modern research tends to prove that this earlier fortress was in another parish (_London_, by J. W. Loftie, Historical Towns Series (London, 1887), p. 80). Possibly the palace of the earliest Saxon kings stood on this spot, and in Chaucer's day it seems to have been a royal residence, to which Edward II. had added a lofty tower (_The Pageant of London_, by Richard Davey (London, 1906), i. 42, 188). In 1428 a devastating fire reduced this quarter of London to ashes, and it seems that it was at this time that Humphrey built the palace a.s.sociated with his name, though no doc.u.mentary evidence exists to justify the suggestion (Stow's _Survey_, Book i. pp. 60, 61; _London City_, by W. J. Loftie (London, 1891), p. 249). The fact that in 1427 the Duke was at an 'Inn,' when the representatives of Parliament called upon him, supports the theory that at that time he had no permanent residence in the city. The house was called Baynard's Castle after the ward in which it was built, extensive grounds surrounded it, and it was only second in magnificence to the palace at Greenwich, if we are to believe a political songster of the time, who makes Eleanor sadly take leave of 'fayer places on Temmy's side' ('The Lament of the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester,' in _Polit. Songs_, ii. 207). Mansion, gardens, and all pertaining thereto were given by the King in 1447 (when they reverted to him at the death of his uncle) to King's College, Cambridge (_Rot.

Parl._, v. 132), but in the reign of Edward IV. we find the King's mother there resident, and it was at Baynard's Castle that the Mayor of London waited on Richard of Gloucester in 1483 with the formal offer of the English Crown (_London City_, pp. 76, 116). Henry VII. rebuilt the palace early in his reign, but it was not then embattled, 'or so strongly fortified castle-like,' as in Duke Humphrey's days, but was more of a royal and family residence (Stow's _Survey_, Book i. pp. 60, 61). We next find it in the possession of the Herbert family, and on July 19, 1553, the Privy Council met there to proclaim Mary queen, the owner being then William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (_The History and Survey of London_, by B. Lambert, London, 1806, iii. 98). John Cooper, the seventeenth-century biographer of Duke Humphrey, had himself visited Baynard's Castle, and by that time, he tells us, the property had been split up, and was intersected by streets and lanes, but they still bore 'the name of Duke Humphries.' Indeed there stood an inn which bore the sign of the Duke just on the edge of the site of the old mansion, and at the time of writing was famous for a recent brawl on the premises (Holkham MS., pp. 68, 69). The whole district was swept away by the great fire of 1666, but in 1809 two towers of the old castle were still standing, and to this day Castle Street and Castle Yard commemorate the past glories of Gloucester's London residence (Davey's _Pageant of London_, i. 337).

APPENDIX E

PORTRAITS OF GLOUCESTER

I. In a book of portraits in Vol. 266 of the _Bibliotheque de la ville d'Arras_, on folio 37, there is a portrait bearing Gloucester's name, a reproduction of which hangs in the Bodleian Library. It appears among a series of portraits of people from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, which represent in most cases Flemish grandees and prominent courtiers of the Court of Burgundy. On folio 36 there is a portrait of Jacqueline of Hainault, and on folio 35 another of the Dauphin John, her first husband. All are in crayon, and are probably the work of Jacques Le Boucq, a herald of the Toison d'Or, who was known as a painter in the days of Philip II. of Spain. It has been thought probable that he copied contemporary portraits for these crayon drawings, and if this be true, he provides us with the only attempt at real portraiture of Duke Humphrey (_Catalogue of the Arras Library; Les Portraits Aux Crayons_, by Henri Bouchet, Paris, 1884).

II. In the initial letter of the dedication to Duke Humphrey, prefixed to Capgrave's _Commentary on Genesis_, a miniature portrays the author in the act of presenting his book to his patron. The workmanship of this miniature is too coa.r.s.e to allow of any portraiture, though a slight likeness to the Arras portrait may be traced (Oriel MS., x.x.xii.). A line reproduction of the Duke's head, taken from this ma.n.u.script, is given in Doyle's _Official Baronage_.

III. In a register at St. Albans Abbey there is a small illumination representing Duke Humphrey and his wife Eleanor, painted on the occasion of the latter's reception into the confraternity of St. Albans. There is here a more successful attempt at portraiture than in the Oriel ma.n.u.script, and the type of face, long, clean shaven, almost apathetic, is similar to that in the Arras drawing. Nevertheless, here as elsewhere there is no real character in the face of Humphrey, and still less in that of his wife; there is, indeed, a strong suggestion of mediaeval formalism (Cotton MS., Nero, D. vii. f. 154).

