Humphrey Duke of Gloucester Part 36

We must not gather from Humphrey's volatile nature that he had no strong affections; even as he had a hatred of the Duke of Burgundy, so had he, in spite of his infidelities, a strong affection for his second wife. He did not forget her even after her disgrace, and set out on his last journey to Bury in the hope of obtaining her release from prison. She had been his evil genius since the day he met her among the ladies of Jacqueline. Ambitious and haughty, she had mixed in affairs of state,[1147] she had performed illegal acts, the effects of which were felt by her husband, and in her disgrace she brought the heaviest blow that had yet fallen upon him. She left no legitimate issue, but she may have been the mother of the two children who called Humphrey father. The son, Arthur, was one of those arrested at Bury, but neither before nor after this is there any trace of him.[1148] Of the daughter we know more. In accordance with her father's cla.s.sical tastes she was named Antigone, and in 1437 she married Henry Grey, Earl of Tankerville, a peer of no importance, who was never summoned to Parliament.[1149] Their son dropped the t.i.tle, and the last of the line married the daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.[1150] Antigone survived her husband, and a year after his death we find her the wife of Jean d'Amancier, Esquire of the Horse to Charles vii of France.[1151] It is a strange paradox that Humphrey's daughter should marry a man in the service of the King with whom he had advocated an endless war.

Besides incontinence, there are other blots on the Duke's private character, and they also had their influence on his public career. If he was not habitually oppressive, he was none the less rapacious. His expenses as a prince who loved display, and a patron who kept many scholars in his service, were very great, and he never lost an opportunity of adding to his rent-roll, or of securing money by other more dubious methods. We have seen him accepting a heavy bribe from the Abbey of St. Albans for his services in securing for them a renewal of their charter; in his earlier days he had accepted another bribe from the Earl of Berkeley for his good offices with Henry V. in obtaining the Castle of Berkeley for that Earl;[1152] he tried to use his powerful position and the value of his protection to induce the Prior of Ely to disburse money for the Hainault campaign;[1153] and the Cinque Ports, of which he was Warden, had to pay him in hard cash for the renewal of their charter from the King.[1154] His rapacity in an age which produced Cardinal Beaufort was not unique, yet it shows a lack of restraint, and explains how much the tendencies of his private character moulded his career as a statesman.

Together with rapacity Humphrey harboured a pride which dictated many of his most unfortunate actions, and this pride was closely connected with an impetuosity which led him to discard wisdom for the pleasures of the moment. In battle he exposed himself to every danger, and even his epistolary style became infected with this characteristic, for in speaking of Simon da Taramo he alludes to the 'venomous suggestion of this second Judas.'[1155] All through his life Gloucester was governed by his emotions, and he always obeyed the impulse of the moment, were it good or bad. Thus his love of order and his disgust at any kind of outrage so possessed him when he discovered that his retainers had been poaching at St. Albans, that he seized the nearest weapon to his hand and belaboured one of the wretched criminals as he sat in the stocks.[1156] Indeed the secret of the Duke's character lay in the preponderating influence his emotions possessed over every action of his life. This partly explains his unstable nature, and accounts for his high-flown ideas and ill-considered plans, but when the power of the emotion had pa.s.sed, all the vitality had gone from his undertakings. His emotions took him to Hainault, and their reaction produced his failure; his emotions produced those fitful attacks on his great rival Beaufort, but were not enough to construct for him a definite policy. The energy of his life all went to waste, because there was no strength of will to control his impressionable nature. Yet there were times when this impetuosity led to good results as well as to ill. It helped him to quell all tentative efforts at sedition, it kept him going in his warlike undertakings when they were not too prolonged; above all, it enabled him to broaden his interests, and to embrace the life of a patron of letters as well as that of a soldier and a politician. Yet sometimes he was able to restrain his ardour. During the Cotentin expedition he showed unexpected determination, and on occasions he could try persuasion when force was useless. The man who could burst into fits of rage under the influence of political disappointment, and jeopardise the safety of his country for the whim of the moment, could also stoop to argue with an irate prelate, and 'doff his cap' to the Bishop of Norwich when interceding for the liberties of the Prior of Binham.[1157]

