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Makers of National History
Edited by W. H. HUTTON, B.D.
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
From a recumbent effigy (late 17th century)
on the tomb in his chantry chapel in
Winchester Cathedral
Photo by W. G. Green
92-X
Henry Beaufort
BISHOP, CHANCELLOR,
CARDINAL
BY
LEWIS BOSTOCK RADFORD, B.D.
LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
RECTOR OF HOLT, NORFOLK
WARDEN -ELECT OF ST. PAUL'S COLLEGE, SYDNEY
&^U~~> /t/2 4 _ IMH]
EX U£§*§
ST, BASIL'S &CH>iLAS!l8Afi
no, £rtA7.
— . — -i—
LONDON : SIR ISAAC PITMAN & SONS, LTD.
No. 1 AMEN CORNER, E.C. 1908
Printed by Sir Isaac Pitman
& Sons, Ltd., London, Bath
and New York . .1908
FEB 1 3
MAKERS OF
NATIONAL HISTORY
It is intended in this series to commemorate im-
portant men whose share in the making of national
history seems to need a more complete record than
it has yet received. In some cases the character,
the achievements, or the life, have been neglected
till modern times ; in most cases new evidence has
recently become available ; in all cases a new estimate
according to the historical standards of to-day seems
to be called for. The aim of the series is to illustrate
the importance of individual contributions to national
development, in action and in thought. The foreign
relations of the country are illustrated, the ecclesias-
tical position, the evolution of party, the meaning
and influence of causes which never succeeded. No
narrow limits are assigned. It is hoped to throw
light upon English history at many different periods,
and perhaps to extend the view to peoples other than
our own. It will be attempted to show the value in
national life of the many different interests that have
employed the service of man.
The authors of the lives are writers who have a
special knowledge of the periods to which the subjects
of their memoirs belonged.
W. H. HUTTON.
S. John's College, Oxford,
August, 1908.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book is an attempt to do neither more nor
less than justice to an Englishman who has not
yet received the recognition which is his due. A
generation ago Dr. Stubbs in his Constitutional
History of England reversed the unfavourable verdict
upon the character of Henry Beaufort to which the
genius of Shakespeare has given an undeserved
vitality ; and the final estimate of the tribunal
of history will probably have but few deductions
to make from the tribute paid to Beaufort in that
masterly review of the evolution of English govern-
ment. The plan of that work, however, left room
only for a brief and incidental treatment of Beaufort,
and that too confined to his statesmanship. " The
Cardinal of England " deserves a biography of his
own. His public life of nearly half a century was one
of the main threads of continuity between three
Lancastrian reigns. His activity was an important
factor in the course of events at more than one critical
stage in the history of England, and perhaps of
Europe.
The present volume is an attempt to furnish such
a biography. It grew out of a brief sketch of Beau-
fort written for the Church Historical Society's
second series of Typical English Churchmen, but in
its present form it is based upon a fresh study of
the chief authorities for the whole of Beaufort's
life. It has been written in the fragments of time
left by the primary duties of a parish priest, and
under all the difficulties of distance from great
PREFACE
libraries. The setting of the biography has involved
the writing of a period of history where the work
of acknowledged masters has made it dangerous
to be independent and impossible to be original.
On the other hand, any adequate record of Beaufort's
services requires the presentation of a number of
details which it is hard to keep in subordination to
the great events and tendencies of his day, and
equally hard to condense without loss of interest.
The writer is painfully conscious of such defects in
this book as are due to these difficulties or to the
fragmentary character of his own historical training.
Yet he ventures to hope that this monograph, richer
perhaps than the necessarily bare story of Beaufort's
life in the Dictionary of National Biography, but
poorer in many respects than the splendid picture
which Mr. Vickers has lately given of the cardinal's
famous rival, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, may
prove to be a not unworthy memorial of an eminent
English churchman and statesman, and incidentally
a real, if slender, contribution to the accurate
knowledge of true history.
L. B. R.
Holt, Norfolk,
August, 1908.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The following list is a classification of the chief authorities
for the life and times of Cardinal Beaufort. Biographical
information and literary criticisms are to be found in Ramsay's
Lancaster and York, in Oman's Political History of England,
1377-1485 (App. i, pp. 497-512), in Vickers's Humphrey
Duke of Gloucester (pp. 456-475), and in the introductions to
Kingsford's Chronicles of London and Henry V.
A. Original Authorities.
(i) Chronicles.
1. Contemporary.
(a) English —
Chronicon Angliae (ed. Giles, 1848).
Gesta Henrici Quinti (ed. Williams, 1850).
Vita Henrici Quinti, by Thomas de Elmham (ed. Hearne,
1727).
Historia Anglicana, by Thomas Walsingham (ed. Riley,
Rolls Series).
Annates Mon. S. Albani, by J. Amundesham (ed. Riley,
Rolls Series).
Gesta Abbatum Monasterii S. Albani, vol. iii (Rolls Series),
ed. Riley.
Historiae Croylandensis Continuatio (in Gale, Rerum
Anglicanarum Scriptores Veteres, vol. i, 1604).
Gregory's Chronicle of London (in Gairdner's Historical
Collections of a London Citizen, Camden Society, 1876).
Chronicles of London (ed. Kingsford, 1905).
English Chronicle (ed. Davies, Camden Society, 1856).
John Hardyng's Chronicle (ed. Ellis, 1812).
(b) Foreign —
Monstrelet (ed. Buchon, Paris, 1826-7 ; Engl. Trans, by
T. Johnes, 1810).
Wavrin (ed. Hardy, Rolls Series).
Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris (ed. 1881).
Chronique du Religieux de St. Denys (ed. Bellaguet, 1852).
Lefevre de S. Remy (ed. Buchon, 1838).
J. J. des Ursins, Histoire de Charles VI.
Aeneas Sylvius, Historia Bohemiae.
Andreas Ratisbonensis, Chronicon and Dialogus (in Hofler's
Geschichtschreiber der Hussitischer Bewegung, vols, i, ii) .
x BIBLIOGRAPHY
2. Later chroniclers.
Arnold's Chronicle, or The Customs of London.
Hall's Chronicle.
Raynald, Annates Ecclesiastici.
(ii) Documents, letters, records, etc.
Rolls of Parliament (cited as Rot. Pari.).
Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council (ed.
Nicholas).
Calendars of Patent Rolls, Henry IV and Henry VI.
Issues of the Exchequer (ed. Devon).
Foedera, Conventiones, etc. (ed. Rymer).
Testamenta Vetusta (ed. Nicolas).
Royal Wills (ed. Nichols).
Excerpta Historica (ed. Bentley).
Concilia M. Britanniae, etc. (ed. Wilkins).
Papal Letters, vols, v, vi, vii (ed. Bliss and Twemlow).
Munimenta Academica (ed. Anstey, Rolls Series).
Epistolae Academicae Oxon. (ed. Anstey, Oxf. Hist. Soc).
Gascoigne, Loci e libro veritatum (ed. Thorold Rogers).
Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton (ed. Williams,
Rolls Series).
Reports of the Historical MSS. Commission.
Letters and Papers Illustrative of Wars in France, Henry VI
(ed. Stevenson, Rolls Series).
Letters of Margaret of Anjou (ed. Munro, Camden Society).
Quicherat, Proces de Rehabilitation de Jeanne d 'Arc (Paris,
1841).
T. Douglas Murray, Jeanne d'Arc (London, 1902, an English
translation of depositions made at the " process of
rehabilitation ").
Brown, Fasciculi Rerum Expetendarum, vol. ii.
Finke, Konstanzer Konzil (especially diary of Cardinal
Filastre).
B. Modern Histories, Biographies, etc.
Wharton, Anglia Sacra (1691).
Godwin, De Praesulibus Angliae.
Duck, Life of Chichele.
Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum (1858).
Wylie, History of England under Henry IV (1884-1898).
J. Endell Tyler, Henry of Monmouth (1838).
Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt (1904).
*Vickers, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester (1907).
Kingsford, Henry V (1901).
Dictionary of National Biography (articles on Beaufort,
Bedford, Gloucester).
BIBLIOGRAPHY xi
Church Quarterly Review, July, 1881 : Cardinal Beaufort
(vol. xii).
Hook, Lives of Archbishops (especially Arundel, Chichele,
Stafford).
Lord Campbell, Lives of Chancellors, vol. i.
Maxwell-Lyte, History of the University of Oxford (1886).
Rashdall, The Universities in European History.
Voigt, Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, vol. ii.
Palacky, Geschichte von Bohmen, vol. iii.
Leng, K. Sigismund u. Heinrich V.
Caro, Das Bundniss von Canterbury.
De Beaucourt, Histoire de Charles VII, vols, ii, iii.
Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, vols, xii, xiii (ed. 1831).
Capes, English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries.
Milman, Latin Christianity.
Poole, Wycliffe and Movements for Reform.
*Creighton, History of the Papacy (ed. 1892).
Lingard, History of England (ed. 1849).
Stubbs, Constitutional History of England (ed. 1884), vol. iii.
♦Ramsay, Lancaster and York (1892).
Lodge, Close of the Middle Ages.
♦Oman, Political History of England from 1377 to 1485.
To the works marked with an asterisk the present writer
is indebted to an extent which can scarcely be indicated by
particular references.
CONTENTS
chap-
PREFACE vjj
BIBLIOGRAPHY jx
I. FROM BOYHOOD TO BISHOPRIC AND
CHANCELLORSHIP, 1375-1405 . . . 1
II. CONFLICT OF PARTIES, 1406-1413 ... 17
III. SECOND TENURE OF THE CHANCELLOR-
SHIP, 1413-1417 34
IV. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE, 1414-1417 . 61
V. THE SERVICE OF THE PAPACY AND OF THE
crown, 1418-1422 84
VI. THE PRIVY COUNCIL AND THE PROTECTOR,
1422-1424 104
VII. THIRD CHANCELLORSHIP : CONFLICT WITH
Gloucester, 1424-1426 . . . .124
VIII. THE CARDINAL AND THE HUSSITE CRUSADE,
1426-1429 145
IX. THE CARDINALATE AND THE ENGLISH
CHURCH AND REALM, 1426-1432 . . 169
X, THE STRUGGLE FOR FRANCE, 1429-1433 193
xiii
xiv CONTENTS
CHAP.
XI. THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND,
1433-1434 218
XII. THE CONFERENCES AT ARRAS AND AT
oye, 1435-1439 241
XIII. THE POLICY OF THE BEAUFORT PARTY,
1439-1444 266
XIV. THE PASSING OF THE CARDINAL,
1444-1447 284
INDEX
301
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Cardinal Beaufort
CHAPTER I
FROM BOYHOOD TO BISHOPRIC AND CHANCELLORSHIP
1375-1405
Henry Beaufort was the second of four children Origin and
born of the illicit connexion of John of Gaunt, Duke name*
of Lancaster, with Katharine, daughter of Sir Paon
Roelt, a knight of Hainault. Both before and after
her own marriage to Sir Hugh Swynford in 1368,
Katharine had been governess to Philippa and
Elizabeth, the children of the duke and his first wife,
Blanche of Lancaster ; and the death of the duchess
in 1369 left her in charge of the household. When
in 1372 Sir Hugh fell fighting in Aquitaine, his wife
was openly recognised as the duke's mistress.1 In
1371 he had married a second wife, Constance of
Castile ; but Katharine was mistress of the situation,
tolerated or acknowledged at court, and approached
as patroness by boroughs in disfavour. There is no
record of the dates of the birth of her children, but
the eldest, John, could tilt with success in the lists in
1390, and was probably therefore born about 1373.
Henry was a " mere lad " (admodum fiuer) when he
became a bishop in 1398, though the expression
should perhaps be taken not literally of boyhood but
comparatively of a scandalously young bishop. His
1 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, pp. 390, 391 ; App. vii,
pp. 462, 463.
1
3— (3210)
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Legitima-
tion of the
Beauforts.
birth may be placed in 1374 or 1375. Two other
children followed : Thomas, afterwards Duke of
Exeter, and Joan, whose second husband was Ralph
Neville, first Earl of Westmoreland. The surname
Beaufort by which they were all known was derived
from Beaufort in Artois. A late tradition described
Beaufort as their birthplace, but the lordship of
Beaufort was lost by John of Gaunt in 1369. The
surname was probably chosen because " it would not
prejudice the rights of his legitimate heir."1 Court
gossip in the reign of Richard II translated the name
to " Fairborn " as "a jesting allusion to the open
secret of their birth."2
In 1396, two years after the death of the " queen
of Castile," John of Gaunt rewarded the faithfulness
of his mistress by marrying her at Lincoln. The
turn of the children came next. Probably it was for
their sake even more than for their mother's that
John braved the criticism and the resentment of the
ladies at court. He procured from Pope Boniface IX
the sanction of his marriage and the recognition of
his children ; and in February, 1397, the King issued
letters patent of legitimation to " our most dear
cousins, the noble John the knight, Henry the clerk,
Thomas domicello,3 and to our beloved the noble
Joan Beauford domicdle, the most dear relatives of
our uncle the noble John, Duke of Lancaster." These
letters of legitimation, which were duly confirmed by
parliament, were the crowning act of a policy of
reconciliation by which Richard secured the support
1 Armitage-Smith, John of Gaunt, pp. 196-199.
2 Ibid., pp. 464, 465.
8 The diminutive domicellus (almost =" page ") was
applied to youths of rank not yet old enough for knighthood,
domicella to girls of similar rank and age. For the patent of
legitimation, see Excerpta Historica, p. 154.
HENRY THE CLERK 3
of John of Gaunt. Relying upon this support the
young King, now thirty years of age, proceeded to take
a despotic revenge upon the magnates who had over-
ridden him ten years before. The Duke of Gloucester
died a suspicious death ; the Earl of Warwick was
banished ; the Earl of Arundel was beheaded, and
his brother the primate driven from his see. Revenge
upon enemies was followed by rewards for friends.
Five new dukes were made in a day. John Beaufort,
who was made Earl of Somerset on his legitimation,
now became Marquis of Dorset and Admiral of
England. In March, 1398, " Henry the clerk " was
Bishop-elect of Lincoln. The Beauforts were estab-
lished as favourites of the crown. It remained to be
seen whether Richard could retain their confidence or
their allegiance.
The record of Henry Beaufort's early history is but Education
fragmentary. The bursar's roll at Peterhouse, and early
Cambridge, notes the receipt of 20s. from Henry p e
Beaufort in 1388-9 for the rent of his room. 1 The
accounts of Queen's College, Oxford, include pay-
ments in 1390-1 for keys for the provost's chamber
and for that of " Bewforth," and " to John, servant
of Bewforth, for necessaries bought and for his labour
upon the vestments " of the college chapel ; and in
1392 an entry of " wine for the Lord Duke of
Lancaster " points to a visit of the father while the
youthful undergraduate was still in residence.2
Preferment in the Church came early, while Henry
was yet in statu pupillari, in minor orders only.
Already in 1389 and again in 1391 he was given a
prebend at Lincoln, and soon afterwards the warden-
ship of the free chapel of Tickhill, a Lancastrian estate
1 Hist. MSS. Commission, 1st R«p., p. 78.
a Ibid., ii, 141.
4 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
from which his mother was granted an annuity in
1381. The legitimation of 1397 opened the way to
further promotion. A papal indult of April, 1397,
granted permission for ten years to Henry Beaufort,
Dean of Wells, master of arts and student of theology,
to hold and farm his deanery and other benefices
while he was studying letters at Oxford or some other
university. * At this stage probably should be
placed his reputed residence at " Aken in Almaine "
(Aachen or Aix in Germany) , where he is said to have
studied canon and civil law. 2 An undated convey-
ance signed by the president and chapter of Wells
speaks of Henry Beaufort, Dean of Wells, as then
absent abroad.3
Bishop of In February, 1398, John Bokyngham, the old
Lincoln. Bishop of Lincoln, was driven from his diocese by an
arbitrary exercise of papal authority, and translated
to the far poorer see of Lichfield and Coventry.
Lincoln was promptly given to " Bewford " by a
papal provision granted in answer to the request of
the King, who desired to show " his reverence and
affection " for his uncle of Lancaster.4 Richard's
motive was probably twofold. He was as desirous
to win the services of the son as to reward and retain
the loyalty of the father. Henry was now at least
twenty- three, and giving promise already perhaps of
the ability which he displayed in later years. Of his
character nothing is known beyond the fact that he
1 Papal Letters, v, 26.
2 Holinshed, ii, 485. Wylie, Henry IV, hi, 263, regards
this tradition as a misunderstanding of Froissart's reference
to Beaufort's residence "a l'ecole a Acquessonfort, " i.e.,
Oxford. The university of Aix was at the southern Aix in
Provence, and dated from the fifteenth century.
8 Hist. MSS. Comm., iii, 356.
* Walsingham, ii, 228.
CHANCELLOR OF OXFORD 5
had been guilty of a youthful sin which his worst
slanderers passed over afterwards in silence. A child
was born to him by Alice, daughter of the Earl of
Arundel and niece of his subsequent rival, the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury. This child, named Joan after
her father's sister, became the wife of Sir Edward
Stradling, who was given an appointment in Wales
in 1423, and was remembered along with his wife in
the Cardinal's will in 1447. It is uncertain whether
she was born before or after her father's ordination,
but it is certain that there is no trace of licentiousness
in his later days, and that no imputation of the kind
was ever cast upon his life as an ecclesiastic.
Beaufort was chancellor of the University of Oxford Chancellor
in 1398, but it is not certain how long he held the of Oxford
office. The usual tenure was for two years. Thomas
Hendman, however, was chancellor late in 1397.
On the other hand, Beaufort was consecrated bishop
of Lincoln on July 14th, 1398, and it would have been
an anomaly indeed if the chancellorship had been
held by the very bishop from whose jurisdiction the
university had struggled successfully to set the
chancellorship free. In 1395 with the consent of
Archbishop Courtenay, a former chancellor of Oxford,
a bull had been obtained from Boniface IX exempting
the university from episcopal jurisdiction. The bull
was repudiated by the faculty of law at Oxford, and
in February, 1397, Archbishop Arundel, who was
bent upon suppressing the Lollardism of the univer-
sity, took the side of the jurists. The masters argued
in despair that the right of visitation was the privilege
of the crown, but the King in council insisted that it
belonged to the primate, and nothing but the banish-
ment of Arundel in September, 1397, gave the beaten
graduates a respite. It was apparently at this stage
6 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
in the conflict that the youthful Dean of Wells became
chancellor. The chancellors of Oxford were elected
by the university, no longer requiring even confirma-
tion by the Bishops of Lincoln, whose delegates they
had been originally. Nothing is known of the
circumstances of Beaufort's election, but it is possible
that the electors were desirous to have as their
representative head a graduate of their own body who
was at once a favourite of the crown, an adherent of
the party which had triumphed over Arundel and his
friends, and a son of the magnate who had great
territorial influence in the counties which composed
the diocese of Lincoln. On the other hand, Beaufort
may have been imposed upon them by the influence
of the crown. The whole question is obscure, for the
academic conflict was twofold. The defenders of the
liberties of the university were largely identical with
the adherents of the Wycliflite movement, but
whatever Beaufort may have done to awaken the
hopes of the champions of academic freedom, he
showed no sign in later years of sympathy with
Lollardism. 1
Guardian Tradition says that Henry of Monmouth, after-
Monmouth. wards Henry V, was entrusted to the guardianship of
his uncle the chancellor, and resided for a time at
Oxford, in a room in a now vanished gateway of
Queen's College. The unusual expenditure upon
plate and other signs of hospitality in the college
accounts for 1398 may be evidence of the residence
of the chancellor in his old college or of a visit of his
during the residence of his nephew, though some
doubt is cast upon this supposition by the fact that
1 For the visitation controversy see Maxwell Lyte, Hist.
of the Univ. of Oxford, pp. 291-295 ; for Arundel and Oxford
Lollardism, pp. 277-284.
BISHOP OF LINCOLN 7
the lad was only eleven, over-young for an under-
graduate even in those days. The association between
the two may date from 1398, when the boy's father
was driven into exile ;Tand in that case it was perhaps
a precaution of Richard's own guilty anxiety. It
may, however, date from the end of 1399, in which
case it would be a proof of Henry IV 's confidence in
his half-brother. Yet it is significant that in 1409
and 1411, when uncle and nephew were associated in
political action, the Prince was mediating or fighting
on behalf of the liberties of the university, once more
threatened by the archbishop ; and it is quite credible
that the two were actuated as much by a common
attachment to Oxford as by their general opposition
to the policy of Arundel.
The consecration of Beaufort to Lincoln in July, !pe*th °f
1398, would naturally put an end to his chancellorship. Q^unt
It is improbable that he would retain the chancellor-
ship with the idea of closing the conflict between the
university and the diocese by uniting their represent-
atives in his own person. The real conflict now was
between chancellor and primate, and Arundel was by
this time an exile. A year later came the first great
crisis of Beaufort's career. The King was sinning
away fast his ill-gotten hold upon the government
of the nation. Parliament was practically replaced
by a packed council. A personal quarrel between
Henry of Lancaster and Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
two of Richard's recent supporters, was made an
excuse for the banishment of both. Finally, when
John of Gaunt died broken-hearted in February,
1399, his exiled son was robbed of his birthright by
the confiscation of the Lancastrian estates. Mean-
while Bishop Henry had first to bury his father.