IV. Among the royal collection of ma.n.u.scripts in the British Museum there is a Psalter which was prepared for Duke Humphrey, and which, besides being beautifully illuminated, bears a miniature which may contain a portrait of the owner (Royal MS., 2, B. i.). It represents a man kneeling at a Prie-Dieu, with a patron standing behind him. The kneeling figure may very well be taken to represent the owner of the book. Again there are very few signs of portraiture, but such as it is, the miniature seems to be the likeness of Humphrey when still a young man The ma.n.u.script was written about 1415, which would lead us to suppose that the artist here tried to present the Duke's features at the age of twenty-five.

V. In the church at Greenwich which was destroyed in 1710 there was a stained-gla.s.s window representing the Duke in a kneeling posture. A copy of this window is still extant, and is to be found as the headpiece of the preface to the old catalogue of ma.n.u.scripts contained in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1697). A rough drawing thereof, executed in 1695, is also to be found in Tanner MS., 24, f. 107, and another, dating from some seventy-five years earlier, exists in Ashmole MS., 874, f.

113vo. Humphrey is represented in armour, and in appearance he is here totally unlike any of the above-mentioned portraits, being represented as wearing a beard. The window was probably placed in Greenwich church some time after his decease.

VI. In the year 1610 there was at the west end of the church of St.

Helen's, Abingdon, a gla.s.s window, in which were portraits of Henry V.

and his three brothers. 'These Dukes be in their robes and their coronalls with their arms over their Hedds, and their names written under their feet.' No drawing of this window has survived, and it has disappeared as completely as the one in Greenwich church. (Ashmole MS., 874, f. 113vo.)

VII. Horace Walpole possessed amongst his collection of pictures at Strawberry Hill three paintings in which he claimed there were portraits of Duke Humphrey. The first was a representation of the marriage of Henry VI., and Walpole thought that it was probably designed for the King, but executed after his death. The King and Queen stand in the front of the picture, and behind the former is a n.o.bleman, bald headed, with a beard, and wearing a furred mantle. The workmanship throughout shows considerable power and expression, and would seem to be of a later date than is supposed. (Walpole, _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, London, 1876, i. 34, 35; _Catalogues of Strawberry Hill Sale_, p. 197.) The second picture was once part of the doors of a shrine in the Abbey of St. Edmundsbury, which Walpole had sawed into four panels. According to his judgment two of the panels bear portraits of Cardinal Beaufort and Archbishop Kemp; the third may represent St. Joseph in adoration, or more probably the donor, the fourth is described as a portrait of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, and corresponds exactly in dress and appearance with the figure said to be a likeness of the same Duke in the 'Marriage of Henry VI.' The third and fourth panels 'are so good that they are in the style of the school of the Caracci. They at least were painted by some Italian; the draperies have large folds, and one wonders how they could be executed in the reign of Henry VI.' (Walpole's _Letters_, Mrs.

Paget Toynbee's edition, xi. 183, 184; _Catalogue of Strawberry Hill Sale_, p. 211.) Probably neither of these pictures was painted in the reign of Henry VI. The King would not have wished to have the uncle whom he had been taught to hate introduced into a picture of his marriage, nor would a contemporary have painted Cardinal Beaufort, Kemp, and Gloucester on adjoining panels. Far more probably the marriage picture represents the union of the houses of Lancaster and York in the persons of Henry VII. and his wife Elizabeth, an event fraught with far more significance than the one suggested by Walpole, and the shrine is most likely of much the same date. However, Walpole's theory had been universally accepted, and prints of the figure from the panel of St.

Edmundsbury were made, as being an authentic likeness of the Duke of Gloucester (Ackerman's _History of Oxford_ (London, 1814), ii. 272; _Collections for the History of Hertfordshire_, by N. Solomon, i. 87: Extra ill.u.s.trated copy of Wood's _History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford_ in the Bodleian, MS. Top. Oxon., c. 16, p. 914).

George Perfect Harding also painted one of his well-known water-colour portraits from this panel, and it is now in the possession of Miss C.