The man who is governed by his emotions is seldom worthy of respect, but he has a charm which is all his own. This charm Gloucester undoubtedly possessed. Though in many ways a sore trial to Bedford, he did not lose his brother's affection till an impetuous outburst produced a quarrel, which was never healed. All through the Hainault trouble the French Regent had borne with his brother, and his letters had shown affection even when they found fault. Even after the Parliament of Leicester he had manifested a tactful feeling for his brother's tastes, and had sent him a beautifully adorned volume from the famous royal library of France.[1158] Others who had been brought into close contact with Duke Humphrey were warm in their praise of him; Wheathampsted and his St.

Albans friends were faithful to him even after his death.[1159] The Bishop of Bayeux spread glowing reports of his generosity and kindliness throughout Italy, as is attested by more than one Italian humanist,[1160] and his personal charm exerted a strong influence on such men as Piero del Monte. This last spoke in warm terms of the happy intercourse he had had with the Duke of Gloucester while in England,[1161] and it was not therefore mere fulsome flattery which made Lapo da Castiglionchio declare that in conversation he was courteous and kind, and in every walk of life affable and genial.[1162] We have more than one indication of the goodness of Humphrey's heart, apart from the possibly suspect statements of admirers, and it was no mere caprice that made him befriend the unhappy Queen Joan, who was left to eke out a life of honourable detention totally neglected by all the other prominent personages in the kingdom.

As we turn the last page of Humphrey's political life, it is with a feeling of regret that we remember his career. We see brilliant abilities and immense possibilities for useful work all thrown away because the fire of genius burnt only in fitful gleams. Moral stamina was denied to an otherwise promising character, and the concentration which might have moulded his life's work into a useful policy was lacking. He had done nothing to carry England further along the high-road to strength and fame, he had lived in a decadent age and had been overwhelmed by the spirit of his times. Yet his life was not in vain. No man has left a greater mark on the progress of English thought than this Duke Humphrey, and in the realm of ideas, whither we must now follow him, he did the good work he failed to do in the realm of action.

FOOTNOTES:

[1022] Whethamstede, i. 179.

[1023] Hardyng, 400. Another rhymer of the same period says: 'For shame and anguishe off whiche jealousy It toke hym sone after and soo lowe brought hym dawne That in short while after it caused hym to dye.'

Rawlinson, MS., Cla.s.sis, C. 813, f. 12vo.

[1024] _Chron. Henry VI._, 34.

[1025] _Eng. Chron._, 63. Cf. _Polychronicon_, f. 338vo. _Short Eng.

Chron._, 65, says, 'And sone after he disseyed, the sykness howe G.o.d knoweth.'

[1026] _Lond. Chron._, 135.

[1027] Waurin, v. 3. Cf. _Hist. Croyland. Contin._, i. 521.

[1028] Mathieu de Coussy, 30; Basin, i. 190. The latter adds that a report that he died of natural causes was circulated to disarm suspicion.

[1029] _Rot. Parl._, v. 226.

[1030] Gregory, 189.

[1031] It is possible that this second allusion to Gloucester's death is the work of Gregory's continuator.

[1032] Stow's _Memoranda_, 97, evidently the transcript of an original doc.u.ment. Cf. Stow (_Annales_), 390, and also a proclamation by Jack Cade at the same time. 'It is a hevy thynge that ye good Duke of Gloucester was apeched of treason by a fals traytour alone, and so was murderyd and might never come to his answer.' Stow's _Memoranda_, 95.

[1033] 'The Dyrge of the Commons of Kent,' printed in _Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles_ (Camden Series), p. 103.

[1034] Gregory, 193.

[1035] _Political Songs_, ii. 224.

[1036] _Eng. Chron._, 88.

[1037] _Political Songs_, ii. 268.

[1038] _Brief Notes_, 149.

[1039] He is said to have finished his chronicle in 1493.

[1040] Fabyan, 619.

[1041] See, for instance, Polydore Vergil, 73; Hall, 209; Leland, _Collectanea_, I. ii. 494; Speed, 622; Weever, _Ancient Funeral Monuments_, 555; Tanner, _Bibl. Brit._, 421; Sandford, _Genealogical Hist._, 309. Cf. Cotton MS., Vitellius, A. xvi. f. 210.