The chronicler of St. Albans tells with pride the story
8
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Return of
Henry of
Lancaster.
of the resting of the duke's body at that monastery
on the way to London,— how the Bishop of Lincoln
and his widowed mother requested the hospitality of
the convent, and how the abbot, fortified by papal
decree and royal injunction on behalf of the inde-
pendence of his house, refused the request until the
bishop withdrew his refusal to sign letters of immunity
for the convent from the jurisdiction of the see of
Lincoln ; how the Bishop of London celebrated mass
next morning, and the Bishop of Lincoln, who served,
presented costly vestments which had belonged to
the duke ; how he thanked the convent for the
honour done to his father's body, and promised to
be a friend to the convent in proof of his thanks ; and
how the whole convent escorted the funeral procession
to the gates as it journeyed on its way to St. Paul's
for the burial.1 The zealous scribe was thinking
chiefly of the honour of his community ; but the
young bishop, amid the last duties to the departed
and the problems of episcopal jurisdiction, must have
been facing a still greater question of the immediate
future. Sooner or later he must choose between the
King and the absent son. The choice came more
swiftly than men expected. On May 29th Beaufort
and two other bishops accompanied Richard to
Ireland on his fruitless campaign against a recalcitrant
chieftain of Leinster. On July 10th came the news
that Henry of Lancaster was back in England, and
the North was in arms on his side. John Beaufort,
Marquis of Dorset, had been already in correspondence
with his half-brother. Henry Beaufort's movements
1 Gesta Abbatum Mon. S. Alban, hi, 438-440. For the
duke's will, see Armitage-Smith, pp. 420-436. He bequeathed
to Henry Beaufort amongst other things his missal and
breviary, once the property of the Black Prince.
BEAUFORT AND HENRY IV 9
are not known, beyond the fact that he landed with
Richard at Milford Haven. He may have gone over
to Lancaster at once when Richard's army was
disbanded by its leaders after the King's flight into
Cheshire ; he may have simply waited for the inevit-
able end. All that is known is that when parliament
met in September, 1399, to receive the King's abdica-
tion, Henry Beaufort was on Lancaster's side. His
motives scarcely need analysis. Twenty-one other
prelates and thirty-six temporal peers voted with
" l'evesq' de Nicholl " in Henry IV's first parliament
in October for the " safe and secret imprisonment "
of the King whose despotism had forfeited his crown. *
But long before this solid vote spoke for the nation,
Beaufort's course must have been plain. Lancaster
was his brother ; Richard only his cousin, and his
brother's enemy.
The part which Henry Beaufort played in the Promotion
troublous reign of Henry IV was mainly political. °f *jj®
In the parliament of 1401 he appears for the first
of many times on one of the committees of peers
appointed to consider petitions, and in 1402 he was
a member of a small advisory council of bishops and
barons formed to act in conjunction with the commons
at their request. The Beauforts were coming quickly
to the front. Henry's eldest sons were mere boys.
Practically destitute of friends or ministers of weight,
accepted rather than welcomed by the baronage, he
turned naturally to his own kinsmen for support.
The Beauforts, whose origin left them dependent
upon the crown, gladly gave their royal brother what
he asked. John Beaufort, reduced to his earldom of
Somerset in 1399 for his former support of Richard,
was restored to favour and rewarded in 1400 with the
1 Rot. Pari, Hi, 426.
10 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
confiscated estates of Owen Glendower, and in 1401
was appointed captain of Calais and chief negotiator
with France. In 1402 he was sent to escort the
King's daughter Blanche to Cologne for her marriage
to the Emperor's son. Late in 1402 John and Henry
Beaufort were commissioned to fetch the King's
second wife, Joan of Navarre, widow of the Duke of
Brittany ; and when at last, after a first failure to
land in Brittany at all, they succeeded in conveying
the queen-elect across to Falmouth, storm-tossed but
safe, it was the Bishop of Lincoln who married the
royal pair in Winchester Cathedral on February 7th,
1403, old Bishop Wykeham being too infirm to take
part in the ceremony. If this marriage was " part
of a scheme for strengthening the English interest in
France,"1 it was a failure. Beaufort little dreamed
that forty years later he would come to find in the
cathedral of Winchester his only solace for the utter
failure of a still greater project of English supremacy
in France.
The state In 1401 Henry had entrusted the chancellorship to
of England. Edmund Stafford, Bishop of Exeter, Richard's last
chancellor. On February 28th, 1403, Stafford was
replaced by the Bishop of Lincoln. On March 2nd
the visitation of St. Mary's Hospital in the city was
committed to two royal clerks because " the King's
brother the chancellor of England, to whom the
visitation of the King's hospitals pertained according
to his office," was occupied on urgent business.
It was indeed an arduous task that lay before the
young chancellor. Difficulties were thickening round
the King. His position was the precarious position
of a practically elective sovereign, and he had to strain
every nerve to keep a " sufficient majority of the
1 Oman, Polit. Hist, of Engl., 1377-1485, p. 174.
NATIONAL DISTRESS 11
nation at his back. " 1 He dealt leniently on the whole
with the partisans of the late King, and though the
keeper of Pontefract Castle, where the hapless
Richard died so mysteriously, was Sir Thomas
Swynford, the son of the King's stepmother Katharine,
Henry cannot be charged with personal responsibility
for that timely death. He humoured the parliament
which was his real master, and he gave a qualified
assent or at least a tactful refusal to the demands
which the commons made in the direction of parlia-
mentary independence. Arundel and the clergy
were conciliated by the anti-Lollard legislation of
1401. Yet in 1402 the first flush of national enthu-
siasm had died away, and Henry was in sore straits.
His invasion of Scotland in 1400 had led to an inces-
sant border warfare. His premature severity turned
a feud between Glendower and an English lord-
marcher into a war for the national freedom of Wales.
His negotiations with France proved barren or
humiliating. Meanwhile the financial needs of the
crown fell heavily upon every class of the community.
Reaction broke at last into disorder. In May, 1402,
the bishops and lords in each county, Beaufort
amongst them, were commissioned to deal stringently
with offenders " who told many lies in divers parts of
the realm in taverns and other congregations of the
people, preaching among other things that the King
had not kept the promises he made at his advent
into the realm and at his coronation and in parlia-
ments and councils that the laws and laudable
customs of the realm should be conserved."2
Beaufort's commission as Bishop of Lincoln extended
over the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Buckingham,
1 Oman, Polit. Hist, of England, 1377-1485, p. 154.
3 Patent Rolls, 1402, May 11th.
12
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
The
Chancellor
in Council
and in
Parliament.
Bedford, Oxford, Huntingdon, Northampton, and
Rutland. In July, 1402, he was commissioned along
with the chancellor of Oxford to deal with the Welsh
students who " assembled nightly in divers unlawful
congregations for the purpose of rebellion," * probably
encouraged by the defeat of the royal troops in Wales
a month before. When parliament met in October,
1402, Bishop Stafford was full of the distress in the
country. He tried to make much of the honour
implied in the Emperor's invitation to the King to
take part in the healing of the papal schism, and of
the victory won by the Percies over the Scots at
Homildon ; but he confessed, " God has inflicted
punishments in divers manners upon this realm."
Such was the situation that Beaufort had to face
early in 1403. While Henry was fighting hard
against Glendower and the Percies, Beaufort was hard
at work as chancellor in London, where his conve-
nience was met by the assignment of Walthamstow
and Old Stratford as places of residence for him.
In October the King wrote to thank chancellor and
council for sending prompt supplies to the Duke of
York, who had succeeded John and Thomas Beaufort
in command of the newly recovered fortress of
Carmarthen, where a French squadron had come to
aid the Welsh. In November Thomas was promoted
to the admiralship of the northern fleet. The war
was, however, still a serious struggle when the
chancellor faced his first parliament on January 14th,
1404. He made his opening speech, contrary to
custom, on the first day. " He had no cheering tidings
to impart, and so perhaps he sought to get through
an awkward duty in a thin house." 2 His report was
1 Patent Rolls, 1402, July 18th.
■ Ramsay, Lancaster and York, i, 69.
THE CHANCELLOR'S STATESMANSHIP 13
certainly discouraging. The recent revolt of the
Percies had a plausible pretext in the grievances of
the nation. Wales was still stubbornly resisting ;
hostilities had broken out in France ; and money
was wanted everywhere. The speaker of the commons
roundly asserted that it was not the military activity
but the economic mismanagement of the King that
was responsible for the national distress ; and the
commons unfolded an array of complaints to which
the King's needs compelled him to assent. Foreign-
ers were to be removed from the King's household,
and its expenditure to be reduced, and the King was
to publish the names of those ministers who were to
form " his great and continual council." The
commons pointedly warned the chancellor and the
treasurer that if the grievances were not promptly
redressed, parliament might be dispersed by news of
invasion " or in some other way " and not meet again.
Henry's financial integrity has been vindicated ; the
commons were actuated by " ignorant impatience of
all taxation in a time of great national need."1 A
word may be added here in defence of the chancellor.
It has been the fashion to deride the political sermons
which he like other chancellors preached at the
opening of each session of parliament. His texts
were often far-fetched and his exegesis forced, but
his thesis was mostly sound statesmanship, and, after
all, rhetoric is no proof of insincerity. In this parlia-
ment he took for his text, " In the multitude of
counsellors there is safety," and drew an elaborate
picture of the realm as a body in which the right side
represented the spiritual estate, the left the temporal,
and the limbs the commonalty. The head, he left it
1 Oman, p. 187.
14 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
to be inferred , was the crown. * After all allowance
made for opportunism in the minister and for ambition
in the man, the fact remains that Beaufort stood forth
here and again and again as the exponent, if not the
author, of a policy of constitutional government which
recognised the importance of the co-operation of all
estates of the realm as clearly as it vindicated the
supremacy of the crown.
"The A new parliament met in October, 1404. The
ParHa-116 chancellor explained that the summoning of a second
ment ' ' parliament within the year was due to the inadequacy
of the grants made in April. 2 The old dangers were
still urgent, and France was now afoot against
Guienne. This parliament was memorable in two
ways. (1) The King directed the sheriffs to return no
lawyers. Perhaps it was the lawyers who had been
foremost in pressing points of parliamentary privilege
as against the crown ; perhaps it was their habit of
promoting litigation that was partly to blame for
their exclusion, which gave rise to the name of " the
unlearned parliament." But the name given by
another chronicler, " the lay parliament," recalls the
fact that lawyers and clerks were largely identical as
a class, 3 though it is hard to see why the King who
assented to anti-Lollard legislation should set himself
against clerks. In any case, it is uncertain how far
the chancellor-bishop was responsible for the insertion
of this prohibition in the writs of summons. (2) The
second notable feature of this parliament was that the
chancellor's request for further supplies was met by
the proposal of the knights of the shires to appropriate
clerical revenues for one year to military purposes.
1 Rot. Pari, iii, 522.
2 Rot. Pari, iii, 545.
» Stubbe, Const. Hist., iii, 46 ; Ramsay, i, 79 n.
THE UNLEARNED PARLIAMENT 15
The primate retorted that the knights should have
left the alien priories in the hands of the King ; the
Bishop of Rochester reminded them that their pro-
posal was a violation of Magna Charta and meant ex-
communication for its authors ; but the rejection of
the proposal was due largely to the opposition of the
lay magnates, who were similarly attacked by the
commons' petition for the resumption of all crown
grants made since 1367. This recurrence of the cry
for disendowment was " simply an anti-clerical, not
a Wycliffite movement " * ; and the chancellor-bishop
doubtless resisted the cry, though no record has been
preserved of his reply. But his attitude towards the
taxation of the clergy is less easy to discover. Con-
vocation was unwilling to extend its own taxation
to the stipendiary clergy (chaplains and other
assistant priests), and the archbishop advised the
King to bring episcopal pressure to bear upon the case.
The bishops had an interview with the chancellor and
other officers of the crown, who finally recommended
that the letters to the bishops should bear the King's
own signet instead of the privy seal. 2 But it is not
clear whether the chancellor's idea was to make the
bishops' pressure upon the clergy effective or to
lighten the royal pressure upon the bishops. It is
interesting to note here a loan of 2,000 marks from
Beaufort to the King in May, 1404, for the equipment
of the southern fleet against French raids. A second
loan of 2,000 marks followed in October. They were
the first of a long series which made the bishop's name
a frequent topic in national finance.
• Just before the October session William of Bishop of
Wykeham, royal architect, bishop, founder of Wmchester
1 Oman, p. 191.
2 Proceedings of Privy Council, i, 100, 101.
16 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
colleges, passed away in his eighty-third year. On
March 14th, 1405, Beaufort was translated to the
rich see of Winchester thus vacated. He had left
but little mark upon the diocese of Lincoln during
his seven years' episcopate beyond one important
laudum or award in 1400 which was regarded as a
famous precedent. The dean, John Schepye, had
been trespassing upon the rights of the chapter, and
the canons appealed to the crown ; the bishop was
commissioned by the King to hear and settle the case,
and gave his decision in favour of the chapter. *
For the Church of England at large he had done
nothing but summon one convocation in 1402 and
open another in 1404 as the commissary of the
primate. His energies were now to find scope in
unofficial but influential activity at home and in
Resignation diplomacy abroad. A fortnight before his formal
Chancellor- translati°n he resigned the chancellorship, which was
ship. given into the safe hands of Thomas Langley, an
executor of John of Gaunt's will. The idea that his
resignation was due to any loss of his royal brother's
favour is inconsistent with his promotion to Win-
chester and with his employment in 1406 and after-
wards as an ambassador to treat with France for
a truce or a peace and for a marriage between the
Prince of Wales and a daughter of the French king.
It is more likely that the King relieved him of the
chancellorship to set him free for foreign employment.
The King's jealousy was of later date ; at this stage
he seems to have sought in Henry Beaufort a strong
man for negotiations which had failed in the weaker
hands of his brother John.
1 Patent Rolls, 1400, Dec. 2nd ; Bradshaw, Lincoln Cath.
Statutes, Pt. II, pp. 249-255.
CHAPTER II
CONFLICT OF PARTIES
1406-1413
Beaufort's embassy to the French court early in Rivalry of
1406 proved unsuccessful, and he returned to political A™ndel
life at home as a member of the permanent council Beaufort.
nominated by the King at the request of the commons.
The appointment of this council was in part a relief
to an overworked and ailing sovereign, but it was also
a victory for a persistent parliament, and the victory
was carried a long step further by the promulgation
of thirty-one articles to regulate the procedure of
King and council. These articles " amounted to a
supersession of the royal authority,"1 and were only
robbed of a revolutionary significance by the fact
that the councillors were staunch supporters of the
King, and by the provision that the arrangement was
only to last until the next parliament.
Meanwhile the influence of Beaufort on the council
was limited by the prominence of a rival, Archbishop
Arundel. In fact the rivalry between the two was
one of the chief factors in the history of the rest of
the reign. They took part together in the consecra-
tion of Chancellor Langley as Bishop of Durham in
August, 1406, and of a new Bishop of London in
September, and they both lent large sums of money
to the King in August. But when on January 30th,
1407, Bishop Langley resigned the chancellorship,
disheartened perhaps by the stubborn temper of
parliament, it was not Beaufort but Arundel who took
1 Stubbs, iii, 57.
17
3— (2810)
18 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
his place. On February 9th the King confirmed the
act by which Richard had legitimised the Beauforts,
but with the addition of a clause barring their suc-
cession to the crown.1 The addition was invalid,
as the original unfettered grant of legitimation in
1397 had received parliamentary sanction. But it
was significant either of hostility on the part of
Arundel or of jealousy on the part of the King or of
both perhaps in that order. The hostility was
doubtless mutual, but apart from the natural envy of
rivals its grounds are hard to define. They may have
been personal. The archbishop may have resented
the scandal of Beaufort's connexion with his niece,
or he may have remembered the share of the Beauforts
in the execution of his brother the earl in 1397. There
may have been political grounds also. Staunchly
loyal as the archbishop was to Henry IV, he had yet
as leader of the council of 1406 been a party to
concessions to the commons which threatened the
dignity of the crown. Beaufort and his friends were
perhaps more inclined to resent such diminution of
royal prerogative. Arundel again " embodied the
traditions of the elder baronage " ;2 Beaufort was
typical of the new aristocracy of the court party.
But the whole situation was intricate. The rivalry
between Arundel and Beaufort and the opposition
between council and parliament were complicated by
the jealousy which divided the royal house itself and
set brother against brother and father against son.
Practically the last five years of the reign were a
strife between two factions— the one headed by the
Prince of Wales and the Beauforts, the other by the
archbishop and afterwards the King's second son
1 Excerpta Hist., p. 153.
2 Stubbs, iii, 60.
ARUNDEL IN POWER 19
Thomas, though it is hard to say whether it was the
Prince who sided first with the Beauforts against
Arundel or the Beauforts who took the Prince's side.
The King, stricken by disease just as the wars and
troubles of his earlier years died down, could only
struggle to assert his personality now and again.
(1) The story falls into three sections marked by the Chancellor-
tenure of the chancellorship by either party in turn. ^ip °f.
Arundel was chancellor from January, 1407, to
December, 1409. Parliament was again refractory.
The speaker criticised the expenditure of the council,
and Arundel had to protest that they had worked
hard and lent generously, and must resign if their
services were not more thankfully recognised. The
speaker was Thomas Chaucer, son of the poet and
kinsman of the Beauforts, and his criticism of Arundel
and the council was probably inspired in part by his
connexion with the Bishop of Winchester, who had
made him constable of his castle at Taunton in 1406.
The commons were friendly enough to the Prince,
and gave him a vote of thanks for his services in the
Welsh wars. But they were insistent on their rights ;
they claimed, and carried their claim, to take the
initiative in all grants of money to the crown.
The last revolt of the old Earl of Northumberland The Papal
was crushed in the spring of 1408, and Henry and the Schism an.d
archbishop were now free to take a more active 0f Pto??^
interest in " the great European question of the
time," the schism between the rival popes, Benedict
XIII of Avignon and Gregory XII of Rome. Already
in 1401 parliament had urged the King to take steps
toward the closing of the breach. In 1402 Chancellor
Stafford had referred with pride to the news that
Rupert, King of the Romans, had appealed to Henry
as " the most powerful king in the world " to work
20 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
for the unity of the Church. The commons showed
their zeal for the Church by renewing their petition
to the King, their care for the national purse by
deprecating again any serious expenditure in the
cause. At last in July, 1408, a committee of convoca-
tion, including both Arundel and Beaufort, was
appointed to consider ways and means of ending the
schism. Gregory, the pope recognised by the
English, had just alienated his cardinals, who
promptly appealed to a general council to meet at
Pisa in 1409. The convocation of July, 1408, resolved
with the King's approval that the payment of papal
dues should be suspended until either the schism was
ended or Gregory had satisfied England that he was
doing his best to end the schism, and an ultimatum
to that effect was conveyed to Gregory by Beaufort,
the Abbot of Shrewsbury, Lord Scrope, and the
Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge. * In Novem-
ber the Cardinal-Archbishop of Bordeaux came to
London on behalf of the sacred college, and Henry,
while still refusing to renounce Gregory, promised
to send representatives to the council of Pisa and to
urge Gregory to attend himself. The council met,
declared both popes schismatics, and in June, 1409,
elected a new pope, Peter of Candia (Alexander V),
a Franciscan of Greek birth who had graduated in
theology at Oxford. This election is said to have
been due to the advocacy of Hallam, Bishop of
Salisbury, a former chancellor of Oxford. Beaufort's
Beaufort share in the whole matter is ambiguous. A recently
and Pope published volume of papal letters contains a bull
Gregory. jssue(i by Gregory in August, 1409, in which he
conferred upon Beaufort the powers of a special
legate (legatus a latere) to be exercised in England
1 Wilkins, Concilia, iii, 308-310.
>
BEAUFORT AND THE PAPAL SCHISM 21
and Ireland on behalf of the unity of the Church, with
particular reference to " the fresh schism " recently
added at Pisa in the person of Peter of Candia, some-
time Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, " called
Alexander V."1 Beaufort was busy in France from
May to September, 1409, as the leading member of
an embassy sent to negotiate for a truce or peace
and for the marriage of a French princess to the
Prince of Wales. He may have extended his diplo-
matic efforts to Rome, or he may have come to an
understanding with Gregory when he conveyed the
ultimatum of Henry in 1408. It is evident that
Gregory, whether independently or in consequence
of previous conference or correspondence with
Beaufort, made a bold bid for his services with the idea
of undoing the work of the Council of Pisa. There is
no indication either of acceptance or of refusal on
Beaufort's part. Henry IV had given his adhesion
to the decrees of the council, but it was not until
October 22nd that he ordered the sheriffs to proclaim
the election of Alexander, with whom, however, he
had exchanged complimentary letters. He may
have been merely waiting for the personal reports of
his representatives returning from Pisa. On October
28th he forbade the seneschal of Aquitaine to execute
the sentences of excommunication passed by Benedict
and Gregory alike upon the Archbishop of Bordeaux,
the envoy of the cardinals in 1408. 2 It would be
easy to recognise in Henry's proclamations a reply
to Beaufort's papal commission. But it is very
doubtful whether Beaufort ever accepted the com-
mission. In later years when his legatine commissions
of 1417 and 1427 were made the grounds of an attack
1 Papal Letters, vi, 99.
8 Rymer, Foedera, viii, 604,
22
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Predomi-
nance of
the Prince
of Wales
and the
Beauforts.
upon his loyalty, not a word was said of any earlier
commission. The most that can be safely stated is
that Gregory, remembering that Henry had remained
loyal to him even while bringing pressure upon him in
1408, and knowing perhaps that Beaufort was at
variance with Arundel, endeavoured to secure the
support of Beaufort, and through the support of
Beaufort to regain the support of England, where he
still had not a few sympathisers.
Meanwhile Arundel was in difficulties. In January
he re-enacted in synod at St. Paul's the constitutions
which he had enacted in synod at Oxford in 1407.