Agnes Rooper, Per Selwood, Gervis Road, Bournemouth. It is to be noticed that the likeness between the two so-called portraits of Gloucester is not so exact as Walpole would have us think, for whereas, in the marriage of Henry VI., he is represented with a beard, in the panel he is clean shaven. This last, though probably not contemporary, seems to possess some indications that it represents the same face as the Arras ma.n.u.script, but at a later stage of life. Also it was quite possible that when personal rivalries had been forgotten in the lapse of years, the monks of Bury might erect a memorial to one of their patrons, along with others who had not been his friends during his life. Nevertheless, we cannot generalise as to Humphrey's appearance from this portrait, which, to say the least, has a doubtful authenticity. The third picture of the Strawberry Hill collection, said to contain a portrait of the Duke of Gloucester, was once an altar-piece at Shene, and was probably painted for Henry VII. It represents Henry V. and his three brothers, together with his wife and other ladies, but the faces have no individuality, and are too conventional to be taken as portraits. These three pictures were sold to two different buyers at the Strawberry Hill sale. The 'Marriage of Henry VI.' and the panels from St. Edmundsbury were bought by the Duke of Sutherland, while the picture of Henry V. and his family went to the Earl of Waldegrave (_Catalogue of the Strawberry Hill Sale_).

VIII. In St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, there is an Arras tapestry, which hangs below the north window. It is divided into six compartments, the two centre ones containing allegorical figures, and in the upper ones to left and right certain saints are represented. In the remaining two compartments a king and queen kneel before desks with their suite in attendance. The king and queen are supposed to be Henry VI. and his wife. Behind the king stands a bearded figure, which 'is with no small reason supposed to be the good Duke of Gloucester' (Thomas Sharp, _Dissertation on the Pageants or Mysteries at Coventry_ (Coventry, 1825); _The Coventry Guide_ (Coventry, 1824), p. 46; _The History of the Antiquities of the City of Coventry_, No. vi. pp. 187, 188; _Handbook of the Arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance_, by M. Jules Labarte (London, 1855), p. 90. An ill.u.s.tration of the tapestry is to be found in this last). However, the workmanship of this tapestry tends to prove that it dates from Tudor rather than Lancastrian times, and in all likelihood it was made to celebrate the visit of Henry VII. and his Queen to Coventry, not that of Henry VI. and Margaret. Both these monarchs and their consorts were members of the Guild of the Holy Trinity in that city.

APPENDIX F

A LEGEND OF GLOUCESTER'S DEATH

Amongst seventeenth-century chroniclers there are many accounts as to the way in which Gloucester was murdered, the most popular of which, perhaps, is the one that he was smothered to death between two pillows.

A contemporary Frenchman gives a different version, which has an extraordinary resemblance to the stories which surround the death of George, Duke of Clarence, in 1478. This occurs in a rhymed account by George Chastellain of the unusual and interesting events which happened in his days and runs as follows:

'Par fortune semestre Veis l'oeil viviment Le Grant duc de Glocestre Meurdrir piteus.e.m.e.nt; En vin plain une cuve Failloit qu'estrangle fust Cuidant par celle estuve Que la morte n'y parust.'

(Introduction to Georges Chastellain, _Chronique_ (ed. Buchon), p.

xlviii). The rhyming chronicle in which this is found is not extant in ma.n.u.script, but in a printed form bearing the date 1528; and appended to it a continuation by Jacques Le Bouvier. Chastellain died at least three years before Clarence, so that he could not have borrowed the idea from the latter event. Nevertheless, it seems too obvious that the circ.u.mstances of the two deaths have been confused with one another to lightly dismiss its possibility. Bouvier mentions the death of Clarence and the well-known legend, putting it quaintly as follows:

'Le roi le fist noyer Dedans mallevisee Pours le moins ennuyer.'

(Introduction to Georges Chastellain, _Chronique_ (ed. Buchon), p.

liii), but none the less he may have interpolated the pa.s.sage about Gloucester into his predecessor's poem.

The theory of drowning, however, finds some support from an English authority. In a popular poem called 'The Dyrge of the Commons of Kent,'

sung by the rebellious followers of Jack Cade in 1450, the following pa.s.sage occurs:

'Arrys up Thorp and Cantelowe, stand ye together And synge _dies illa dies ire_, Pulford and Hanley that drownyd ye Duke of Glocestar As two traitors shall synge _ardentes anime_.'

(_Three Fifteenth-century Chronicles_, Camden Series p. 103.) It is possible that from these two legends we can get an indication of what nature Humphrey's end really was. The story of Clarence's drowning can have no share in suggesting the earlier poem of Jack Cade's followers, and here may be the solution of the problem which has puzzled modern historians. It must be remembered, however, that in another work, already cited in the text, Chastellain gives the more usual story of Gloucester's murder, when he describes his death to a red-hot spit thrust into his body. (Chastellain, _OEuvres_, ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, vii. 87.) In both cases, however, he lays stress on the fact that the manner of death was devised so as to prevent the appearance of murder.