[1042] See Kymer's _Dietarium_ in _Liber Niger Scaccarii_, ii.

550-559. Cf. Sharon Turner, ii. 299, note 35.

[1043] George Chastellain, _OEuvres_ (ed. Kervyn de Lettenhove, Bruxelles, 1865), vii. 87.

[1044] Ramsay, ii. 76, giving as a reference _Eng. Chron._, 118 (the account of Fox), says, 'It is more material to point out that two Chaplains and twelve gentlemen of the Household remained with Gloucester through his illness and followed him to his grave.' The writer quoted does not say this, he merely states that these retainers followed the body to St. Albans, and it is definitely established by Cotton MS., Vitellius, A. xvi.

f. 105, that all Gloucester's servants were removed from attendance on him after his arrest. This is not contradicted by the a.s.sertion that some of them followed him to the grave after his death. It may be noticed, by the way, that the account of Fox is not quite accurate, for he places Richard Nedam among the mourners who followed the coffin, a man who was then under arrest at Winchester, and later condemned to death and reprieved.

[1045] Second Part of Shakspeare's _King Henry VI._, Act III. Scene ii.

[1046] _Rot. Pat._, 25 _Henry VI._, Part ii. m. 1.

[1047] Stow's _Memoranda_, 95.

[1048] Fabyan, 619.

[1049] Waurin, v. 4; Mathieu de Coussy, 30; Basin, i. 190. Cf.

_Chron. Henry VI._, 34.

[1050] Suffolk as his share of the plunder received the t.i.tle of Earl of Pembroke with some of Gloucester's possessions in South Wales, including Pembroke, Tenby, and Kilgerran Castles; _Lords' Reports_, v. 254, 255; _Cal. Rot. Pat._, 285. He was also created Chamberlain; _Rot. Pat._, 25 _Henry VI._, Part ii. m. 35. The same membrane gives his appointment as Constable of Dover and Warden of Cinque Ports in succession to Gloucester, but another membrane gives the appointment of Lord Saye de Sele to this office on the same day, which is more probably the effective gift; _Rot. Pat._, 25 _Henry VI._, Part ii. m. 1. Margaret's share consisted of the Manor of Middleton and the Hundreds of Middleton and Merden, the Castle and Lords.h.i.+p of Colchester and the Hundred of Tendring, the Castle, Town, and Lords.h.i.+p of Marlborough, with the forest of Savernake and the office of Constable of Gloucester Castle. All these had belonged to Humphrey. Rymer, V. i. 170. See also _Duchy of Lancaster Accounts (Various)_, Bundle v. No. 8.

[1051] _Rot. Parl._, v. 132.

[1052] _Inquisitiones Post Mortem_, 25 _Henry VI._, No. 26, m. 8; _Rot. Pat._, 25 _Henry VI._, Part ii. m. 1 and m. 35; Rymer, V. i. 170. Another grant of Gloucester's possessions was made on February 27; _Rot. Pat._, 25 _Henry VI._, Part i. m. 5.

[1053] Ellis, _Letters_, 2nd Series, i. 108. Gregory, 188, says 38 servants.

[1054] So Rymer, V. i. 179, but Gregory, 188, says July 14 at Westminster.

[1055] Rymer, V. i. 179; _Cal. Rot. Pat._, 290; Gregory, 188; _Short Eng. Chron._, 65; Leland, _Collectanea_, I. ii. 494.

[1056] _Eng. Chron._, 62. Eleanor was at this time imprisoned in Wales, so the accusation may have seemed plausible at first; _Brief Notes_, 154.

[1057] See list of prisoners in Ellis, _Letters_, 2nd Series, i.

108.

[1058] _Statutes of the Realm_, ii. 344.

[1059] _Chron. Henry VI._, 33.

[1060] Mathieu de Coussy, 30.

[1061] Gregory, 188; Richard Fox, 118; _Short Eng. Chron._, 65. For pardons see Rymer, V. i. 179, and _Cal. Rot. Pat._, 290, 291.