He had endeavoured to repress the Lollardism of the
university by restricting alike preaching, the transla-
tion of the Bible, and the printing or teaching of
Wycliffite doctrine. The graduates of Oxford rebelled
in defence of their academic liberties, and their
rebellion had the support of the Prince of Wales.
They submitted, but reluctantly, and only for a time ;
and the strength of their opposition was probably in
part the cause of Arundel's resignation of the
chancellorship in December, 1409.
(2) For the next two years the government was
practically in the hands of the Prince and his friends.
The King was reluctant to part with Arundel, and
the chancellorship remained vacant for more than
a month, but on January, 31st, 1410, the seal was
entrusted to Thomas Beaufort. Meanwhile parlia-
ment had met, with Chaucer again for speaker. In
the absence of a chancellor the session was opened by
the Bishop of Winchester. The Prince was at the
head of the council, and the King's intermittent
malady left the Prince regent in fact if not in name.
The bishop took as his text at the opening of the
session the words, " it becometh us to fulfil all
BEAUFORT IN PARLIAMENT 23
righteousness." 1 He stated the two needs of the day.
the maintenance of law and order at home, and the
defence of the realm against the danger on the
Scottish border and against the designs of the Duke
of Burgundy upon Calais. He " rehearsed very
discreetly " the two elements of good government,
namely, rule and subjection, and proceeded first to
illustrate the duty of the sovereign, as became a
former chancellor of Oxford, by quoting Aristotle's
remark to Alexander that the security of a realm lay
in the affection of a people protected in the enjoyment
of their rights, and then to enforce the threefold duty
of the people to their sovereign, " honour and
obedience, reverence and benevolence, and cordial
assistance." The anti-clerical party was proof
against the political philosophy of the bishop, charmed
he never so wisely. A petition was presented by the
Lollard knights deprecating the arrest of heretics by
the civil magistrates. The voice of the commons as
a whole spoke in a later petition asking that no action
should be taken on the former petition ; yet they
seriously proposed that the King should eke out their
subsidies by confiscating half the income of all
non-resident incumbents. The King replied that
14 this matter appertained to Holy Church," and that
the question of non-residence had been considered
in the last convocation. The chroniclers record a
yet more drastic proposal for the disendowment of
bishops, abbots and priors, whose wealth would, it
was said, maintain an army of earls, knights, and
squires, and still leave a wide margin for the poor
and for the crown.2 It was the Prince even more
than the King who silenced this proposal. The
1 Hot. Pari., iii, 622.
2 Kingsford, Chronicles of London, pp. 65, 295.
24 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Prince's support of the Oxford masters was no proof
of sympathy with Lollardism. He repressed its
social side in parliament, and during that very session
he sent the poor tailor Badby back to the stake.
Prince and chancellor, Winchester and Canterbury,
all had been associated in Badby's trial before con-
vocation. There was practically no difference
between the two parties in matters of orthodoxy and
persecution.
When the commons in May, 1410, pressed for the
formal nomination of the King's council, he replied
that certain lords whom he had chosen had asked to
be excused, probably Arundel and his late colleagues.
The council then named — a smaller council than
usual— was practically a close ministry of Beauforts
with the Prince at their head. It consisted of the
Prince, the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishops of
Durham and Bath and Wells (old colleagues of Henry
Beaufort, and the only bishops in whose consecration
he took part for twenty years together), the Earl of
Westmoreland (Beaufort's brother-in-law), the Earl
of Arundel (nephew of the primate), and Lord Burnell.
The Earl of Arundel, though not opposed to his uncle,
was in closer sympathy with the younger party.
Into the work of this council the Prince and the bishop
threw themselves without stint. The records of the
council bear vivid witness to the variety and minute-
ness of the business transacted in the summer of 1410
after the dissolution of parliament.1 Calais was
their chief anxiety. On the death of its captain,
John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, in March, 1410, it
was retained by the Prince in his own hands, and in
June three-quarters of the year's customs were
assigned for its defence. Loans were raised from
1 Proceedings, i, 331 foil.
ACTIVITY OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL 25
London citizens and Italian merchant-companies to
provide for garrisons in Wales. Bishops and barons
and knights were set to borrow hard in their respective
counties, Henry Beaufort making himself solely
responsible for £1,000 from Hampshire, Wiltshire,
Berkshire, and Oxford. Estimates of the needs of
the frontiers, reports in person from officers at Calais
as to the conditions of military service there, notes of
instructions to sheriffs, commissions of enquiry into
fraudulent returns of revenue, despatches to John of
Lancaster (the Prince's brother) and the Earl of
Westmoreland on the Scottish border, memoranda
from English ambassadors in Flanders stating the
grievances of Flemish merchants against English
highwaymen and sea-rovers, grievances which were
endangering the prospect of peace with Burgundy,—
such were the matters which occupied the Prince and
Beaufort while their rival the archbishop was using
his enforced freedom from cares of state to discipline
the Lollards of Oxford.
The university had already been brought to the Arundel
notice of parliament in 1410 by a petition from the university
civil authorities of the city and county asking for the of Oxford,
revocation of the judicial privileges of the university
in consequence of the disorderly behaviour of its
members. The King ordered the chancellor of the
university to produce its charters, and instructed the
council to revoke such privileges as were prejudicial
to the crown. Such other privileges as were prejudi-
cial to the rights of the Prince or the Bishop of
Winchester or other persons possessing " liberties " at
Oxford were to be revised by the council with the
law-officers of the crown. But in 141 1 the Prince had
to intervene in a more serious dispute. The arch-
bishop announced his intention to hold a visitation of
26
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Alliance
with
Burgundy.
the university. The chancellor, Courtenay, the
Prince's friend, headed a revolt and garrisoned
St. Mary's Church against the primate with armed
scholars. The primate replied with an interdict
which was ignored, and at last the dispute was
referred to the King. Henry forced the chancellor and
proctors to resign, and reaffirmed the archbishop's
right of visitation. Parliament ratified the King's
decision, but the university re-elected the chancellor
and proctors. It was at this point that the Prince
intervened. He induced the masters to drop their
claim of exemption, and the King to accept the
re-election of the officials. The archbishop then
proceeded with his visitation. The Prince had gained
but little here ; elsewhere he had lost heavily. At
the beginning of 1412 the Prince and the Beauforts
were displaced to make way for Arundel and the
Prince's brother Thomas.
It was a bold venture into the troubled region of
French politics that had brought the Prince into
disgrace. France was torn by the strife of two
factions, the one led by the Duke of Burgundy, the
other by the Duke of Orleans, nephew of the French
king, and his father-in-law the Count of Armagnac.
In the summer of 1411 both parties sought help in
England. Commercial interests in Flanders induced
Henry to send an embassy to Burgundy, but with
careful precautions against a breach with the French
court. The Prince, impatient of delay or diplomacy,
sent troops at once. The English contingent enabled
Burgundy to clear Paris of the Armagnacs and to
win a decisive victory at St. Cloud; but the im-
portance of this expedition lay in the discovery
that " twelve hundred Englishmen could utterly
turn the balance between the two great French
DISCORD IN THE ROYAL FAMILY
27
factions."1 This was a discovery which did much
to replace a cautious policy of peace with France
by a belief in the possibility of a successful war.
St. Cloud was largely responsible for Agincourt.
Meanwhile the King, who had been delayed by
sickness even more than by hesitation, was gravely
resentful of his son's presumption. Two other
factors had recently entered into the situation at
home. Thomas of Lancaster, the King's second son,
had quarrelled with the Beauforts. He had obtained
a dispensation to marry the widow of his uncle, the
late Earl of Somerset, and the Bishop of Winchester
as chief executor of his brother the earl made his
protest against the marriage by refusing to pay the
widow's dower out of the earl's estate. Already
Thomas had been on strained terms with the Prince's
council. When he asked for an advance of salary as
lieutenant of Ireland in June, 1410, the council told
him that they were prepared to make their promised
payments if he was prepared to carry out his pro-
mised work. Now the Prince protected the bishop
so effectively that Thomas only got his bare claim and
no personal satisfaction ; and the disappointed
litigant withdrew from his brother's party and entered
into closer relations with his father the King. The
other disturbing factor in the situation was far less
to Beaufort's credit. The chroniclers relate that the
Prince at the suggestion of Beaufort requested the
King to resign the crown on account of the recurrence
of his disease, and that the King met the request with
an indignant refusal. The story is not improbable.
One French chronicler states that in 1406 the embassy
headed by Beaufort endeavoured to win the French
to the idea of a marriage alliance by representing
1 Ramsay, i, 131.
Quarrel
with
Thomas of
Lancaster.
Beaufort
and the
Prince 's
design
upon the
Crown.
28 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
that Henry was about to abdicate, and that the
Prince would soon be virtual ruler of England. It
is a significant fact that in 1426 when the bishop
repudiated so vigorously other charges then made
against his loyalty to three successive sovereigns, he
was practically silent upon this charge. If it was true
it would be intelligible enough. The King's malady
was a serious weakness to the government, and the
desire to remedy this weakness may have been as
prominent in Beaufort's mind as the ambition of
guiding a young king instead of a prince in occasional
authority. Still it was a heartless proposal, and the
Beauforts paid as dearly as the Prince for the false
step. When parliament met in November, 1411, the
vagueness of Thomas Beaufort's opening address as
chancellor betrayed the uncertainty of their position.
They still had influence enough to secure the election
of Chaucer again as speaker, but the King met the
speaker's customary request for liberty of speech with
the brusque assertion that " he would have no novel-
ties in that parliament." On November 30th the
commons prayed the King to thank the Prince and
the council for their services. The Prince declared
on behalf of himself and his colleagues that they had
done their best for the realm in all sincerity, and the
King remarked that he knew they would have done
better still if they had been better supplied with
funds, and that he was " quite satisfied of their good
and loyal diligence, counsel and duty for the time that
they were of his council." His language was com-
plimentary, but it sounded like the close of a chapter,
and such it proved to be. On the last day of the session
he asserted his royal prerogative so emphatically that
the commons prayed him to silence the rumours
of his displeasure by a distinct acknowledgment
FALL OF THE BEAUFORT MINISTRY 29
of the loyalty of all the estates, and he granted
their petition. 1 The Beauforts had evidently not
forfeited the confidence of the commons by their
support of the royal prerogative earlier in the reign.
The victory of St. Cloud and the popularity of the
Prince counted for much, but Henry Beaufort was
fast becoming a power in the land. Whether from
his growing financial importance or from his frank
recognition of the place of the commons in national
life, he had already gained an influence in parliament
which stood him in good stead more than once in
later days.
(3) The King, however, held his own. Parliament The Prince
dispersed in December. On January 5th, 1412, Beauforts
Arundel took Thomas Beaufort's place as chancellor, -in disgrace.
Thomas of Lancaster succeeded his brother on the
council, and the Archbishop of York succeeded the
Bishop of Winchester. It was in modern parlance
a complete change of ministry. The Armagnacs took
prompt advantage of the change, and sent envoys to
London to offer Aquitaine as the price of Henry's
support. The offer was accepted. The Burgundian
alliance, the deliberate policy of the Prince and
Beaufort, favoured by the King at heart, commended
by the commercial importance of Flanders to England,
sealed already by the victory of St. Cloud, and
pledged to continuance by the still pending negotia-
tions for the marriage of the Prince to Anne of
Burgundy, was flung aside for a costly expedition to
Guienne in conjunction with the Armagnacs, the
traditional enemies of the house of Lancaster. Money
was raised by loans under the privy seal, but the
Bishop of Winchester was not among the eleven
bishops who contributed. He was ready enough to
1 Rot. Pari., iii, 647-649.
30 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
lend for national needs, but this was a reckless
reversal of his own policy. It was, moreover, a
financial blunder. The minutes of the council contain
a budget showing a serious deficit, and ending with
the significant confession : " this memorandum was
never shown to the King."1
Meanwhile the Prince made a bold bid for reinstate-
ment in influence, if not in office. He came to
London in June attended " by much people of lords
and gentles " to demand the vindication of his
character, perhaps also to force the resignation of
Arundel. Henry gave him an interview, and accepted
his protestation of loyalty, but postponed his griev-
ances against the " slanderers " who had " sown
discord " between father and son to the hearing of
parliament. Within a week Thomas was made Duke
of Clarence and sailed for France as lieutenant of
Aquitaine. With him went Thomas Beaufort, now
Earl of Dorset, an interesting counterpart to the Earl
of Arundel on the Prince's side. " The lords,"
however, " were accorded ere they came " ; Orleans
had already made his peace with the King of France,
and Clarence had to tell his father in October that
the English must submit to be paid off. The Prince
meanwhile had not allowed matters to rest. He
extracted from the council a formal acknowledgment
of his financial integrity in the matter of Calais, and
in September he came to the council " with an huge
people," probably to press home the scandal of the
French fiasco to his own advantage, though ostensibly
only to demand satisfaction for his own malignment
by his opponents. It is probable that Bishop
Beaufort was not far away in the background, but
the only reference to his name is a mysterious tale of
1 Proceedings, ii, 33.
PLOT AGAINST THE PRINCE
31
intrigue which is incredible in the precise shape in
which it is recorded. x The bark of a faithful spaniel
led to the discovery of a stranger hiding in the
Prince's chamber at Westminster. The man confessed
that he had been sent by the Bishop of Winchester
to murder the Prince in bed. Years afterwards the
bishop denied the charge that he had sent the man
to murder the Prince. The denial was superfluous.
Probably no actual murder was planned by anybody ;
the author of the plot was merely bent on fastening
the imputation of murderous intent upon somebody.
The plot can scarcely have been an attempt of the
archbishop's party to poison the Prince's mind against
Beaufort ; such an idea must have been hopeless in
view of the close intimacy between the two. It is
more likely that the man was actually sent by the
Bishop of Winchester, to set people thinking that
Arundel had used the man as a tool to implicate
Beaufort. Arundel would have been discredited by
the supposition that he had been guilty of such a trick.
The unsavoury mystery, however, remained a mys-
tery. The Earl of Arundel, who was entrusted with
the trial of the case, had the poor wretch dropped into
the Thames in a sack. If the earl was an outright
partisan of the Prince, his summary closure of the
only available evidence would tell against the Beaufort
party. But he seems to have been on fairly good
terms with his uncle the archbishop, and it is
uncertain therefore which party he thought he was
shielding.
The tale of intrigue and counter-intrigue was soon
to end. On March 20th, 1413, Henry IV passed away.
His will bore traces of recent history ; York and
Durham were among his executors, but not Winchester.
1 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., p. 78.
Beaufort
accused of
treachery
towards
the Prince.
Accession
of Henry V.
Beaufort
Chancellor
again.
32 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Bishop Henry's support or instigation of an unrilial
Prince had wiped out the memory of his earlier
services to the King. The supervisors of the will were
the Prince and the primate ; the father had died at
peace with his son, and hoped perhaps that the Prince
would live at peace, if not work in union, with his old
opponent. But the Prince's choice had long been
made, and on the day after his accession he trans-
ferred the seal from Arundel to Beaufort. It was not
a choice of mere affection or impulse. Early intimacy
had done much perhaps to bind uncle and nephew
together. There is no evidence for or against any
connexion of the bishop with those faults or sins in
the Prince which tradition has touched into such
bold contrast to the high aims of the young King of
twenty-six. No definite inference can be drawn from
the bare fact that in the first year of his reign Henry V
repaid over £800 which Beaufort had lent him when he
was Prince of Wales. It is .probable on the other
hand that the two had observed and discussed not
a few of the lessons that Henry IV was learning in
those anxious days when parliament was keeping him
in his place in a double sense — hedging his throne
with faithful but parsimonious support, and at the
same time with persistent, if loyal, limitations.
Beaufort had seen early in the reign that for a realm
just emerged from an alternation of anarchy and
despotism, and for the first sovereign of a new
dynasty just feeling his way to security, the path of
recovery and strength lay in mutual forbearance and
support. The conditions of this mutual support
must inevitably in the absence of precedent be a
matter of experiment, in which Beaufort was prepared
to insist on the King's having the benefit of the doubt
as far as parliament would consent to give him that
POLITICAL PROSPECTS 33
benefit. But as Henry's position became surer, and
still more as the younger Henry's popularity grew
heartier, Beaufort may have come to dream of an
England which should be strong at home in a personal
as well as constitutional bond between King and
people, and in that strength should venture great
things abroad for the recovery of old prestige. Prob-
ably there entered into this dream an ambition of
his own, however vague as yet. But there is no
ground for the assumption, so often made in estimates
of Beaufort's character, that such an ambition is so
exclusively selfish or so inherently immoral as to
vitiate the honesty and the patriotism of any policy
of which it is a factor.
4— (2210)
CHAPTER III
SECOND TENURE OF THE CHANCELLORSHIP
1413-1417
The new " The unquiet time of King Henry the Fourth," in
Ki*& the quaint language of Hall, a sixteenth-century
Chancellor historian, was followed by " the victorious acts of
King Henry the Fifth." The reign which ended m
1413 had indeed been an unquiet time. Its earlier
years had been marked by wars and rumours of wars
on the borders, by conspiracy or revolt within the
baronage, by friction between King and parliament ;
its last five years were disturbed by a rivalry of
chancellors and princes which prevented either a firm
government at home or a consistent policy abroad.
With the advent of Henry V to the throne a change
came over the spirit of the nation as well as over the
new King himself. The fresh sense of responsibility
which sent him straight from his father's death-bed
to a spiritual adviser, the blending of caution and
charity which honoured or reinstated opponents or
victims of his father, and changed the composition of
the ministry right through without making an enemy,
—these were notes of a personality which brought
healing and strength to the body politic. Parliament
felt the spell. When Chancellor Beaufort discoursed
in May, 1413, from the text, "Before all action sound
advice," and exhorted the estates to maintain the
royal dignity, to labour for good government and law,
and to safeguard possessions abroad by resisting
enemies and by making friends, the commons hinted
indeed broadly that the King knew how far his father's
34
KING AND CHANCELLOR 35
promises of good government had been fulfilled, and
they dwelt on various symptoms of weakness and
disorder at home and abroad, but they took kindly
even his refusals of sundry petitions for redress of
ecclesiastical abuses, and they gave him respectable
financial support as he faced the first tasks of his
reign.1
Two problems were awaiting the young King's
attention- — the Lollards at home, the French abroad.
It is difficult to decide how far the authorship or the
responsibility of the line of policy followed in either
case is to be attributed to the King or to the chancellor
who for four years was second only to his master.
The chancellor's opening address in parliament occu-
pied in those days the place of the modern speech from
the throne, but there the resemblance ends. The
King's speech of our day contains a definite outline
of legislative proposals which represent the policy
of the cabinet ; the chancellor's address of that day
made more or less pointed reference to current needs,
but such general hints of action as were conveyed
thereby were given and taken as indications of the
policy of the King. The council which stood between
King and parliament stood nearer to the King than
to the parliament, and the chancellor who was prac-
tically the prime minister of those days was the
agent of the royal will and not the exponent of parlia-
mentary feeling. Beaufort therefore as chancellor
was to all intents and purposes the mouthpiece of
the King. How far the policy to which he gave
voice was first shaped by his own private influence is
a secret which history has not revealed. The one
thing which seems to stand out clearly is the difference
between the two men in the very things upon which
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 3, 4.
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
The
Chancellor
and the
Lollards.
they were agreed. The King was the better church-
man of the two. If Beaufort persecuted Lollards for
the sake of law and order, Henry persecuted for the
sake of orthodoxy also. If Beaufort worked hard for
the conquest of France or for the unity of western
Christendom, it was chiefly to make England great, not
without a touch of ecclesiastical ambition of his own.
Henry, on the other hand, found room in his busy
mind, alongside the soldierly patriotism of an impe-
rialist English sovereign, for dreams in which he
himself figured alternately as a crusading patron of
Holy Church and as a divinely appointed instrument
for the chastisement of a sinful France. Yet it is
dangerous to argue from silence. If chronicler and
parliamentary scribe record little or nothing of
Beaufort which speaks of these or other ideals, it
may be because he was a man of action rather than of
words, or because he sank the expression of his own
sentiments in the execution of the plans of his friend
and master the King.
The Lollard question came up first for settlement.
Lollardism was still a living force. The archbishop's
stringent visitation of the university may have
provoked more Lollard activity elsewhere than it
suppressed at Oxford. The immunity of Lollard
knights in the service of the crown may have more
than neutralised the warning of the occasional
martyrdom of a humbler disciple. The great schism
may have given a new force to every argument against
the abuses of mediaeval church life. Whatever the
causes were, Lollardism was gaining rather than
losing ground in high places in England, while it was
exercising a growing influence upon the reforming
movement in Bohemia. Convocation urged the King
to strike at the leaders through Sir John Oldcastle,
DANGERS OF LOLLARDISM 37
a soldier and ambassador of distinction, and Henry,
rinding that a personal appeal to his old comrade
in arms failed to shake his convictions, authorised
the primate to proceed with the trial. Beaufort and
the Bishop of London sat as the assessors of the
archbishop in September, and at least assented to the
condemnation of the stalwart heretic. In October
Oldcastle escaped from the Tower, and early in
January, 1414, the government was face to face with
the certainty of a Lollard rising. The insurgents
were forestalled and crushed by the vigilance of the
King, and the ringleaders were executed, but the
insurrection was regarded as formidable enough to
take the first place among the subjects of the chan-
cellor's opening address in the parliament which met
at Leicester on April 30th. " He hath applied his
heart to observe the laws," so ran the text on which
he based his appeal for support for the King. x
Arundel, who died in February, 1414, had dealt with
Lollardism in convocation from the standpoint of a
churchman. Beaufort's attitude was rather that of
a statesman. He laid stress indeed upon the necessity
of keeping " the laws of God and the Christian faith,"
and dwelt upon the troubling of " the holy church of
England " by the malice of " certain people of
England infected with heresies called Lollards " ;
but he spoke forcibly of the danger involved for " all
the temporal estates of the realm " as well as for
" the estates and ministers of the said church." The
proclamation issued by the government after the late
rising suggested that the Lollards contemplated the
establishment of " a commonwealth or something
of the sort, with Oldcastle as protector."2 The
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 15, 16.