APPENDIX G

GLOUCESTER'S ARMS, BADGES, AND SEALS

I. ARMS

Like his brothers, the Duke of Gloucester adopted the arms of England and France quarterly, but whereas their arms were differentiated with various labels, his own were surmounted with a border argent (Garter Types, College of Arms). At this period the arms of France, as borne by the English Kings, were changed from 'azure semee of fleur de lys or' to 'azure three fleur de lys or,' and this is the only difference which marks Humphrey's arms from those of a predecessor in the Gloucester t.i.tle, Thomas of Woodstock. Nicholas Upton, a follower and friend of Humphrey, describes his arms as follows: 'Portat Integra Arma Francie et Anglie Quarteriata, c.u.m Una Bordura Gobonata De Argento et Nigro ... Il port lez Armes de Fraunce et D'engleterre quarterlez ovesque ung bordure gobone d'argent et d'asor' (Nicholaus Uptonus, _De Studio Militari_, London, 1654, p. 238). This is not strictly accurate, as the border was argent only. These arms were carved on the Duke's tomb at St. Albans with their supporters, antelopes gorged and chained, and the shields were alternately 'ensigned' with his ducal coronet on his cap of estate, and with his crest, 'a Lyon pa.s.sant guardant crowned and accolled.' This part of the tomb is so mutilated that all the crests are gone; and only fragments of the other heraldic adornments remain (cf. Sandford, _Genealogical History_, p. 307; Gough, _Sepulchral Monuments_ (London, 1776), vol. ii. part III. p. 142).

Gloucester does not seem to have altered his armorial bearings after his marriage to Jacqueline of Hainault, for a seal attached to a charter in the archives of Mons seems to be the same one he had hitherto used (_Cartulaire_, iv. 440). After his marriage with Eleanor Cobham, however, he impaled the Cobham arms with his own, of which we have two recorded instances. In the east window of the church of Cobham in Kent there stood his arms 'in two several places, dimediated with those of the d.u.c.h.ess Eleanor Cobham' (Sandford, _Genealogical History_, p. 308), and they appeared in a similar form in a window of Greenwich Church before its destruction. A reproduction of this east window is to be found as the headpiece to the preface of the old catalogue of ma.n.u.scripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (_Catalogi Librorum Ma.n.u.scriptorum_, Oxford, 1697), and the following description thereof was written in 1695: 'An Helmet and crest with Mantles, and the Antelopes holding it up with Humphrey Duke of Gloucester kneeling, and his Arms, scilt. quarterly France and England within a bordure argent on one side, and the same arms impaling Cobham, viz., Gules on a Cheveron or, three Estoils sable, on the other side, a good distance from him; stand all in one of the south windows near the Belfry of Greenwich Church' (Tanner MS., 24, f. 107). The ma.n.u.script also contains a rough drawing of the window, as is also the case in an Ashmole record written about 1659, which gives the same information, though at less length (Ashmole MS., 1121, f. 228). Humphrey, it will be noticed, used as one of his supporters an antelope, which had been borne by Henry IV., and had appeared on the trappings of his horse in the Lists of Coventry (Tyler, _Henry of Monmouth_, p. 30). It appears from a ma.n.u.script in the Heralds' College that his supporters were to the Dexter a Greyhound argent collared and leashed or, to the Sinister an Heraldic Antelope argent Ducally gorged and chained or (Heralds' College MS., 14, f. 105, B.).

II. BADGES

Humphrey bore no less than three badges. From a political song, written probably about 1449, it appears that he was known by the t.i.tle of 'the Swan,' a name taken from the badge he had adopted from his Bohun ancestors. In the course of the poem the phrase 'the Swanne is goone'

appears, and in a different though contemporary hand the word 'Gloucetter' is written above the word 'Swanne' (_Political Songs_, ii.

221. Cf. _Excerpta Historica_, p. 161)

The second badge was on a shield sable three ostrich feathers argent surrounded by the Garter and supported to the Dexter by the Greyhound, to the Sinister by the Antelope. (Window in Greenwich Church, College of Arms MS., L. 14, 105, B.) These appear in the Greenwich window (Ashmole MS., 1121, f. 228. Cf. _Archaeologia_, x.x.xi. 368), though from impressions of his seal he seems then only to have used two feathers.

(Seal described in Cartulaire, iv. 440, and Seal attached to British Museum, _Additional Charters_, 6000.)