2 Ramsay, i, 179.
38 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
suggestion recalls the language of a petition presented
by the commons in the parliament of 1406 in the name
of Prince Henry and the lords. This petition, after
a reference to the Lollard outcry for the disendowment
of the Church, proceeded : " It is probable that in
course of time they (the Lollards) will excite and
move the people of your realm to oust and rob the
lords temporal of their possessions and inheritances
also, and thus make them all common, in overt
commotion of your people, and final destruction and
subversion of your realm for all time."1 It has been
said that " apart from their hostility to the possessions
of the clergy " there is no evidence that the Lollards
were guilty of " designs subversive of all government."2
But it is probable that the suspicions and suggestions
of the government were justified by the words and
actions of the wilder spirits among the Lollards of the
generation which succeeded Wy cliff e. There is no
doubt that even the saner spirits, if innocent of
socialistic designs, were not infrequently agents or
authors of political revolt. Oldcastle was on the
move again in 1415 in suggestive coincidence with the
conspiracy which burst on the eve of Henry's depar-
ture for France. It was this social or political aspect
of the Lollard agitation which led parliament to
respond to the chancellor's appeal in 1414 by assenting
to a statute requiring all civil officers of the realm,
from the chancellor down to a country mayor or
bailiff, to take the initiative in proceeding against
" all manner of heresies and errors commonly called
Lollar dries." Lollards were now considered guilty
of treason as well as heresy. The statute of 1414 did
not originate in any petition of the commons ; it was
1 Rot. Pari, iii, 583.
■ Ramsay, i, 181 n. 4.
THE BISHOPS AND THE FRENCH WAR 39
mainly the work of the King and the chancellor.
The leniency of the new Archbishop Chichele was more
than balanced by the severity of the King ; and in
May, 1415, amid the last stages of futile negotiation
with France and of busy preparation for the " voyage,"
the chancellor did not forget to communicate to the
bishops the King's instructions " to resist the malice
of the Lollards." The genius of Shakespeare has
given weight to the assertion of a late chronicler that
the French war itself was prompted by the bishops
in their alarm over the Lollard cry of disendowment.
Contemporary evidence is as silent upon this respon-
sibility of the bishops as it is explicit upon the King's
own eagerness for the war. It is just possible that
the obviously unauthentic speeches attributed by
Hall the historian to Archbishop Chichele and the
Earl of Westmoreland in his account of the Leicester
parliament x may have been based upon some utter-
ances of theirs at the privy council in 1415 ; perhaps
the bishops looked forward gladly to the approaching
war as likely to close the ranks of the nation at home
and efface internal differences on social and religious
questions. But the sequence of events indicates that
the war was regarded as inevitable before 1415, and
that as far as Beaufort was concerned the proceedings
against Lollardism were intended to set the govern-
ment free to deal energetically with the problem of
foreign policy rather than that the war itself was in
any sense promoted as a remedy for evils at home.
The two other matters of urgency which the chancellor
pressed upon the attention of parliament were the
piratical habits of English seamen, and the outbreaks
of border brigands. It would be unfair to describe
the chancellor as equating Lollardry with piracy and
1 Hall, pp. 49-57 ; Stubbs, iii, 85.
40
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
The
question
of war
with
France.
brigandage, but the juxtaposition of the three
suggests that it was the anarchical rather than the
unorthodox tendencies of Lollardism which brought
the movement under the watchful eye of the guardian
of the King's peace.
The work of Beaufort during the next three years
centred mainly round the war with France. That
war had been imminent from the beginning of the
reign. Henry and Beaufort had been associated
already in 1411 in a policy of armed intervention in
the troubled affairs of France, and the chancellor's
reference in the parliament of May, 1413, to the need
of resisting enemies and making friends abroad was
but a thinly veiled suggestion of alliance with Bur-
gundy against the Armagnac faction which was
disputing with Burgundy the control of the mad King
of France and his dissipated son the Dauphin. In
the summer of 1413, while the Burgundians were still
in the ascendant, Henry's envoys pressed the old
claim to the French crown and to the dominions ceded
under the treaty of Bretigny. When the Armagnacs
regained the upper hand, another English embassy
revived the more recent proposal for a marriage
between Henry and the young princess Katharine.
Nothing resulted in either case but a renewal of the
current truce and a promise of further negotiation.
Henry was biding his time. In the parliament of
April-May, 1414, the chancellor announced that the
King was not asking for subsidies but for " advice and
aid in good governance." It was important to secure
the assent of the commons to the anti-Lollard legisla-
tion then in hand. The question of peace or war was,
however, in the background. While parliament was
still sitting at Leicester, envoys from Armagnacs and
Burgundians alik§. were waiting upon the King, the
POLICY OF KING AND COUNCIL 41
former in London, the latter at Leicester. Henry
was still playing two games. Within a single fort-
night he had signed a secret treaty with Burgundy
pledging himself to take the field against the Ar-
magnacs, " saving the rights of the King of France,"
and sent envoys to negotiate for the hand of two
Katharines, a French princess and a Burgundian.
This double diplomacy was evidently intended merely
to gain time for preparation for war. This conclusion
is borne out by the extent of the claims advanced by
the envoys to the French court. Those claims
amounted to a practical demand for the whole of the
lost empire of the Angevin kings. Needless to say,
they were not entertained ; all that the French were
prepared to offer was a suggestion of territorial
concessions in Aquitaine. Meanwhile Henry was
pushing on his preparations. Ships and guns were
collected, and a great council was summoned at
Michaelmas to hear the King's case. The answer of
the lords and knights was loyal but cautious. They
were sure that " so Christian a prince " would contem-
plate " the shedding of Christian blood " for nothing
less than the " denying of right and reason " ; but
they suggested that the King might of his " own
proper motion " propose " some mean way or moder-
ing of his whole title." In the event of the failure
of any such offer they were willing to serve him in
person, and hoped that action would be ready and
prompt. * A week later convocation, led by its new
Primate Chichele, who, as Bishop of St. David's, had
taken part in the embassy of 1413, gave a double tenth
in evident expectation of war.
Council and convocation had practically voted for Final
war, and Beaufort had taken his part in both votes. J^*1^"
1 Proceedings, ii, 140. war.
/
42 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
His third share in the making up of the mind of the
nation came in the parliament which met in Novem-
ber. 1 In his opening address he quoted two texts.
The first, a free translation of Ecclesiasticus iv, 33,
" Thou shalt fight to the death for justice and pursue
what is just," was quoted incidentally by way of
giving sanction to the King's " desire for good and
discreet governance towards his enemies abroad," and
to his determination to exert himself for " the recovery
of the inheritance and right of his crown now long
withheld." The other, a still freer handling of the
Vulgate of Galatians vi, 10, "While we have time, let
us do good," was taken as his main theme. The
concluding words " unto all men " were omitted as
inconvenient for the immediate purpose of an appeal
to England to support its King in a war against France.
" Many authorities and notabilities " were cited in
illustration of the chancellor's theme, but its chief
feature was an elaborate parable which the parlia-
mentary scribe has preserved in the roll of the session.
From the successive stages of plant-life, bud, flower,
fruit, and repose, the chancellor drew the moral that
" so to man also is given a time for peace and a time
for war and work." " The King our sovereign lord,
considering the blessing of peace and tranquillity
reigning at present over all his realm by the high gift
of God, as is well perceived, and also on the other
hand the truth of his quarrel, which are the two things
most needful to each prince that has to war against
enemies abroad, understands that a convenient time
has now come to him to accomplish his said purpose
by the help of God, and thus while we have time let us
do good." For this high and honourable purpose the
King needed three things, " the wise and loyal
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 34.
THE CHANCELLOR IN PARLIAMENT 43
counsel of his lieges, the strong and true assistance of
his people, and copious subsidy from his subjects."
The speech ended with the customary invitation to
all who desired to petition for redress of private
grievances, but a lower note was struck by the
chancellor's final suggestion that the more the King's
patrimony was increased the more his lieges' burdens
would decrease. Petitions came in greater number
than usual, in the hope perhaps of finding Henry in
a generous mood at such a crisis, and the chancery
was kept busy issuing the letters patent which con-
veyed the King's favours. To the chancellor's
shrewd appeal for supply the commons responded
with two-fifteenths and two-tenths, but also with a
saving clause deprecating any actual " voyage "
until diplomacy had been tried once more. " The
recommendations of the council and commons and
the King's pious aspirations were perhaps equally
formal."1 In their final shape the demands of the
new English embassy amounted to a claim of all the
Bretigny domains, half Provence, and the Lordships
of Beaufort and Nogent in Artois. The last claim
was at once a pardonable touch of family pride and
a personal link between the King and his uncle the
chancellor. Beaufort and Nogent were the lost
inheritance of John of Gaunt 's wife, Blanche of
Lancaster, great granddaughter of Edmund Earl of
Lancaster and Blanche of Artois. The envoys asked
also for a million crowns as Katharine's dowry. The
French council, daunted perhaps by their knowledge
of a recent agreement between Henry and Burgundy,
offered liberal concessions in Aquitaine, and a dowry
of 600,000 crowns, afterward raised to 800,000
crowns, or over £130,000. The envoys had no
1 Kingsford, Henry V, p. 116.
44 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
instructions to accept such terms, and they returned
in March with a bare understanding that the French
were to send an embassy to London.
On April 12th the council met to deal with details
of business referred to them by the King. x It was
practically a small committee of council, consisting of
the King's brothers Bedford and Gloucester, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Chancellor Beaufort, the
Bishop of Durham, Thomas Beaufort, Earl of Dorset,
and the keeper of the privy seal. The council had
already provided for the safeguarding of the coasts
and the garrisoning of the marches and borders.
The Mayor of London was now instructed to provide
for the cheap sale of armour and equipment. One
important piece of business of which the chancellor
had charge at the council opens out a view of a wider
policy. It was the drafting of the King's instructions
to an embassy lately appointed to treat with Sigis-
mund, King of the Romans. A general council had
been summoned to meet at Constance in November,
1414, and the English representatives appointed in
October to attend the council were authorised to act
also as ambassadors to Sigismund, who had already
offered the prospect of an alliance which Henry was
glad to accept. The alliance was doubtless welcome
as an asset for the war against France, but it was part
of a wider ambition. Henry was in fact contemplat-
ing an active part in the deliberations of the great
Council of Christendom, and in the last two letters
which he wrote to the French king, and now submitted
to the privy council, he laid an emphasis which seems
a strange blending of sincerity and unreality, not only
upon the righteousness of his claim to dominion in
France but also upon his desire for peace as a step
1 Proceedings, ii, 153.
THE CHANCELLOR AT THE COUNCIL 45
towards the healing of the schism in the Church.
It was a bold attempt to throw the final blame of the
war upon France, but it was also an honest avowal
of a great purpose which was dear to the heart of the
soldier-churchman. Victory or supremacy over
France was for him a means to an end, and that end
was the peace and progress of Christendom.
On April 16th a great council met at Westminster.
The King thanked his lords and bishops for their
prompt attendance. " Then by his royal command
the honourable father in God the Bishop of Winchester
his chancellor of England very wisely and concisely
rehearsed the matters mentioned and discussed in the
great council held at Westminster (i.e., at Michaelmas,
1414), together with the decision then made, and
how for causes declared in the said great council our
said lord the King had taken firm resolve to make
a voyage by the grace of God in his own person for
the recovery of his heritage and the restoration of
the rights of his crown which have been long time
withheld from him and wrongfully usurped. . . ,"1
Next day, again in the presence of the King, the
chancellor announced that the Duke of Bedford was
to be Lieutenant of England, with an advisory council
consisting of the primate, the Bishops of Winchester
and Durham, the Earl of Westmoreland, and five
other barons and prelates. The truce with France
was twice extended to give Henry time for his last
preparations, and Beaufort was as hard at work as
the King. On May 25th he summoned before the
council representatives of merchant companies of
Florence, Venice, and Lucca trading in London, told
them that they must pay for their commercial privi-
leges in England by loans to the crown, and on their
1 Proceedings, ii, 155-157.
46 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
refusal committed them to the Fleet prison, where
they repented and decided to lend £2,000. The city
had already lent over £6,000 in response to an urgent
personal appeal from Beaufort and the King's brothers
and the archbishop. On the 27th he was busy
arranging for the security of the King's jewels, soon
to be pledged for a loan, and issuing instructions to
the commissions of array for the defence of the shires,
to the bishops for active precautions in their dioceses
against Lollard agitation, to the officers in each county
for the erection of beacons, and to the Mayor of London
for the restriction of the demolition of the city walls. x
French At last Henry's time came to move. On June 18th
Winchester he made his " offering " at St. Paul's, and took solemn
leave of the Queen-dowager and the city magnates.
The belated French embassy had landed at Dover
the day before, and on June 30th the Archbishop of
Bourges and his colleagues presented their credentials
to the King, who with his brothers and ministers
received the embassy in the hall of the chancellor-
bishop's palace of Wolvesey at Winchester. Next
day after mass the Archbishop of Bourges opened the
proceedings before the King with a discourse on the
text, " Peace be unto thee and thy house." Beaufort
replied in complimentary terms, and the two parties
dined together in state. The third and fourth days
were spent in serious discussion between the King's
ministers and the ambassadors. The chancellor asked
bluntly what they had to offer beyond their last terms.
The archbishop could only intimate that the dowry
might be increased. On the fifth day Henry himself
took part in the conference, and gave a partial assent
to the archbishop's offer of an increased dowry and of
slight additions of territory in Guienne. On July 6th
1 Proceedings, ii, 165-167.
THE FRENCH AMBASSADORS 47
the negotiations broke down, as Henry intended. He
demanded a time-limit and a pledge for the fulfilment
of the conditions offered, suggested that the embassy
should stay in England during the interval, and finally
raised the old question whether he was to hold the
ceded territory as an absolute sovereign or as a feudal
subject of the French king. The ambassadors had
no assurances to give, and finally the chancellor told
them plainly in his master's name that as " his cousin
of France " was not in earnest in his proposals, the
only remedy lay in an appeal to the divine sanction,
which of course meant war. The archbishop retorted
with a perfectly truthful assertion of the honesty
and liberality of his sovereign's offers, and with an
impassioned appeal to heaven on that sovereign's
behalf. He foretold disaster for the invader, and,
" most unkindest cut of all," denied the claim to the
French crown point-blank on the ground that Henry
was not even entitled to the crown of England.
No wonder an English chronicler described the
archbishop's peroration as rude in the extreme. 1
The chancellor had no part in the trial of the
conspirators whose plot was revealed on the very day
of the mustering of the forces at Southampton on
July 20th. Their inevitable condemnation was the
work of the lay peers based upon the finding of a local
jury. The chancellor cannot but have welcomed his
relief from such a task, for one of the conspirators,
Lord Scrope, was an old colleague in embassies abroad
and in the Prince's ministry at home. This revelation
of a conspiracy of various elements of antagonism or
1 Walsingham, ii, 305, " nimis petulanter se gerens in
peroratione suae orationis." For the negotiations at
Winchester, see Monstrelet, 361, 362 ; S. Denys, 5, 501-530 ;
Sismondi, xii, 464 foil.
48 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
discontent at home no doubt added to the anxieties
of the chancellor and his colleagues on the regent's
council, but there is no record of any serious difficulty
in the maintenance of peace and order during the
King's absence. Henry sailed on August 11th, and
with him went practically the whole of the English
baronage. Harfleur surrendered after a month's
siege, and in October Henry left his uncle, Thomas
Beaufort, in command of the captured town, and
The news began his hazardous march to Calais. The battle of
of . Agincourt was fought on October 25th, and early in
Agincourt. the morning on the 29th the chancellor rode into
London to convey the tidings of the victory to the
new mayor, who was that day to " ride and take
his charge at Westminster." " And then through
London," runs the story in Gregory's Chronicle, " they
let ring the bells in every church and sang Te Deum ;
and at Paul's at nine of the clock the tidings were
openly proclaimed to all the commoners of the city
and to all other strangers. And then the Queen and
all the bishops and the lords that were in London that
time went to Westminster on their feet a procession
to Saint Edward his shrine, with all the priests
and clerks and friars and all other religious men,
devoutly singing and saying the litany. And when
they had offered, the mayor came home riding merely
with all his aldermen and commoners as they were
wont for to do."1 It was a glad day for London
after the alarming rumours of the past week. It was
a proud day for the chancellor who had been the
King's right hand all through the work which had
now borne fruit in victory. Bedford as " guardian
of England " lost no time in summoning parliament,
1 Gregory's Chronicle, in Collections of a London Citizen,
p. 113.
THE REVIEW OF THE CAMPAIGN 49
and Beaufort in his opening address on November 4th
explained that parliament had been summoned for
two purposes, for good government at home and for
the prosecution of the king's " voyage " in France.
" As he has done to us, so let us do to him," so ran
the chancellor's theme. With regard to home
affairs, he contented himself with the remark that the
King had from the day of his coronation striven in
the interests of all his lieges to maintain justice and
peace, knowing full well the force of the old maxim
that " without justice there is no true government."
There was in fact little need to dwell upon this topic,
for the country had been quiet since the King's
departure. The council had found nothing more
exciting to do than the suppression of a feeble move-
ment of the restless Oldcastle in the west, and the
execution of a Lollard or two in London. But the
second topic gave the chancellor an opportunity of
which he made the most. After a brief reference to
the failure of the King's frequent efforts to come
peacefully to terms with " his adversary of France,"
and to regain his rights " without shedding of Christ-
ian blood," he recalled the text of his own oration in
the last parliament, " Strive for justice and the Lord
shall fight for thee," and recited the story of the recent
campaign. The surrender of Harfleur, the " visita-
tion of God " which had scourged the English camp
with disease, the thinning of the ranks by death and
sickness, the brave march " through the heart of
France " towards Calais, the " glorious and marvellous
victory " of Agincourt — upon all this he dwelt with
an emphasis which was meant to appeal to the
generosity as well as to the pride of his hearers.1
The commons tempered their liberality with economy
1 Rot. Park, iv, 62.
5— (2210)
50 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
of a sort. They accelerated the collection of their
last subsidy, granted a new subsidy, and gave the
King the customs for the rest of his life. The sen-
tences passed upon the conspirators executed in
August were given parliamentary sanction, and the
session ended within the week.
Parliament Henry entered London in triumph on November
of March, 23rd. The wondrous pageant which met his gaze at
every turn from London Bridge to St. Paul's, where he
was received and censed by the bishops in procession,
was a dramatic representation of the Te Deum ;
but Henry's own bearing was marked by a silent
self-restraint which bore witness to anxiety as well
as to modesty. The conquest of France was scarcely
begun. The position just won had to be made secure.
His first step was to remove all danger of disloyalty
by the reinstatement of the sons and grandsons of
old enemies of the Lancastrian dynasty. The next
was to ask the nation for further support. Already
the chancellor and the council on November 25th
had been compelled to borrow money to meet the
needs of Harfleur, where Thomas Beaufort was anxious
to be rid of his responsibility. Parliament met at
Westminster in March, 1416. The writer of the
Gesta Henrici V, a chaplain in Henry's army, gives
an elaborate analysis of the chancellor's speech.
According to this account Beaufort dwelt eloquently
upon the victories of Sluys, Crecy and Agincourt as
three indisputable proofs of the divine judgment in
favour of the English claim to the French throne,
and then turned to lay stress upon the three points of
advantage gained in the recent campaign, viz., the
command of the harbours, the courage of success,
and the possession of an army in being. x Such was
1 Williams, Gesta Hem. V., p. 73.
THE APPEAL FOR THE WAR 51
the glowing view taken of the chancellor's speech by
a soldier-priest. The account given of that speech
in the rolls of parliament is far less ornate, and gives
expression rather to the anxiety of the statesman for
the future. He started with the text, " He has opened
you the way," and quoted also the maxim, " a good
beginning is half the accomplishment." He claimed
recent events indeed as proving that the justice of the
King's claim " had been openly determined and
approved by the Almighty," but his reference to the
difficulties through which Henry had won his way
to victory must be taken not merely as enhancing
the glory of that victory but also as indicating the
grave need of that further assistance for which he
now pleaded in the interest of king and realm. 1 The
commons accelerated the collection of the last subsidy,
but made no further grant. The only other impor-
tant transaction was an ordinance that " in view of the
long voidance of the apostolic see " through the
lingering schism royal letters were to be sent to the
metropolitans authorising them to confirm the
bishops elected to vacant sees " still destitute of
pastoral governance," without waiting for the
conclusion of the schism. It was not merely eccle-
siastical affairs at home that were involved in the
schism. The Council of Constance was at that
moment exerting an indirect but important influence
on English diplomacy also. The session was
adjourned on April 8th. After the recess the chan-
cellor explained the reasons of the adjournment.
The first was that the King's lieges might " keep the
feast of Easter in their own homes and parish churches
and there make their peace with their Lord and
Saviour according to ancient usage and custom " ;
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 70.
52 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the second was that the King had received messages
which offered a prospect of peace with France ; the
third was that the King of the Romans, " desiring
chiefly peace and unity in the church universal and
also between Christian realms," had endeavoured to
treat with the French court. Sigismund, the chan-
cellor added, had lately come to England from France,
and the King, though unable yet to publish the
negotiations, hoped shortly to lay the case before the
estates and ask their advice. x
Alliance Sigismund had now taken the place of Burgundy
w.11!1 as the pivot of English diplomacy. Burgundy was
igismun . stin struggling against tne ascendancy of the Ar-
magnacs ; Sigismund was becoming the strongest
ruler in Europe. Burgundy was important only in
French affairs ; Sigismund as emperor-elect was
" the civil head and guardian of Christendom," and
now as practical patron and master of the Council of
Constance had set himself to solve problems in the
life of the Church in which Henry took a keen interest.
It was in fact from the ecclesiastical side of European
politics that Sigismund made his intervention
between England and France. He had left the
council in the autumn of 1415 on a visit to Arragon
to detach the Spaniards from the side of the anti-Pope
Benedict, and his mission of peace to Paris and London
in 1416 was undertaken with the twofold purpose of
immediately reconciling the English and French
delegates at Constance, and of ultimately securing
the support of Henry in the policy of reunion and
reformation which he was hoping to carry through
at the council.
Sigismund spent March at Paris in a not altogether
successful exploration of the mind of the French
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 72.
SIGISMUND'S VISIT TO ENGLAND 53
court, and brought a French embassy away with him
to Calais. His attitude on the French question was
yet undetermined. He had negotiated with both
English and Armagnacs in 1414, and though Agin-
court had weighted the scales on the side of his
preference for England, it was not certain whether
he was coming to plead the cause of the French
embassy which accompanied him or was merely
utilising their presence as an apparent proof of his
neutrality. The English council, however, gave him
a splendid and politic welcome, which went far to
win him in advance. He was lodged at Westminster
in the King's own apartments, and may have been
present at the opening of parliament on May 11th,
though there is no record of his presence in the roll
of the session. Beaufort was to the front all through
the Emperor's visit. As Bishop of Winchester and
prelate of the Order of the Garter he installed
Sigismund among the knights of the Order at Windsor
on the feast of St. George, which had been postponed
for the purpose.1 As chancellor he had a hand, if
not a voice, in the alliance with Sigismund against
France which was substituted three months later for
the Emperor's dream of a general peace of all Christ-
endom. Sigismund apparently did his best to win
such a peace, but events were against his efforts.
Dorset, left to forage for himself round Harfleur, had
to cut his way back into the town, and he wrote in
1 Gregory, p. 113. The garrulous London chronicler who
has preserved the description of all the " subtleties " at " the
meat " which followed the mass of the day — Our Lady arming
St. George and an angel doing on his spurs ; St. George riding
and fighting with a dragon, spear in hand ; St. George and the
King's daughter leading the lamb in at the castle gate —
records how the Chancellor of England sat next to the King's
brother on the Emperor's left, while two German dukes sat on
the right of the King.
54 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
April to say that the starving garrison must retire
if the council sent no supplies. In May French and
Genoese ships were blockading Harrleur and raiding
the south of England. Henry was growing impatient.
He consented to Sigismund's sending envoys to Paris,
and appointed envoys of his own ; and he instructed
the bishops to hold special services of prayer for the
success of the Emperor's labours in the cause of the
reunion of the Church. But he was as restless under
the suspense as he was unwilling to abate his own
demands. He could not leave Sigismund in England ;
so Bedford was sent off in August with a force which
cleared the Seine and saved Harrleur. On the very
day of this victory Henry and Sigismund were
signing at Canterbury an offensive and defensive
alliance against France. In the preamble of this
treaty Sigismund avowed plainly the sincerity of his
own efforts in the cause of peace and the bitterness
of his disappointment at the duplicity of the French. x
Still the hope of a peaceful settlement was ostensibly
maintained, and Sigismund and Henry went over to
attend a conference with the French envoys and the
Duke of Burgundy at Calais. Beaufort went with the
King, and the seal was entrusted to the Master of the
Rolls from September 5th to October 12th. Henry
was practically " his own foreign minister," but no
doubt the chancellor was commissioned to state and
argue his master's case at Calais, as he certainly
did in the conference at Winchester in 1415. The
conference at Calais proved, however, as barren as its
predecessors. Burgundy refused to come at all until
the King's brother, Gloucester, had been surrendered
as a hostage for his safety. The French suggested
that Sigismund might satisfy Henry's ambitions out
1 Rymer, ix, 377-381.
THE CHANCELLOR'S IDEA OF PEACE 55
of the ancient territories of the empire, which meant
Burgundy. Nothing could result from such mutual
suspicion but a bare renewal of truces, and Henry
and Sigismund parted without any achievement
beyond their own alliance.
Sigismund went on his way to Germany, only to Parliament
find that his anti-French policy had increased his j*0Ctober'
difficulties at the council of Constance. Henry
returned to England for the meeting of parliament on
October 19th. Beaufort had returned a week earlier
to prepare for the coming session. He took for his
theme, " Do your best to be at peace " {operant detis
ut quieti sitis). This has been interpreted as an
attempt to " tranquillise " a house of commons bent
on checking the encroachments of the equitable
jurisdiction of the chancellor's court in matters
properly determinable by common law.1 It is true
that an elaborate petition against such procedure on
the part of the chancery and the exchequer was
presented by the commons in the last parliament,
only to be dismissed by the royal veto. But the
chancellor's speech as preserved in the rolls of parlia-
ment contains no allusion to judicial grievances of
the commons. The chancellor may have meant his
text to be taken as a plea for unity at home as a
necessary condition of effective action abroad. But
the words are best explained in the light of the maxim
quoted at the end of the speech, " let us make wars
to secure peace, for the end of war is peace." Beaufort
was simply pleading for vigorous war as the only way
to a satisfactory peace. The bulk of his oration
consisted of an audacious parallel between the seven
days of creation and the successive stages of the
King's reign. " The Holy Trinity in six days created
1 Lord Campbell, Lives of Chancellors, i, 327.
56 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
and furnished all the world and on the seventh day
turned to rest." So, too, with the King's work.
In his first parliament at Westminster he had " la-
boured for the establishment of peace and good
governance throughout the realm " ; in his second at
Leicester he had passed " good and necessary laws "
to repress disorder ; in his third he had obtained the
assent of the estates to the drawing of the sword, after
peaceful efforts had failed, in defence of his crown
rights ; during the last two sessions he had striven
in vain for a peaceful sequel to his recent victory ; now
he needed in this his sixth parliament the assistance
of his lords and commons to enable him to fight again
for a final peace, and so to win " perpetual rest."1
The commons granted two subsidies, and authorised
the chancellor to raise loans on the security of the
second. The Marquis of Dorset's services at Harfleur
were rewarded by the title of Duke of Exeter and a
pension of £1,000 a year ; and the chancellor's
promise in May that the King's negotiations with
Sigismund should be submitted to the advice of the
estates was fulfilled in bare formality by the produc-
tion of the treaty of Canterbury, concluded two
months before by letters patent, to receive the
sanction of parliament.
Work of in November the chancellor appeared in convoca-
CoundL7 t^on as t^le a£ent °f tne King, and voiced the needs
of the crown with such effect that the convocation
voted the King two-tenths. In February, 1417, the
minutes of the council reveal him deep in the work
of preparation for the new expedition and of the
ordinary administration of the realm. Lists of
ships, " barges " and " balingers " in the King's
navy, memoranda of sergeants-at-arms and clerks
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 94.
THE WORK AT THE COUNCIL 57
responsible for pressing craft into the King's service
along various divisions of the coast, catalogues of
French prisoners and their wine allowances, warrants
for the payment of envoys sent to the King of Castile,
accounts of the temporalities of the vacant see of
Chichester, writs for allowances to the Earl of War-
wick at Calais in answer to an urgent letter received
from him by the chancellor, orders to the warden and
scholars of St. Michael's at Cambridge to produce the
charter of their foundation before the archbishop,
assignments on the wool duties for the payment of
Calais debts, a commission to the young Earl of
Northumberland to act as warden of the Border,
references to the King on the question of the date of
" the mustering of his retinue " for the coming
campaign, on the strangely belated question of allow-
ances for the sick and slain of 1415, and on the contents
of a petition from Ireland against the misgovernment
of the King's lieutenant — such was the bare outline
of less than a fortnight's work done by the chancellor
and three or four colleagues at the council in February. 1
In June Beaufort and the rest of the council, mindful
of the commercial interests at stake in Flanders, were
busy making provision for the payment of debts and
the restitution of captured goods in the event of a
breach of the truce with Burgundy. On July 25th
Bedford was appointed regent, and Henry sailed for
Normandy with the second and greatest armament
of the war. Two days before the Bishop of
Winchester had resigned the chancellorship.
This resignation has been taken as indicating a Resigna-
breach between the chancellor and the King. The chancellor-
idea is plausible but unjustified. The facts are as ship,
follows. On July 18th the King by letters patent
1 Proceedings, ii, 202-220.
58 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
gave the chancellor a charge on the customs of the
port of Southampton by way of security for the
repayment of a loan of 21,000 marks (£14,000), for
which the chancellor already apparently held in
pledge a gold crown belonging to the King. On the
same day the King requested the council to give
letters of safe-conduct to Henry, Bishop of Winches-
ter, bound for the Holy Land in fulfilment of an old
vow of pilgrimage. The Close Roll of Henry V
relates that on July 23rd Beaufort delivered up the
great seal of gold to the King, and it was given at once
to Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, the same old
colleague who succeeded Beaufort as chancellor when
he resigned the ofBce after he became Bishop of
Winchester in 1405. On the same day, July 23rd,
the Bishop of Winchester received a full pardon for all
offences of any kind. It has been suggested that it
was the bishop's hardness in bargaining for security
that cost him the chancellorship. The bishop, it has
been said, refused to lend on the security which
satisfied other creditors of the crown. There is no
evidence for this assertion. The city of London had
its loan of 10,000 marks secured on the crown jewels,
but nothing is said about rapacity in their case.
It should be noted also that the commissions for the
raising of loans were not issued till July 23rd ; the
bishop had made his loan betimes, even if he had not
forgotten the caution of the financier in the enthusiasm
of the patriot. Much has been made again of the
fact that the security given by letters patent in July
was confirmed by parliament in the session which
began in November. It has been said that the bishop
himself had the charge on the customs ratified in
parliament to make it safe, and even that he " man-
aged to get a private bill of his smuggled through
THE CHANCELLOR'S PARDON 59
both houses " for this purpose. * As a matter of fact,
the bishop was abroad at the time in the service of
the new Pope Martin V. The " private bill " was
a petition presented by the commons and granted
by the regent with the assent of the lords.
The most recent theory, however, is that the pardon
granted to the bishop on July 23rd " suggests offences
which it was unwise to make public in the interests of
the dynasty," and that the circumstances of this
pardon, coinciding as it did with the sudden resigna-
tion of the chancellorship, " point to royal compul-
sion."2 It is doubtful whether this pardon should
be taken so seriously. Pardons were not infrequently
granted to cover breaches of technical responsibility
or infringements of constitutional procedure not
involving any moral condemnation. In 1402 a
pardon was given to Beaufort, then Bishop of Lincoln,
for the escape of thirteen felonious clerks from the
prison of his castle at Newark. In 1410 Henry
Chichele, Bishop of St. David's, afterwards Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, received a pardon for obtaining
papal bulls authorising Beaufort as Bishop of Win-
chester to accept the resignation of his benefices and
to confer them on persons named by him. The
pardon issued to the resigning chancellor in 1417
may even have been intended as a safeguard against
any attack upon his good name in his absence. It is
admitted that " no writer gives us the particulars of
the intrigue that brought about this change " in the
chancellorship. 3 In fact no chronicler says anything
at all of the circumstances of the breach, if it was
a breach, between the sovereign and his minister.
1 Campbell, i, 330.
2 Vickers, Gloucester, p. 107.
3 Campbell, i, 330.
60 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
It is very doubtful whether it was a breach at all.
The pilgrimage may have been a pretence, but it is
at least as likely that it was intended to disguise the
mission of an agent in the King's service as to cover
the retreat of a discredited official. The sequel will
show that Beaufort's proceedings at the Council of
Constance in October, 1417, were at least in accordance
with Henry's policy at that moment. It is possible
that those proceedings were in consequence of actual
instructions from Henry. Beaufort may have been
sent or his pilgrimage utilised by Henry to secure the
presence of a trusted agent at the council, who could
be spared at home now that the country was quiet
and the expedition to France organised. Even if
Beaufort's presence in the neighbourhood was due
to some purpose of his own, his employment by Henry
at Constance is proof enough that any misunder-
standing which might have occurred in July was only
slight and temporary. There is no warrant for the
conclusion that Henry dismissed his uncle the
chancellor because he did not trust him.
CHAPTER IV
THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE
1414-1417
While Henry was winning fortresses in Normandy, Beaufort
Beaufort was engaged in his first great intervention ^urchman.
in the affairs of the Church at large. There is reason
to believe that he was acting as the trusted servant of
the King of England, but it is quite possible that he
had something of a policy or an ambition of his own.
Beaufort was a striking contrast to his former col-
league Chichele, now Archbishop of Canterbury.
Chichele was a churchman in whom the lawyer and
diplomatist gave place more and more to the bishop,
and an English churchman who as primate was most
at home in convocation and in his diocese. Beaufort
was a churchman in whom the bishop was lost in the
statesman, best content to serve the crown and guide
the national counsels in war and in peace, and an
English churchman whose ambition ranged far and
high in Christendom. In September, 1416, while
Chichele, pained to learn the slackness in prayer of
clergy and people, was appealing to his suffragans
for the intercessions of the faithful on behalf of the
King of the Romans, then labouring for the unity of
the Church, Beaufort was abroad with Henry and
Sigismund endeavouring to secure the support of
Burgundy against the King of France. In fact, apart
from the few occasions on which Beaufort acted as the
deputy of the primate in summoning convocation, or
as the agent of the King in appealing to convocation
for subsidies, there is but little record of his activity
61
62 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
in the affairs of the Church at home. His part in the
persecution of the Lollards was political rather than
ecclesiastical. His diocese of Winchester was practi-
cally dependent for pastoral offices from 1407 to 1419
upon one or other of the occasional suffragan bishops
whose strange titles excite the curiosity of the
historian. From 1407 to 1417 the diocese was served
by William " Solubriensis " (Selymbria), who was also
acting as suffragan of Salisbury from 1409 to 1417,
and of Exeter in 1415 and 1416 ; during 1417 and
1418 it was served by John Sewell " Surronensis " or
" Cironensis " (perhaps Cyrene), who also acted from
1417 to 1423 as suffragan of London. 1 When
Beaufort was not busy in the service of the crown,
his churchmanship found a more congenial sphere
in the relations of the Church of England with the
divided Papacy. He had played a not unimportant
part in the events which preceded and followed the
Council of Pisa in 1409, but the share that he took
in the great Council of Constance was fraught with
still more important issues for his country and for his
own career.
Pope and The Council of Pisa had hoped by the election of
Alexander V to substitute one pope for two, but it
merely succeeded in adding a third claimant to the
existing rivals, Benedict and Gregory. Its other
hope, the hope of reform in the Church as a body,
was disappointed by the postponement of the whole
1 Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum (1858), Append, v.
Some of these suffragans were foreign refugees ; most of them
were bishops (often Englishmen) in partibus infidelium, i.e.,
consecrated with titles of imaginary sees in non-Christian
lands, and employed to help English diocesans who were
occupied in affairs of state, or to discharge episcopal functions
for monasteries which insisted jealously upon their exemption
from diocesan jurisdiction.
POPE AND COUNCIL
63
question to a future council. The death of Alexander
within a year brought to the papal throne the noto-
rious Baldassare Cossa. He was bound by the pledge
of his predecessor to summon a general council in
three years, but the council that met at Rome in
1413 was a failure. It condemned and burnt
Wycliffe's writings, but it dwindled to an end without
any formal dissolution. John XXIII shrank from
real conciliar action ; but he was pressed hard on the
one side by the imperial power of Sigismund, to whom
he had been compelled to turn for support against
the encroachments of the King of Naples, and on the
other side by the ecclesiastical influence of the
University of Paris, which was bent upon reform no
less keenly than Sigismund, though on somewhat
different lines. In the end, he had to consent to the
holding of the postponed council at Constance, in an
atmosphere of German predominance which boded ill
for papal hopes.
The task which lay before the council was three- Problems
fold1. It had to restore the unity of the Church by council^
giving Rome once more a single pope. It had to deal Constance,
with the growing demand for reform of the Church
in its head and members ; for if popes and cardinals
were sceptical or afraid of the possibilities of reform,
bishops, canonists, and statesmen were agreed upon
the question of its urgency, and differed only upon
the question of its method and its extent. The
council had also to face the ecclesiastical aspect of a
grave crisis in Bohemia. The torch that fell from the
hands of Wycliffe had been seized and rekindled by the
hands of Huss and Jerome ; and the religious conflict
at Prague between reformers and conservatives
1 For the history of the Council of Constance see Creighton,
History of Papacy, vol. i.
64 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
in doctrine and discipline was complicated by the
academic rivalry between Bohemian realists and
German nominalists, and by the fiercer racial antag-
onism between Czech and Teuton which divided both
the university and the people at large. * The German
" nation " had seceded from the University of Prague
in 1409 by way of protest against the predominance
given to the Czech " nation " by King Wenzel,
Sigismund's predecessor, but the flame of Bohemian
nationalism only burned the fiercer, and fastened the
more tenaciously upon questions of religious belief
and practice. Prague had become a second Oxford
in its enthusiasm for Wycliffite ' ' heresy. ' ' The unity,
the discipline, the orthodoxy of the Church were the
three recognised aims and objects of the council, but
it was the government of the Church which was in
reality the question of questions underlying all the
others. Was the pope or the council the governor
of the Church ? The papacy had been discussed with
remarkable freedom by different writers in the
fourteenth century, and there were now two distinct
schools within the ranks of the reformers, the Parisian,
desiring only to " regulate " and " reinstate " the
papal supremacy, and the German, anxious to reduce
its power and to destroy its independence. The
question was now before the Church in a concrete
form. Constance was twice the scene of a conflict
between a council and a pope. The council defeated
John XXIII ; Martin V defeated the council. It
was in this second trial of forces that the intervention
of Beaufort, whether on his own initiative or in
1 For the University of Prague see Rashdall, Universities
in Europ. Hist., II, pt. i, pp. 212-232 ; for Bohemian crisis
generally, Poole's Wycliffe and Movements for Reform,
Milman's Latin Christianity, and Creighton's History of the
Papacy.
ENGLAND AT THE COUNCIL 65
pursuance- of the policy of his sovereign, practically
turned the scale in favour of the Papacy.
The composition of the council was as significant The
as its magnitude was imposing. It has been described ^tNthe°nS
as " the meeting-place of all the national interests of Council.
Christendom.' ' x It was not only " a great assembly
of the Church " but also " a great diet of the mediaeval
Empire. " 2 Princes, barons, and knights accompanied
thither or met there cardinals, bishops, abbots, and
doctors. Courts and universities, as well as provincial
synods, were represented. The original delegates of
the English Church and nation in 1414 were the
Bishops of Bath and Wells, Salisbury, and St. David's,
the Abbot of Westminster, the Earl of Warwick, and
five others, and they were commissioned by Henry
to improve the occasion by discussing terms of
alliance with Sigismund. 3 During the visit of Sigis-
mund to England in 1416 a further commission was
issued to the Bishops of London, Chester (i.e., Coventry
and Lichfield), and Norwich, the Dean of York, the
Abbot of Bury, and the Prior of Worcester.4 These
additional delegates were intended doubtless to
strengthen the English " nation " at Constance in
supporting the German " nation," which stood for
Sigismund's own particular policy of reform. The
division of the council into nations was itself due to
an Englishman. The council was formally opened
in November, 1414, and when the English delegates
arrived in January, 1415, Hallam, Bishop of Salisbury,
proposed that the council should be organised, like
the universities, by " nations," and that every
1 Creighton, i, 267.
2 Lodge, Close of the Middle Ages, p. 212.
3 Rymer, ix, 167.
4 Rymer, ix, 370.
6 (2210)
66 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
question should be decided finally by an equal
number of delegates from each nation. Hallam was
an old chancellor of Oxford, but his proposal was
not the mere suggestion of a scholar, though its
acceptance was largely due to the fact that the
delegates of the University of Paris added their assent
to that of the Germans, and its adoption was signifi-
cant of the work which universities like Paris and
Oxford had done in preparing the way for the council.
Hallam 's proposal was in part due to his desire to
avoid another failure such as he had witnessed at
Pisa. But his primary purpose was doubtless to
neutralise the numerical strength of the Italian
party ; John XXIII had created fifty new Italian
bishops for the occasion. The organisation of the
council by nations was an appropriate reply to the
bid which John had made for wider support in 1411
by nominating on paper fourteen cardinals from
different nations, amongst them Thomas Langley,
Bishop of Durham, and Hallam himself. The asser-
tion of the nations within the Church foiled the plans
of the pope. It destroyed the predominance of the
packed Italian hierarchy, and it made his own
deposition an immediate certainty. The voting
power of the council was equally divided between
Germans, French, English and Italians ; it was only
after the flight of John that the cardinals claimed, and
were permitted, to rank as a fifth body beside the
nations. But this same element of nationalism which
secured the downfall of the pope wrecked the project
of reform. Specific grievances were shelved because
the weight of their incidence varied in different
nations, and different nations accordingly felt varying
degrees of interest in the removal of those grievances ;
and when the council had elected its own new pope,
SIGISMUND AT CONSTANCE 67
he was able to postpone the main questions of real
reform by making separate concordats with the
different nations on points of detail. Divisit et
itnperavit.
Already in the second year of the council the Sigismund's
political interests of the three northern nations began f^SiSte
to tell upon their mutual relations at Constance. The
first year had seen the ignominious deposition of John
XXIII, the enforced abdication of Gregory XII, the
condemnation of Wy cliff e's writings, the suppression
of Hus at the stake, and the passing of decrees,
in spite of the cardinals, which established the
authority of a general council as independent of the
pope. All these acts were the work of a council in
which the nations were so far in unison. The cohesion
of the council and its claim of authority are both
vividly illustrated by the fact that on the deposition
of the pope in May, 1415, letters were issued under
the seals of all the nations, instructing the Bishops of
Winchester and Lichfield to collect in the name of the
council all moneys due in England to the Roman
court.1 In July, 1415, Sigismund left Constance on
his mission of pacification. So far he had been
successful in controlling the council in the direction
which he desired. The Italians had wanted to deal
first with the suppression of heresy, and so postpone
the problem of the divided papacy; but Sigismund
had adopted and carried the proposal of the French
to deal first with the rival popes. He had welcomed
Hallam's suggestion for the equal recognition of the
nations, just as he welcomed the earlier suggestion of
the French that the delegates of courts and universi-
ties should be admitted as representing the Christian
community at large. Everything promised well for
1 Wilkins, iii, 371.
68 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
a broad view of church reform, and he went hopefully
on his way to detach the adherents of the anti-Pope
Benedict and to close the breach between England
and France, upon whose joint support he relied at
Constance. His mission was a failure. He won
Spain to join the council, but the rivalry of Burgun-
dian and Orleanist baffled his hope of reconciling
France and England after Agincourt, and his visit to
England ended in an alliance with Henry on the
ground that the French refusal of peace was prolong-
ing the papal schism. When he returned to Constance
early in 1417, the whole atmosphere was changed.
Already during the earlier part of his absence the
spirit of disunion was at work. Now the conflict of
interests involved in the French war had driven a
wedge through the council. National pride set the
French against the English; and Sigismund, the
practical president of the council, had become the
partisan of England, helpless as such to draw the
council together again. The three nations most
bent on reform, England, France, and Germany, were
robbed of their joint predominance by mutual
suspicion, and what they lost the cardinals gained.
At first, indeed, all seemed to go well. When
Sigismund rode into Constance on January 27th, 1417,
the Englishmen in the general procession noted with
delight the collar of the Garter round his neck. The
Bishop of Salisbury anticipated the design of the
French doctor, Cardinal D'Ailly, and managed to
occupy the council pulpit and give the address of
welcome. Sigismund granted special audiences to
the English nation, shook hands with them, and
thanked them for supporting his own nation in his
absence. The English on their part honestly seemed
as faithful to his and their common policy of reform
THE QUESTION OF REFORM 69
as he described them. John Forrester wrote to tell
Henry that the Bishops of Salisbury and Chester were
" fully disposed by the consent of your all other
ambassadors to sue the reformation in the Church,
in the head and in the members, having no regard
to no benefice that they have rather than it should be
undone." He was quite sure that they would
" abide hard and nigh all ways by the advice and
deliberation of your brother the King of Rome."1
Difficulties, however, revealed themselves at once.
The one success of Sigismund's mission, the addition
of Spain to the council, brought more trouble than
help. First the Spaniards demanded with the
French that England should count along with
Germany as a single nation, to make room for Spain
in the recognised number of four. This was a drama-
tic double revenge for the treaty of Canterbury, which
had bound Germany to England. England was to be
punished at the council by effacement, Germany by
isolation. The demand was eventually dropped, but
it was followed by a more serious development of
antagonism. The Spaniards demanded that the Contest
preliminaries of a new papal election should be the between
first question to be discussed. The long latent issue anTthe
was now revealed. Was the contemplated reform Cardinals,
to be real reform by the council or nominal reform
by a pope ? For various reasons the French drew
closer to the party which stood for the rights of the
Roman Curia ; and the council resolved itself into a
trial of strength between Sigismund and the cardinals
— the champion and the opponents of the cause of
reformation. In July, 1417, the cardinals consented
to let reform precede the election ; Sigismund had to
waive the idea of a general reform, and accept a reform
1 Rymer, ix, 434.
70 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
of the papal office and court only. The cardinals at
once re-opened the question and pressed for an
immediate election. They suspected or pretended
that Sigismund with Henry at his side designed to
make himself master of Europe, and they were anxious
to get their pope elected by the council before Sigis-
mund got his way with the council. Sigismund's
position grew rapidly weaker. The death of Hallam
on September 4th removed a strong man whose
support of Sigismund had held the German and the
English English " nations " together, and Sigismund found
policy to his surprise that the English had begun to negotiate
Council. with the cardinals as to tne procedure of election.
It was from the cardinals that Sigismund heard of
these negotiations. At first he was incredulous ;
when the Bishop of Lichfield admitted the fact, and
still professed a desire to follow his lead, he was
indignant, and used strong language. It was indeed
to all appearance an inexplicable change of front.
Hallam's death was a great loss to the English, but
such a change of front can scarcely be explained as
the mere mistake of a helpless party bereft of a leader
who had been the very embodiment of its policy.
We have, moreover, the definite statement in the
journal of Cardinal Filastre that " the four nations of
Italy, Gaul, Spain and England (which at the bidding
of the King of England abandoned the King of the
Romans in this matter) and the college of the cardinals
insisted upon the hastening of the election ; the King
and nation of Germany upon the pursuance of reform-
ation."1 This direct statement stands alone, but it
agrees with the indirect evidence of other facts and
documents. On July 18th, 1417, Henry wrote a
stringent letter to Constance, forbidding his lieges at
1 Finke, Konstanzer Konzil, p. 227.
HENRY V AND SIGISMUND 71
the council to enter into conjunction with any other
" nation " without the knowledge of the English
bishops, on pain of dismissal and confiscation, and
instructing the English bishops to decide differences
of opinion within the English " nation " by the voice
of the majority. l It has been conjectured from the
sequel that this letter was suggested by Archbishop
Chichele, and was intended to check the intrigues of
agents of Beaufort, who was himself anxious " to
strengthen the papal against the imperial party."2
It is safer to read the letter itself in the light of the
events which preceded its writing. Henry was face
to face with the fact that the treaty of Canterbury was
a failure as far as the French war was concerned.
Sigismund was beset with difficulties, financial and
military. He did not declare war on France until
March, five months after his parting with Henry at
Calais, or ratify the treaty of Canterbury itself until
May 24th, and the only vassal of his who came to the
muster of the imperial forces in the summer was
Henry's son-in-law, Louis of Bavaria. It was proba-
bly the disappointment of Henry's expectations that
led him to revise his policy, and take a step which to
an observer from another point of view seemed to
amount to the abandonment of Sigismund. It would
be unfair to regard Henry as in any sense repudiating
his alliance with Sigismund. His idea was probably
rather to bring the lingering difficulties at the council
to an end with a view to hurrying Sigismund into
action on the French border. The conclusion in
question involved the sacrifice of Sigismund's dream
of reform in the Church, but the war came first with
Henry as the council came first with Sigismund, and
1 Rymer, ix, 466.
2 Hook, Archbishops, v, 68.
72 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the war at that moment was entering upon its second
and more urgent stage. In the light of these con-
siderations it is probable that Henry's letter in July
was intended to secure the loyalty of the English
nation at Constance to the new policy which was to be
revealed shortly by the action of their recognised
leaders. When the time came for the next move, it
would need the solid support of all his lieges.
Meanwhile Sigismund was conscious that his rela-
tions with Henry were strained. Twice in August
he wrote to Henry, explaining that nothing but the
vexatious delays at the council had kept him from
taking the field, and promising to join Henry without
fail in May, 1418. Meanwhile, he pleaded for Henry's
sympathy and support in the cause of reformation,
which was proceeding slowly but surely. The death
of Hallam on September 4th was a double misfortune.
It robbed Sigismund of a strong and loyal friend.
It robbed the English nation of a strong and wise
leader. It is quite possible that Hallam had received
from Henry in July or August instructions to use his
discretion as to the time and terms of the inevitable
compromise.1 On his death his colleagues did
clumsily what he would have done with tact and care.
They may have regarded their conference with the
cardinals as the first step in a mediation between
the cardinals and Sigismund, but the secrecy of the
conference was a confession of desertion. Sigismund
was driven to consent on October 2nd to the election
of a pope without anything beyond a vague promise
that the pope should deal with the problem of reform-
ation immediately after his election. The advocates
of reform as a body had to be satisfied with a decree
of the council on October 9th providing for the
1 Creighton, i, 392, 393.
BUSINESS AT CALAIS AND BRUGES 73
frequent recurrence of general councils. Then the
cardinals repudiated altogether the idea of binding
the future pope in any way, and Sigismund's last hope
of any security for reform disappeared. The final
difficulty arose over the question of the precise part
to be taken by the cardinals in the now all-important
election. It was at this juncture that Beaufort
appeared upon the scene.
Beaufort had resigned the great seal on July 23rd, Beaufort's
and gone off with his pilgrim's letters of safe-conduct pttgrimage.
about the time apparently of Henry's departure for
his campaign in Normandy. Nothing is known of
the earlier stages of the bishop's pilgrimage, and the
absence of any record of his doings in August has led
some writers to place his visit to the Holy Land
immediately after his resignation of the chancellor-
ship. The original chroniclers, however, are precise
enough in stating that it was on the outward journey
to Jerusalem that the bishop intervened in the affairs
of the council at Constance ; and it so happens that
the Acts of the Privy Council contain two letters
written by him to his friend the chancellor, the
Bishop of Durham, and dated from Bruges on
September 4th and 5th, dates which leave no room
for a journey to the East and back again between the
end of July and the beginning of October. The
letters themselves are interesting as proofs of the
pilgrim's incidental attention to matters of business
which appealed to him as an English statesman.1
In the second letter the ex-chancellor transmits to
his successor the anxious enquiry of Mistress Salvayn
at Calais, who had asked him as he passed through
that port to find out whether it was the King's
pleasure that her husband, Roger Salvayn, should hold
1 Proceedings, ii, 234, 235,
74
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Commer-
cial
interests :
the
Flemings
and the
Genoese
the office of treasurer or not. The good lady wanted
either a commission or a discharge from the council,
for her husband was on the King's service elsewhere,
and meanwhile she was paying the officials of the
treasury out of her own pocket. Beaufort's first letter
was an appeal to the chancellor, made at the request
of the burgomaster and citizens of Bruges, to see to
the restitution of Flemish goods which had been seized
on board of a Genoese carrack at Plymouth. The
ex-chancellor enforced the appeal by the shrewd
argument that he could see clearly that in default
of such restitution the aggrieved Flemings would
retaliate by laying their hands upon the property of
English merchants at Bruges to more than ten times
the value of the missing cargoes. This question of
maritime law was a standing grievance. It was one
of the matters entrusted to the bishops and lords
accredited in October, 1414, as delegates to the
Council of Constance and as ambassadors to Sigis-
mund ; and in November, 1414, the question was
discussed in parliament, and reference was made
then to the Bishop of Winchester as acting along with
these ambassadors on a commission appointed to
adjudicate upon the disputes arising out of letters of
marque granted to English merchants against the
Genoese. * Beaufort's name occurs again in a later
stage of the negotiations. In a fragmentary letter
from the Bishops of Bath and of Lichfield to the King
in Normandy, congratulating him on his successes
there, we read : "... After time of . . . Lord of
Winchester coming hither, Count Berthold of Ursins
and Lord Brimorinis of Laschalla deputed by the
emperor have been with my forsaid ... of Winchester
and with us your priests of Bath and of Chester, and
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 50.
MARITIME PROBLEMS 75
communed of accord betwixt you and them of Genoa,
and now at the last ..." The two bishops requested
the King's commands on this matter, which they
had postponed " again standing that our commission
is not available by cause that my Lord of Salisbury
that was, the which God assoil . . ."* This reference
to the Bishop of Salisbury's death as invalidating
their commission in this matter (granted in December,
1416) fixes the date of the letter far on in September or
later still. Evidently the Bishop of Winchester had
not forgotten the problem of contraband of war even
amid the greater problems of the Church at Constance.
This time, however, the problem was to detach the
Genoese warships from the side of France. At Bruges
it had been to satisfy the Flemings, at peace with
England, who had suffered from the English retalia-
tions upon innocent Genoese trading-craft. Both
before and after this date Beaufort appears as the
upholder of peace or alliance with Flanders. His
object was no doubt to guard the interests of English
commerce, and incidentally his own, if it is true that
he was the greatest wool-merchant in England.
Burgundy, the lord of Flanders, was as important
in this way as in the matter of support or neutrality
in the French war.
Early in October the pilgrim-bishop was at Ulm, Beaufort
in suggestive proximity to the council at Constance. 2 Constance
It is not clear whether the English nation had been in
communication with Beaufort before their desertion
of Sigismund, or whether his arrival at Ulm took them
by surprise. Cardinal Filastre merely states in his
journal that while the question of the election was still
1 Proceedings, ii, 236, 237.
2 For discussion of the date of his arrival, see Creighton,
i, 395" n.
76 • CARDINAL BEAUFORT
in suspense, the English told the cardinals the news
of his arrival at Ulm, spoke of his great interest in the
unity of the Church, and urged them to invite him
to come to Constance and give him a free hand to
negotiate with the King of the Romans. The cardi-
nals accepted the suggestion, and wrote at once.
Sigismund also wrote to him. The Bishop of Lichfield
went to fetch him, and he entered Constance in the
garb of a pilgrim carrying his cross. He was met
by the King of the Romans and three cardinals ;
and after a few days' conference, under his mediation,
between cardinals and delegates of the nations on the
one side and Sigismund on the other, the disputed
points were settled. x It was once supposed that the
question referred to Beaufort was whether the work
of reformation should precede or follow the election
of a new pope, and that what Beaufort did was to
decide for the priority of the election. 2 Filastre's
diary has cleared up the whole matter. It is plain
from that diary that Sigismund had already consented,
however reluctantly, to the precedence of the election,
and that the grounds of dispute still left were (a) the
precise form of the guarantee to be given by the
cardinals that the new pope should undertake the
task of reformation before the dismissal of the
council, (b) the particular articles of reformation to
be taken in hand by the new pope and the council.
The guarantee was finally refused by the cardinals
altogether. Of the articles of reformation, " but few
could be agreed upon, and those with difficulty,"
probably those which were adopted by the decree of
the council on October 9th, viz., the summoning of
1 Finke, p. 227.
1 Hook, Archbishops, v, 70 ; Church Qu. Review, xii, 383
(1881).
BEAUFORT'S INTERVENTION 77
a general council in seven years and then even7 five
years, the right of a council to summon itself in case of
schism, the redress of such grievances as compulsory
translations, etc. The " nations " could not combine
to any further extent than this. What Beaufort
did was not to decide for the election of a pope before
the facing of the problems of reform, but to mediate
between Sigismund and the cardinals in the settle-
ment of the details of procedure. The compromise
finally accepted was as follows. A guarantee of
reform was to be embodied in a decree of the council ;
those points in the report of the commission of reform
on which all the nations were agreed were to be laid
formally before the council for its collective approval :
and commissioners were to be appointed to determine
the method of election. The final results of this
compromise were embodied in decrees passed on
October 30th.
It has been conjectured that Beaufort was actually PQlicy °f
sent by Henry to convey to Sigismund a personal at**1*7
explanation of Henry's conversion to the necessity or Constance,
wisdom of a compromise, and to co-operate with him
in earning out the altered Anglo-German policy. l
Some such explanation was certainly due to Sigis-
mund in the first instance, and was doubly necessary
after the tactless haste with which the Bishop of
Lichfield and his colleagues had begun to act in the
new direction. It is difficult, however, to determine
when Beaufort received such a commission. It may
have been sent to him in Flanders after Hallam's
death had removed the one man at the council who
could discharge such a duty to his master's ally and
give effect to his master's policy. But it is difficult to
account in this case for Beaufort's delay of his
1 Creighton, i, 392.
78 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
journey to the East, except on the supposition that he
was waiting for the possibility of a chance of distinc-
tion in some way. It is more probable that the
commission was given to him in July. Henry's letter
requiring his lieges at the council to stand by their
leaders was written on July 18th. On that same day
Henry gave Beaufort security for the repayment of
his loan of £14,000 ; on July 21st he gave him per-
mission to go on his pilgrimage ; and on July 23rd
the bishop resigned the chancellorship. The coin-
cidence is remarkable indeed if it is nothing more
than a coincidence.
Henry's motives were probably complex. x He was
too earnest a churchman after his fashion to jeopardise
the work of the council merely for the sake of claiming
the active co-operation of Sigismund in the French
campaign of 1417. Perhaps he despaired of any
further activity of real value on the part of the
council. Perhaps he was doubtful whether Sigis-
mund's idea of reform might not prove too extreme.
Perhaps he regarded the legislation of the fourteenth
century as a sufficient safeguard against the worst
abuses of papal intervention in England. Perhaps
he was anxious to avoid the establishment of French
influence at Rome. Perhaps he was eager to win
the credit of a successful compromise. Probably
in any case he had come to the conclusion that
Sigismund and himself would gain more for their own
interests and for the common interests of the Church
by simply endeavouring to secure a satisfactory
method of electing a new pope than by stubbornly
resisting the growing strength of what was now a
majority of the council. Both in the immediate
problem of reform in the Church and for the ultimate
1 Creighton, i, 392, 393.
RESULTS OF HENRY'S POLICY 79
prospect of a crusade of united Christendom against
the Moslems of the East, the personal attitude of the
new pope was a factor not to be ignored, and that
attitude would be shaped largely by the line that
Henry might take in the question of the coming
election.
If it is difficult to do more than enumerate possible
factors in Henry's change of policy, it is easy to
moralise upon its undoubted results. On the one
hand Henry missed an opportunity of doing what
was done under less reputable circumstances by a later
Henry. The independence of the English Church
might have been asserted and maintained. In April,
1416, King and parliament instructed the metropoli-
tans to confirm the election of bishops without waiting
for the conclusion of the papal schism. " But Henry
had no wish to break with established traditions.
His aim was to restore old ideals, not to create a new
order."1 His theory of the reform of Christendom,
if he had a reasoned theory as well as a devout
instinct, ran on the lines rather of the French school
than of the German. He was content with the
constitutional precautions which enabled him to
check the papal claim of jurisdiction when it conflicted
with national interests. But Henry not only failed
to see or refused to take the opportunity which might
have antedated the constitutional side of the English
reformation of the sixteenth century. He must be
held responsible in part for the postponement of a
general reformation of the Western Church as a whole.
By the conclusion of the council under such circum-
stances—circumstances partly due to the intervention
of Henry— " the old system was perpetuated, and the
Reformation in the technical sense of the word became
1 Kingsford, Henry V, p. 270.
80
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Beaufort a
candidate
for the
Papacy.
inevitable. For good or evil Henry of England had
his share in bringing it about." 1
There is no evidence to show whether Beaufort was
at all responsible for the change in Henry's attitude
towards the problems of the council. It is possible
that the chancellor's enthusiasm over the Sigismund-
ian alliance was giving place already in July, 1417,
to visions of European influence for England, and of
diplomatic laurels or ecclesiastical honours for himself,
but the possibility is a matter of pure surmise. What
is certain is that in October the Bishop of Winchester
came within measurable distance of being the new
Bishop of Rome, and that he was regarded by some
members of the council as having laid his plans or
having had them laid for him by Henry and Sigismund
with that very prospect in view. According to the
scheme adopted in the decree of October 30th, the
election was to be made by the twenty-three cardinals
and six deputies from each of the five nations. The
majority to be required was two-thirds of the cardinals
and two-thirds of each set of national deputies.
The conclave began on November 8th. The six
deputies of the English nation who entered the
conclave were the Bishops of London, Bath, Norwich,
and Lichfield, the Abbot of Bury and the Dean of
York. On the ninth the method of voting was
arranged. On the tenth came the first scrutiny of
votes, which proved indecisive. On the eleventh
four cardinals were found to be well ahead of the
rest of the candidates, one of them, Oddo Colonna,
having the necessary majority in the Italian and
English nations. The English, in fact, voted solidly
in his favour. The second scrutiny gave Colonna
the required majority in all five nations and the votes
1 Oman, p. 263.
THE VOTING IN THE CONCLAVE 81
of fifteen cardinals, and the accession of two more
cardinals made him pope-elect. Such was the course
of the voting proper, to judge from the pages of
Filastre 's diary, apparently the most trustworthy of
the conflicting accounts of the election. But much
lay behind the actual voting. Beaufort's name was
evidently considered, if not adopted, among the
candidates supported by the delegates of the English
nation when they entered the conclave. Walsingham
says that the Bishops of Winchester and London and
" the cardinal of France " (the famous Parisian doctor
D'Ailly, Cardinal of Cambrai) were all nominated,
but that Bishop Clifford of London announced his
intention of voting for Colonna, and the rest of the
electors followed his lead.1 Gascoigne attributes
D'Ailly 's failure directly to Beaufort : " another good
doctor of France would have been elected, had not
the intrigue and industry of the Bishop of Winchester,
Henry Beaufort, hindered that result." 2 Here again
it is the graphic account of Cardinal Filastre which
reveals the forces at work behind the scenes. He
speaks of the growing suspicion and the yet more
general rumour to the effect that Beaufort's voyage
to Jerusalem was a mere pretence, since few or none
would begin so long a journey in the winter. The
pretended voyage and the actual visit to Constance,
men said, were parts of a plan designed by Sigismund
and the English to bring Beaufort within reach of the
election, and the mediation of the bishop was intended
to win him the gratitude and admiration of the
council, and so to secure his election. Certain great
prelates were asked to give their consent and support
to his candidature, Filastre says ; and even among
1 Wals., ii, 320.
2 Loci e libro veritatum (ed. Thorold Rogers), p. 155.
7 — (2210)
82 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the cardinals there were some who urged the holy
college to approach Beaufort on the subject, though
others again deprecated such a step. x An incidental
remark of Filastre's elsewhere pushes the bishop's
candidature back into October. The precise scheme
adopted on October 30th in the formation of the elect-
ing body was drafted originally by the French nation.
The other nations accepted it readily. It gave them,
all told, thirty votes against the twenty-three assigned
to the cardinals, and the requirement of a majority
in each of the sections of the conclave secured full
weight for each of the six votes of any dissatisfied
nation. The cardinals were the last to accept the
scheme. But they were not the only party whom it
was intended to neutralise. Filastre says that the
French had two reasons for framing the scheme as
they did. One was their fear of the Italian majority
in the college of cardinals ; the other was their
suspicion of the secret canvassing on behalf of the
Bishop of Winchester. 2 They might not be able to
secure the election of their own candidate D'Ailly.
But they had no intention of being compelled to
accept an Italian nominee of the cardinals unless he
were acceptable to the handful of French electors ;
and they had every intention of using those six votes
to close the door against an English pope, who had
laboured in embassy and privy council to enforce his
master's claim to the throne of France.
Such appears to be the most credible view of the
crisis. The five contradictory accounts of the election
given by the original authorities are probably to be
explained as representing not the actual progress of
the election but the proposals made within each
i Finke, 227.
2 Finke, 231.
CANDIDATURE OF BEAUFORT 83
nation.1 They reflect the conversation of the
deputies afterwards on the subject of their favourites.
It seems clear that Beaufort was a candidate for the
papal chair, practically if not formally, at an early
stage in the proceedings. Apparently he withdrew
from his candidature, or the English withdrew their
support from him, when the time came for the actual
nomination of candidates, or when the first stage in
the election began. Either withdrawal or both would
be inevitable as soon as it became evident that the
English candidate would not have the support of the
cardinals, and the English vote would naturally be
transferred in that case to the candidate who was
apparently acceptable to Sigismund and who had the
advantage of not being in the first instance the
favourite either of the cardinals or of the French.
1 Creighton, i, 453.
CHAPTER V
Beaufort
appointed
Cardinal
and Legate.
THE SERVICE OF THE PAPACY AND OF THE CROWN
1418-1422
The Council of Constance had chosen a head, and
found a master. Beaufort had made a friend, and
opened out for himself a new prospect. On December
22nd the college of cardinals wrote to Henry V,
describing the election of Colonna, who had taken the
title of Martin V from his election on St. Martin's day,
and gratefully commending the services of the
English ambassadors at the council to the recognition
of their sovereign. The cardinals had no doubt
as to the side which had gained most from the inter-
vention of the English nation and the mediation of
the Bishop of Winchester. They knew full well that
they had by that intervention been enabled to save
their own privileges, and the prestige of the Papacy.
Martin realised the situation as clearly as the cardinals.
On December 23rd he wrote to Henry to announce his
own election. Beaufort's turn came next. His
candidature was forgotten or forgiven, and his
services were rewarded and his disappointment
consoled by the highest dignity that the Papacy had
to confer. On December 28th Martin issued at the
council in Beaufort's presence a bull appointing him
cardinal, without any special title as yet, and legate
of the apostolic see in England, Wales, and Ireland,
and promised to publish the appointment on the first
convenient occasion, and to send him the insignia of
his new office.1 On January 9th, 1418, Martin
1 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i, addend. 800.
84
BEAUFORT AND MARTIN V 85
entrusted the bishop with the task of receiving Baldas-
sare Cossa, the deposed John XXIII, from the hands
of Louis, count palatine of the Rhine, who was sending
him to the Pope at the desire of Sigismund. Beaufort
was requested by the Pope to place Cossa formally in
the custody of the count as the prisoner of the Papacy. 1
It was but a slight commission, but it was an indication
that Beaufort was entering the service of a second
master. It remained to be seen what his first master
would say. However certain it seems that Henry of
England was the author of the policy which practically
played into the hands of the future pope, it is uncer-
tain whether or not he was responsible for the second-
ary idea that the future pope might be an Englishman.
That idea may have been Beaufort's own, and it is
an open question whether or not it was acceptable to
Henry. On the whole, it is probable that Henry
would have welcomed this solution of his diplomatic
difficulties abroad, and of such ecclesiastical difficulties
as he felt at home. But Beaufort as pope and
Beaufort as the minister of an Italian pope were two
very different things. Martin had scarcely shown his
hand at the council as yet. The various instalments
of reform were still under discussion. But his motives
in making Beaufort both cardinal and legate were
fairly obvious. The cardinalate alone might have
been a mark of pure gratitude for the mediation which
had paved the way for his election. But the addition
of the legatine office revealed an ulterior purpose.
The gratitude of the Pope was evidently quickened
by a lively anticipation of favours to come. It is
plain enough from Martin's subsequent procedure
that he counted upon Beaufort's help in bringing the
English Church back into subservience to papal
1 Rymer, ix, 540.
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Protest of
Archbishop
Chichele.
claims and in obtaining from the English realm the
modification, if not the repeal, of its anti-papal legis-
lation. The statute of Provisors might lie unused,
but its existence was a barrier against the free exercise
of the papal claim to the right of presenting to all
benefices, diocesan or parochial. The statute of
Praemunire might slumber for a generation, but it
might awake at any crisis to forbid the appeal of an
English churchman to Rome, or the acceptance of
a bull, or the admission of a legate from Rome within
the borders of the realm of England. Beaufort could
scarcely have been ignorant of Martin's intention or
unwilling to contemplate what it might involve.
When the inevitable choice had to be made between
the two courses, loyalty to the Papacy and loyalty
to his country, the Englishman in Beaufort won.
But he was apparently prepared to play the double
part as honestly as he could, and to postpone the
question of the priority of allegiance until a crisis
occurred. It is possible that he relied upon the known
orthodoxy and fidelity of Henry as a churchman to
postpone the crisis for a long time. He had counted
however, without the archbishop and the King.
Chichele wrote to Henry on March 6th, 1418, a long
letter of protest against the appointment of a per-
manent legatus a latere.1 The whole letter repays
careful reading as the plea of an English primate who
strove to reconcile deference to the Papacy with the
defence of the autonomy of a national church. He
reminded the King that on September 25th, 1417,
i.e., during the dispute over the coming election which
was ended by the mediation of Beaufort, he had given
written instructions to the primate, Bedford, and the
chancellor, that no subject of his was to communicate
1 Duck, Life of Chichele, pp. 77-80.
THE OFFICE OF A LEGATE 87
with the future pope-elect until the election had been
announced to the King and acknowledged by him
according to the custom of the English realm. He
said that he had heard, privately at first and now
more openly, that " my brother of Winchester should
be maked a cardinal, if ye would give your assent
thereto, and that he should have his bishopric in
commendam for the term of his life, and thereto have
a state, and (be) sent to your realm of England as a
legate a latere, to the which manner of legacy none
hath been accustomed to be named but cardinals,
and that legacy also to occupy through all your
obeisance (i.e., through all lands under Henry's rule),
and all the time of his life." The archbishop pro-
tested that in the first place such an appointment was
an intrusion into the constitutional working of the
Church of England. "Blessed be Almighty God,
under your worthy protection, your Church of
England is at this day the most honourable church
Christian as well as divine service as honest living
thereof, governed after strait laws and holy constitu-
tions that be made of them without any great exor-
bitances or anything that might turn to high slander
of your foresaid Church or of your land ; and if any
trespasses of man's frailty falleth we may be corrected
and punished by the ordinaries there as the case
falleth." Secondly, it was an office charged by
canon law with great actual powers, as the King
would see from the enclosed " scroll," in which the
archbishop had set down all that was " expressed in
the pope's law and concluded by doctors " as to the
functions of a legate. Moreover, it was unlimited in
its possible extension by the pope, " for it stand in
his will to dispose as him good liketh." Thirdly, it
was a transgression of all precedent. Laws and
88
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Prohibition
by
Henry V.
chronicles alike bore witness that such legates had
only come into England for great and notable causes,
and only for such time as was necessary to complete
the special business for which they came, such time
varying from two months to a year or less. The only
permanent legate was the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who was legatus natus by virtue of his office. Such
was the case against the proposed permanent legatus
a latere. The primate ended his letter with a petition
that the King would consider the matter and see first
that " the state of the Church be maintained and
sustained, so that every of the ministers thereof
hold them content with their own part " — a hint
perhaps at Beaufort's personal ambition — " for truly
he that hath least hath enow to reckon for " ;
secondly, " that your poor people be not piled nor
oppressed with divers exactions and unaccustomed,
through which they should be the more feeble to
refresh you our liege lord in time of need and when
it liketh you to clepe (i.e., call) upon them " ; and,
thirdly, that " all pleas and slander cease in your
Church," a hint at the danger of a spirit of litigation
being awakened by the judicial claims of a legate
over against the regular working of the " courts
Christian " of archdeacon and bishop.
The archbishop's protest on behalf of the interests
of the nation and of the dignity of the crown met with
immediate success. Henry's response was to forbid
Beaufort's acceptance of the papal offer. Hall says
that Henry was minded " that cardinals' hats should
not presume to be equal with princes " ; and in 1440
Gloucester attributed to Henry the remark that
" he had as lief set his crown beside him as to see him
wear a cardinal's hat." Gloucester added then a
comment of his own : " for he knew full well the pride
CHURCHMANSHIP OF HENRY V 89
and ambition that was in his person, then being but
a bishop, should so greatly have extolled him more
into the intolerable pride that he was cardinal."
Henry may have noted and remembered indications
of danger in the temperament of his uncle the bishop,
but it is more likely that the grounds on which " the
state of cardinal was nayed and denied him by the
King " were at once deeper and higher. Gloucester
was taking up a stronger position when he proceeded
to lay stress on Henry's loyalty to the claims of
Canterbury. " And also him thought it should be
against the freedom of the chief Church of this realm,
which he worshipped duly as ever did prince. . . .
Howbeit that my said lord your father would have
agreed him to have had certain clerks of this land
cardinals, they having no bishoprics in England ; yet
his intent was never to do so great derogation to the
Church of Canterbury to make them that were his
suffragans to sit above their ordinary and metropol-
itan ; but the cause was that in general councils and
in all matters that might concern the weal of him
and of his realm he should have promoters of his
nation, as all other Christian kings had, in the court
of Rome, and not to abide in this land as any part of
your council, as be all other lords spiritual and
temporal at the parliaments and great councils, when
your list is to call them." 1 Gloucester's recollection of
his late brother's attitude on this question was
probably correct and truthful. It was the attitude
of the typical English churchman of that day. Some
such attitude Henry V certainly took and maintained
in 1418, and Beaufort was compelled to acquiesce
in the King's prohibition, and to find consolation for
1 Stevenson, Wars in France, ii, 441.
90 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
his own disappointment in the resumption of his
long-interrupted pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
The Pope Beaufort was not the only person who was disap-
and the pointed by the sequel of the election at Constance.
King. The remainder of the sessions brought but little gain
to the cause of reformation. Martin alternately con-
ceded and evaded, and conciliated and refused.
On March 21st a few statutes were passed limiting or
withdrawing certain minor claims of the Papacy.
But twelve of the eighteen articles of reform were
settled by separate concordats with the different
nations concerned. The English concordat, signed
on July 12th, 1418, " stood alone for its brevity and
trivial character ; the will of parliament and a strong
ruler were a sufficient protection for the English
Church."1 Martin and Henry remained on friendly
terms, but neither was satisfied with the other.
In 1418 Martin tried to influence the negotiations
between England and France in favour of the latter,
and to fill English benefices with favourites of his own ;
and Henry had to instruct the Bishop of Lichfield,
who had gone from Constance to Rome, and was now
the English agent there, to tender respectful but firm
remonstrances against both of these intrusions. In
1419 an English agent of Martin's brought to Henry
at Mantes an urgent request for peace in France and
for the repeal of such laws in England as hindered the
action of the apostolic see. Henry's only answer was
that he would let the Pope know when he saw his way
to the peace which he desired, and that he was bound
to maintain the laws of his realm. 2 Martin had to
hold his hand and wait his time. Meanwhile his
policy was now plain enough to read ; there could be
1 Kingsford, Henry V, p. 274.
a Rymer, ix, 806.
CONFERENCE AT MEULAN 91
little doubt in Beaufort's mind in 1426 what the
renewal of the offer of the cardinalate in that year
was expected to produce in the way of service on his
part.
The personal relations between Beaufort and the Negotia-
King remained undisturbed by the prohibition of the pJJJJJ?1
cardinalate in 1418. The fact redounds to the credit 1419.
of both men. It also discounts largely the subsequent
language of Gloucester on the subject of Beaufort's
arrogance and Henry's suspicion. Henry could still
trust the bishop, and the bishop was as ready as ever
to serve his king. On the very next occasion on which
the bishop appears in history, he appears in close
conjunction with Archbishop Chichele, and the
King's two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, in
attendance upon the King himself, and in partial
charge of important, if fruitless, negotiations with
Burgundy and France. Henry's successes in Nor-
mandy in 1417 and 1418 had not blinded him to the
difficulties of his position, and he actually wrote to
the council to give reasons for considering the question
of an alliance with the discontented Dauphin. * At
last a conference was held in May, 1419, near Meulan-
on-Seine between the chief personages concerned in
the war. Burgundy brought the Queen of France
and her daughter Katharine ; the poor King was too
mad to come. Henry was attended by two brothers,
Bedford and Clarence, Archbishop Chichele, and his
two uncles, Henry the bishop and Thomas the
soldier. A preliminary discussion ended in an
agreement not to withdraw from the conference
except after a week's notice, and the five lords were
authorised by Henry to conclude the expected treaty.
Henry, however, though delighted with the princess,
1 Proceedings, ii, 350-358.
92 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
was not minded to lessen his demands or temper his
refusals. He asked for the absolute sovereignty of
the Bretigny dominions and Normandy besides, all
of which Burgundy was at first prepared to grant.
On the other hand, though he consented to renounce
his claim to the French crown, with a saving clause
to cover all lands ceded by this conference, he refused
to surrender his claim to supremacy or possession
in Brittany, Anjou, Maine and Flanders ; and he
declined to promise that the treaty should be ratified
by his brothers and by parliament. This last refusal
did much to alienate Burgundy, who was then being
offered peace and power by the Dauphin if he would
break off his advances to the English. The suspicion
of this understanding led to high words between the
King and the duke at their interview on June 30th,
and on July 3rd the duke never appeared at all. The
conference was at an end.1 Queen Isabel wrote to
Henry in September to lay the blame upon the
Dauphin, but the blame lay largely with the unrea-
sonable temper of the King. As it happened, how-
ever, the treachery of the Dauphin gave back to Henry
the opportunity which he had thrown away. On Sep-
tember 10th, Duke John the Fearless was murdered as
he knelt before the Dauphin at Montereau, and his son,
Philip the Good, sacrificing every other considera-
tion to the desire of revenge, put himself unhesitat-
ingly on the side of the English. " The crime of the
Treaty of Dauphin placed France at Henry's feet."2 In
royes. December the young duke accepted Henry's terms.
Early in 1420 Bedford returned from England to
1 For the conference see T. Elm ham, pp. 216-225 ; J. J.
Ursins, 549-552 ; Monstrelet, pp. 453, 454 ; Rymer, ix,
759-764, 789, 790 ; Ramsay, i, 270-272.
2 Stubbs, iii, 91.
TREATY OF TROYES 93
help Henry in organising the government of Nor-
mandy. On May 21st " the great peace " which had
been concluded in detail by Henry's envoys was sworn
and sealed in the cathedral of Troyes by the Queen
of France, the Princess Katharine, and the Duke of
Burgundy, the King of France being too helpless to
be seen abroad ; and on June 2nd the princess was
married to Henry, " King of England and heir of
France."
Beaufort was back again in England in October, Beaufort
1419, acting as a trier of petitions from subjects at ™lth the
home and as a member of a commission of peers Crusaders,
appointed to raise loans for the King on the security
of the new subsidy. In the parliament of December,
1420, he was nominated again as a trier of petitions
from the realm at home. Between these two par-
liaments must be placed one of the episodes of knight
errantry in which the soldierly side of the bishop's
character found exercise. The Treaty of Troyes had
not been recognised by Pope Martin or Castile or
Scotland, and some even of the vassals and allies of
Burgundy repudiated its terms. Sigismund, how-
ever, and Henry's brother-in-law, Ludwig of Bavaria,
accepted the situation, and in July, 1420, Ludwig,
" the red duke," was righting in Henry's army at the
siege of Melun, near Paris. There is no record of
Beaufort's presence at this time ; but if the French
chronicler Wavrin is to be trusted, the bishop had
been associated with Ludwig, apparently earlier in
the same year, in a crusade against the rebellious
Bohemian subjects of Sigismund. The Bohemian
insurrection, in part a nationalist movement against
German supremacy, was fanned into religious fury
by the indignation which Sigismund had awakened
by his share in the martyrdom of Hus and Jerome at
94 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Constance. The death of Wenzel, King of Bohemia,
in August, 1419, left Sigismund in the position of
lawful claimant to that kingdom, and he proceeded to
enforce his authority with a merciless severity which
spared neither patriot nor heretic. In March, 1420,
the papal legate issued a bull proclaiming a crusade
against the Bohemians. It was apparently at this
stage that the campaign began of which Wavrin
has given a graphic account from his own experience
as an eye-witness in the Savoyard contingent. The
crusade was headed by various German princes, the
Bishops of Cologne, Treves, Liege, and Mayence,
and Ludwig of Bavaria, some forty-two magnates in
all. They entered Bohemia, ravaging as they went,
and besieged Souch (? Saatz), only to break up in
a month from sheer jealousy and suspicion of each
other's designs. The dispersion was hastened by a
message from the Emperor recalling his vassals and
forbidding any further advance. The zeal of the
crusaders had outrun their loyalty as feudatories.
" In this army," writes Wavrin, " was the Cardinal
of England, who seeing the confusion said in great
displeasure that if he had had six thousand English
archers that day he would quite easily have beaten
all the troops that were there, and he said truly, for
no one waited for another, and it was a wonder that
no disaster happened to them, as it would have done
if their enemies had been people of any enterprise."1
It is uncertain what Beaufort, who is here described
by the title which he held when Wavrin wrote, was
doing on the German border. He may have been
executing a commission from his king. Ambassadors
of the Archbishop of Cologne were in communication
with the privy council in 1416 ; and in 1419 Henry
1 Wavrin, Eng. Trans. (Rolls Series), ii, 309.
BEAUFORT'S BUSINESS IN GERMANY 95
had envoys bidding for the support of the prelates
of Treves and Mayence, and looking for a wife for his
brother Bedford among the princesses of Germany.
Beaufort's presence in the crusading army may have
been an unauthorised extension of a mission to
Ludwig from his brother-in-law of England. Perhaps
Beaufort had gone to claim the support which Ludwig
actually gave to Henry later in the year, or to report
to Sigismund the relations between Henry and
Burgundy and the prospect of the coming treaty with
France. On the other hand, Beaufort may have been
tempted by want of occupation in France to venture
further afield in search of fresh interest on the scene
of his achievements of 1417. Whatever was the
reason of his presence, his experience on this occasion
was perhaps in two ways the precursor of his more
famous adventure in Bohemia in 1426. The crusade
of 1420 taught him the need of a strong hand to weld
and wield the forces of the Empire in the cause of the
Church ; it also brought him once more to the notice
of the Pope whose first anti-Hussite movement had
here met with such ignominious failure.
The parliament which met in December, 1420, Return to
under the presidency of Gloucester, was concerned England
chiefly with the question of hastening the King's ^ e
return. Affection for his person, difficulties in
dealing with matters requiring royal consent, fears
of the subordination of England to France, all com-
bined to add earnestness to their appeal to the King ;
and Henry left France in January, 1421. Clarence
remained behind as his lieutenant in France and
Normandy ; Thomas Beaufort, now Duke of Exeter,
as governor of Paris. Henry of Winchester returned
with Bedford and other peers in the King's retinue.
Henry's own welcome in London was quieter than his
96 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
reception in 1415, but the loyalty of the city broke
out in pageant and pomp again on the arrival of his
Queen a week later. Katharine was crowned in
Westminster Abbey on the last Sunday in February,
and the coronation was followed at once by a mag-
nificent banquet in the hall at Westminster which
fills pages of the chronicle of Gregory, himself mayor
of London thirty years afterwards.1 "First the
Queen sat in her estate, and the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester sat on the
right side of the Queen, and they were served next
unto the Queen every course, covered as the Queen "
with all manner of cunning " subtleties " or designs
in confectionery. Bedford was present as Constable
of England, Gloucester as " overseer " of the whole
array. The King was absent in accordance with
etiquette ; it was the Queen's day. After the festiv-
ities Henry took his Queen on a royal progress.
As a devout churchman he had shrines to visit ; as
a wise sovereign he was anxious to confirm the loyalty
of his subjects and to kindle their patriotism to fresh
sacrifices for the conquest of his new heritage. On
leaving Beverley he was met by the news of disaster.
Clarence had paid for a rash venture with his life at
Beaufort's Bauge on Easter eve. Henry finished his round of
Loans. visits and returned to open parliament on May 2nd.
The Treaty of Troyes was duly confirmed, but money
was not forthcoming. " In the which parliament,"
writes the chronicler, " was axed no tallage, wherefore
the Bishop of Winchester lent the King xx ML-
pound."2 This loan has been justly described as
" a proof of private confidence even more signal
1 Gregory, pp. 139-141.
2 Gregory, p. 142.
NATIONAL FINANCE 97
than any which the parliament could give."1 The
bishop had been repaid only a third of the £14,000
which he lent the King in 1417 ; yet he consented to
lend a further sum of £14,000, 2 making in all £22,306
18s. 8d. now due to him, which the chronicler mistook
as one fresh loan. Beaufort was in fact the friend
indeed in time of need. The urgency of the King's
need was proved by the extreme step which he had
just taken. In April he issued commissions for raising
loans from individuals, and instructed his officers to
report to him all refusers. With all its loyalty
parliament in May offered no subsidy. The King's
financial difficulties were well known. An estimate
laid before the council on May 6th showed that of
the gross revenue of less than £56,000 over £52,000
was required for regular expenditure, leaving £3,500
for a variety of occasional charges and nothing for
the heavy debts of Harfleur, Calais, and the admiralty,
and for the debts of the late King's will, or Henry's
own debts as Prince of Wales. Perhaps parliament
thought that the cost of the war should now fall on
the King's new dominions, in spite of his recent
warning of the danger and injustice of burdening
Normandy ; perhaps the King's own action in raising
loans seemed to relieve parliament of the duty or the
necessity of coming to his assistance.3 All that par-
liament did, at any rate, was to empower the council
to give security for the payments thus contracted by
the King for his coming campaign. The vote was
a proof of the confidence of the nation, but it was also
a shirking of its burden. The consciousness of this
relief found apt expression in the petition of the
1 Stubbs, iii, 93.
2 Rot. Pari., iv, 132 ; Proceedings, ii, 298.
3 Ramsay, i, 294.
8— (22IO)
98 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
commons for letters patent to secure the bishop's loan
on the customs of Southampton. The loan was
described in that petition as being " for the ease of
your poor commonalty of England." The bishop's
services did not end with his loan. It was probably
his influence which induced convocation to vote the
King a tenth in May. On June 10th Henry sailed
with barely a thousand men to face the campaign
which was to be his last. On July 1st the bishop's
name appears again on the minutes of the council
after four years' absence. On the 2nd the treasurer
delivered into the hands of the bishop a golden crown
richly adorned with precious jewels. The crown
was duly exhibited and handled in the presence of the
lords of the council, and placed in a casket covered
with leather, which was then sealed by the treasurer
and given into the custody of the bishop. No doubt
the crown was part of the bishop's security for his loans.
Much has been made of his " rapacity " on this and
other occasions. The sources of his loans will come
to be considered in connexion with Gloucester's attack
upon his reputation in 1440 ; it is sufficient to note
here that in all probability he " acted as a contractor
on a large scale."1 He was not so much a private
lender as a banker of the crown, and his credit was
as important as his wealth. If at times his require-
ment of security seemed grasping and ungenerous,
it must be remembered that he provided more than
one loan before its predecessors had been paid off,2
and that the requirement of security was made in the
interest of the kingdom as well as in his own. The
possibility of future loans depended upon the security
1 Stubbs, ill, 94.
2 He lent the King ^3,000 more at Dover in June before he
sailed, in addition to the ^22,000 already lent.
FOREIGN POLICY
99
of previous loans. In the year 1421 Beaufort was
providing the country with ready money to an amount
equal to two-fifths of the gross revenue of the crown,
and equal to at least a third of a million in modern
money.
Many of the matters which occupied the attention Affairs of
of the bishop and his fellow-councillors during their sj;at£
busy meetings in July, October, and November, 1421, privy
were cases of purely local or personal interest, but Council,
three of the minutes of the council had a wider
reference. (1) On July 1st ambassadors were ap-
pointed to visit Sigismund, and on the 17th they
were given instructions to discuss with him the
position of the Duchy of Luxemburg, which was a bone
of contention between Burgundy and the Emperor,
Henry's two allies. Their main task, however, was
to press for that active support which Henry had been
seeking from Sigismund in vain since 1418, and which
he needed now more than ever. 1 (2) On July 15th
the council had to consider a petition from the papal
collector, who asked for letters patent enforcing the
payment of papal dues by persons who held benefices
in England which were formerly subject to French
ecclesiastical corporations, and who had refused pay-
ment during the war with France. Bedford, Beau-
fort, and the primate agreed to grant the petition.2
(3) On July 8th and 9th the council made provision Jacqueline
for the maintenance of Jacqueline, the young Countess of Hainault
of Holland, Zealand and Hainault, widow of the
late Dauphin of France and wife of John, Duke of
Brabant. 3 Unhappy in her second marriage,
Jacqueline had sought a home in England, and was
1 Proceedings, ii, 288.
2 Proceedings, ii, 299.
3 Proceedings, ii, 291, 293.
100 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
welcomed by the King. Her hand had been sought
for Bedford in 1418 ; this time Gloucester himself
was attracted by her charms. If, however, Henry
welcomed Jacqueline to England in the hope of a
marriage which might secure a footing for England
in the Netherlands, he was grievously mistaken.
In the end Jacqueline proved one of the most serious
hindrances to the policy which Bedford and Beaufort
inherited from Henry. Gloucester's subsequent in-
fatuation for Jacqueline made it hard for them to
retain the loyal support of Burgundy, her neighbour
and kinsman, who resented bitterly Gloucester's
intrusion into his sphere of influence.
Last days The position of affairs in the meantime was growing
of Henry V. more an(j more serious. Money was scarcer than ever
at home ; abroad the King was worn out with sieges
and marches and the conscientious supervision of
business which followed him oversea. A ray of
comfort came with the birth of a prince at Windsor
on December 6th. The little Henry, heir to the
thrones of England and France, was christened by
the primate ; and the Bishop of Winchester stood for
him at the font along with Bedford and Jacqueline
of Hainault. The chroniclers add that the primate
acted as godfather at the confirmation which followed
the baptism ; x perhaps it may be inferred that it was
the Bishop of Winchester who laid hands upon the
child. But the pride and hope rekindled by the
Prince's birth soon gave place to anxiety and grief.
Henry's work was ended, all unfinished as it was.
The surrender of Meaux relieved the strain upon his
weakened troops ; but Burgundy gave little help,
and Sigismund and Portugal sent none at all. In
May Bedford brought the Queen over with a slender
1 Gregory, p. 143.
LAST WILL OF HENRY V 101
reinforcement, but only to find the King dying of his
hardships. The end came at Vincennes after mid-
night on August 31st. Henry had summoned his
kinsmen and councillors to his bedside some days
before. Beaufort was at home in England with
Gloucester the regent, but his brother, the Duke of
Exeter, was with Bedford and Warwick and the
trusty few in France who gathered now to receive
the King's last commands. The crusade was his last
thought, that crusade which he had planned with
Burgundy in 1421, which he had doubtless discussed
many a time with Beaufort, which he had put before
the German princes as the long-contemplated sequel
of all his conflicts nearer home, and which he kept
so close to his heart that on his sick bed he was still
reading the story of the first crusade. 1 But he had
not forgotten matters of more immediate urgency.
His earlier wills of 1415 and 1417 had dealt with his His
personal and real property respectively. Among provision
their provisions, which he now confirmed, was the ~r ^r
bequest of a " portos " to the Bishop of Winchester,
a breviary in two volumes which had been written
and illuminated by special order of Henry IV for his
own use during his illness in 1408. But a far more
important legacy was now bequeathed to the bishop
in the share given to him in the guardianship of the
infant Prince.2 The will of 1421, in which Henry
made all the political arrangements which he thought
best for his son and his two realms, was produced in
parliament in 1425, but afterwards lost. The
chroniclers, however, though differing in detail, are
in the main fairly unanimous. Bedford was to be
1 The book belonged to Joan Beaufort, Countess of
Westmoreland ; Proceedings, hi, 168, n. ; Rymer, x, 317.
3 Gesta Hem. V., p. 159.
102 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
regent of Normandy and France, Gloucester regent
of England. Exeter's name stands first in the
chroniclers among the guardians of the Prince, but
two of them add the bishop, and a third mentions
Warwick also. Hardyng, the contemporary writer,
is most precise. He explains that Warwick became
guardian after Exeter's death in 1426. The dying
Henry wished
Thomas Beauforde his uncle dere and trewe
Duke of Excester, full of all worthyhode,
To tyme his soone to perfect age grewe,
He to kepe hym, chaungyng for no newe,
With help of his other erne (i.e., uncle) then full wise
The Bishop of Winchester of good advise.1
The chroniclers have preserved recollections of
Henry's last prophetic words of counsel which throw
light upon the meaning of these appointments. 2 He
protested to the end that his claim was righteous and
his work in France a divine mission ; yet he foresaw
that the uncompleted conquest might some day be
lost. He charged his friends to keep the Duke of
Orleans a prisoner until the child Henry was of age,
to make no peace which would not secure at least
Normandy as an absolute dominion, and to give no
offence to their ally of Burgundy, whose support was
a necessity. This last charge was to be conveyed
also as a solemn warning to Gloucester. The hint is
significant. It is true that Henry is not said to have
suggested any limitation of Gloucester's authority as
1 Hardyng, p. 387.
2 Monstrelet, p. 530 ; T. Elmham, pp. 332, 333 ; cp.
Stubbs, iii, 95, 98, and Ramsay, i, 303. Walsingham (ii, 345)
and the Burgundian chroniclers say that Henry wished the
regency in France to be offered first to Burgundy. It is
interesting to note this in view of the fact that Bedford
surrendered it to Burgundy in 1429.
GUARDIANSHIP OF THE INFANT KING 103
regent of England. But it seems clear that Bedford
was intended to hold the first place in the whole plan.
France was the post of danger and the post of honour.
If discord arose at home or difficulty abroad through
the self-assertion of Gloucester, the Beauforts as
guardians of the young King were to hold the balance
in favour of Bedford. It was, perhaps, for this
purpose that the guardianship was in a sense put in
commission and not confined strictly to Exeter alone.
CHAPTER VI
Limitation
of Glouces-
ter's
authority
(i) at the
Council
THE PRIVY COUNCIL AND THE PROTECTOR
1422-1424
Whatever were the precise provisions made by
Henry V for the government of the double realm
after his death, the lords of the council evidently held
themselves free to revise or suspend those provisions.
How far they were merely utilising the accession of an
infant King to assert their constitutional position, or
how far they were prompted by distrust of Glouces-
ter's personality or apprehension of his policy, must
remain an unanswered question. It is possible that
Gloucester was himself the danger against which they
desired to guard ; it is possible on the other hand that
it was the office of regent in itself which they feared,
and that some part of their action would have
followed the same lines if the regency had presented
itself to them in the stronger but soberer character
of Bedford. In any case, the resistance of Gloucester
at every step soon gave the whole dispute a more
personal aspect.
Nearly a month elapsed before any official action
was taken to inaugurate the new reign. When on
September 28th the Bishop of Durham resigned the
chancellorship, Gloucester was permitted to receive
the seal from the bishop, but in the presence of the
infant King. The writs summoning parliament were
sealed in the name of the King and the council, and
Gloucester himself was summoned by writ as though
he were merely the first peer of the realm. What was
implied in these contrasts to the procedure followed
104
GLOUCESTER AND THE COUNCIL 105
under the regencies of Bedford and Gloucester during
the late reign was soon made a matter of express
stipulation. The council met on November 5th, and
produced a document in which Gloucester was to be
authorised by the King to open, conduct, and dissolve
parliament as the commissary of the King " by the
assent of the council." The construction of these
last words was ambiguous. x They seem most natu-
rally to refer to the circumstances of the granting of
the commission. Gloucester, however, read the
clause as meaning not that his commission was
granted by the King in council but that his control
of parliament was to be limited by the consent of the
council. If he was wrong in his interpretation of the
clause, itself an innovation upon previous commissions
of the kind, he was not corrected by the council.
He was certainly right in his general impression that
the whole commission ignored his supposed position
as regent. In the end he had to drop his protest,
for the lords were asked their opinions in turn, and
each of them insisted on the retention of the words.
Gloucester could scarcely be satisfied with the
explanation that the words were " as necessary for
the security of the duke as they were for the security
of the council."2
When parliament met on November 9th, the King's (2) in
commission to Gloucester was read, and its terms Parliament,
were strictly observed, petitions being addressed to
him not as regent or Lieutenant of England but as
" commissary of the King." Archbishop Chichele,
who opened the session, paid a tribute of praise to
the late King, and turned to dwell on the task of
^completion which lay before the infant sovereign,
\x Stubbs, iii, 96 n. 3 ; Vickers, Gloucester, pp. 110, 111.
a Proceedings, iii, 7.
106 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
" already King of England and of France," for the
afflicted King of France, Charles VI, had died in
October. The primate pleaded for the support of
parliament. The King, he said, would need the help
of wise counsellors such as Jethro urged Moses to
seek in his task of ruling Israel, and these counsellors
should be drawn from each estate of the realm.1
Such was the forecast which the good primate was
permitted or instructed to give of coming events.
Parliament confirmed the previous acts of the council,
and assented to the reappointment of the chief officers
of the crown ; and then the question of the regency
came up for final settlement. Gloucester had been
pressing his claim on the double ground of his birth
and of the late King's will. The rolls of parliament
of 1422 give merely the formal documents which
record the results of the discussion. But a vivid light
is thrown on the proceedings of 1422 by the answer
made by the lords in the session of 1427-8 to a demand
which Gloucester then made for a definition of his
powers as protector. They reminded him pertinently
of the settlement of 1422. " Whereupon the lords
spiritual and temporal assembled in parliament (i.e.,
in 1422), among the which were my lords your uncles,
the Bishop of Winchester that now liveth, and the
Duke of Exeter, and your cousin Earl of March that
be gone to God, and of Warwick, and other in great
number that now live, had great and long delibera-
tion and advice, searched precedents of the governail
of the land in time and case semblable, when kings
of this land have been tender of age, took also informa-
tion of the laws of the land, of such persons as be
notably learned therein, and finally found your said
desire nought caused nor grounded in precedent, nor
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 169.
THE TITLE OF PROTECTOR 107
in the law of the land ; the which the King that dead
is, in his life ne might by his last will nor otherwise
alter, change nor abroge, without the assent of the
three estates, nor commit or grant to any person
governance or rule of this land longer than he lived ;
but on that other behalf the said lords found your said
desire not according with the laws of this land, and
against the right and freedom of the estates of the
same land. How were it, that it be not thought that
any such thing wittingly proceeded of your intent.
And nevertheless to keep peace and tranquillity, and
to the intent to ease and appease you, it was advised
and appointed by authority of the King, assenting
the three estates of this land, that ye in absence of
my lord your brother of Bedford should be chief of
the King's council, and devised therefore unto you a
name different from other councillors, not the name
of tutor, lieutenant, governor nor of regent, nor no
name that should import authority of governance of
the land, but the name of protector and defensor,
the which importeth a personal duty of intendance
to the actual defence of the land, as well against the
enemies outward, if case required, as against rebels
inward, if any were, that God forbid ; granting you
certain power, the which is specified and contained
in an act of the said parliament, it to endure as long
as it liked the King."1 To this appointment,
remarked the lords of 1428, Gloucester agreed at the
time on his own behalf, with a saving clause on behalf
of any rights that Bedford might claim in the
government of England.
Gloucester's powers thus defined, and his subordina- The
tion to Bedford fixed, the next step was the nomina- Council of
tion of the council which was to be the supreme Regency*
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 326.
108 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
governor of the realm. Gloucester's name headed
the list as " chief of the council " ; then came five
prelates, Canterbury, London, Winchester, Norwich,
and Worcester ; the Duke of Exeter and the Earls
of March, Warwick, Northumberland, Westmoreland,
and the Earl Marshal ; two barons and three com-
moners. It was a strong council, but it was none
the less cautious. Its members only accepted office
on conditions which left the protector less power than
ever. Parliament had already reserved the greater
ecclesiastical benefices for the joint disposal of pro-
tector and council. The council were now to have the
appointment of all officers of justice and revenue,
" saved always and reserved to my lords of Bedford
and Gloucester all that longeth unto them by a special
act made in parliament, and to the Bishop of
Winchester that that he hath granted him by our
sovereign lord that last was . . . and by authority
of parliament confirmed." They were also to have
the disposal of wardships, ferms, marriages, and other
privileges of the crown. A quorum of six or four was
to be required in any matter, a majority of the whole
council in any great matter ; the advice of Bedford
or Gloucester in any matter usually requiring the
consent of the King. Officials of the Treasury were
to swear that " for no friendship they should make
no man privy but the lords of the council, what the
King hath within his treasure " ; and the clerk of
the council was to record daily the names of all
councillors present, " to see what, how and by whom
anything passe th."1
Relations The details of the situation thus created are of
between importance in judging of the conflict between
Gloucester Gloucester and Beaufort in the autumn of 1425, which
and
Beaufort. ■ Rot. Pari., iv, 176.
OPPOSITION TO GLOUCESTER 109
turned in part upon the powers of the protectorship.
Meanwhile the situation of 1422 itself is of importance
in the history of Beaufort. It has been said that
" the influence of Bishop Beaufort may be confidently
traced"1 in the act of parliament which conferred
and limited the protectorship. The lords of 1428
certainly placed the two Beauforts first among those
who were prominent in 1422, though of course there
was only one other lord who could have been men-
tioned first, and that was the peaceful Primate
Chichele. But the evidence of the chronicler Hardy ng
is positive, if it may be accepted. When Gloucester,
he says, claimed the guardianship of the little King,
The Bishop of Winchester it withstood,
With all the lords there whole of his assent ;
and when Gloucester pressed his claim of blood to
the regency,
The bishop aye withstood all his intent,
That chancellor was by fifth King Henry made,
And so forth stood and in the office bade . . .
For cause he (Gloucester) was so noyous with to deal
And office would he have and governance ;
Wherefore they made him for the common weal
Protector of the realm by ordinance. 2
The bishop's attitude has been severely criticised.
It has been suggested that the " conciliar govern-
ment " for which he took his stand " meant his own
preponderance in the kingdom " ; that it was the
" ingenuity " of the Beaufort party which persuaded
the lords to see in Henry's last instructions " an
infringement of their rights " ; that " the whole thing
was a party move and cannot be construed as a vote
of no confidence in the Duke of Gloucester."3 There
1 Stubbs, iii, 100.
2 Hardyng, p. 391.
8 Vickers, pp. 113, 114.
110 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
is much truth in the suggestion that the conflict
between Beaufort and Gloucester was as yet a
political question and not the personal rivalry that
it became largely in 1425 and later. But it is probable
that the political objections of 1422 owed the urgency
with which they were pressed by the Beaufort party
to the known or suspected character of Gloucester
as a man. It is hard to imagine that his reckless
blunders or worse in the next few years were a
revelation of a new side in a hitherto satisfactory
personality. It is hard to believe that the same
objections would have been pressed at all or at any
rate as persistently if the claimant had been Bedford,
whom Beaufort seems to have trusted and supported
as the executor of the late King's policy at home and
abroad. In any case, Beaufort ought to have full
credit for the fact that the council, a body " in which
every interest was represented and every honoured
name appears," x and also the lords and the parliament
as a whole went with him at this crisis. Such a fact
is inconsistent with the theory of a mainly personal
motive such as the desire of predominance in council
and parliament . Chichele ' s forecast of the representa-
tive character of the council in his speech in parlia-
ment may perhaps have been prompted by the danger
of an unchecked protectorate as much as by the
danger of a discontented parliament. The real
difficulty of the historian lies in the absence of any
certain indication of Bedford's view of the situation.
On October 26th he wrote to the mayor and aldermen
of London intimating that he understood that the
supreme authority was his by custom as eldest brother
of the late and next in succession to the present King,
and urging them not to ignore or injure his claim,
1 Stubbs, iii, 101.
BEDFORD AND GLOUCESTER 111
which, he protested, was intended in his country's
interests and not in his own.1 It is difficult to
determine whether this letter was prompted by
distrust of his brother or by suspicion of Beaufort.
The same difficulty attaches to the interpretation of
an undated draft of an agreement or alliance between
Bedford and his brother of Gloucester which is pre-
served among the letters of Bekynton, chancellor of
Gloucester's household. 2 In this document, to which
the widowed Queen Katharine was to be a party,
stress is laid upon the necessity of concord between
princes in a state, and upon the wisdom of strengthen-
ing the natural bond of friendship by a civil contract.
The two parties pledge themselves to be loyal to the
King and to each other, to watch and not to assist
each other's enemies, to believe no accusations but
to seek an explanation from the accused party, and
to make no alliance or friendship without mutual
consent. The date of this proposed alliance is
all-important. If it is to be placed in 1422, the
omission of Beaufort's name might justly be taken
" as indicating a common suspicion of the ambitious
projects of their aspiring uncle," and perhaps of an
attempt on his part to sow dissension between the
two brothers. The pledge to make no independent
alliance might be a warning of Bedford's in advance
against Gloucester's temptation in the direction of
Jacqueline and Hainault ; but it might equally well
have been suggested to Bedford at a later date by the
difficulties which had resulted from Gloucester's
continental excursion. It has been suggested that
Bedford was " in the hands of Beaufort " early in
1 Vickers, p. 112.
™2 ?itY^Sn' LetteyS' f* 139"145 ; Stubbs' ^ 1°5 I Vickers,
pp. 11/, 1 lo.
112 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
1426, and would not be likely to make such an
alliance with his brother at that time. Bedford was
never in the hands of Beaufort. It is true, on the
other hand, that on the whole he was on the side of
Beaufort early in 1426, and it is quite possible that
this alliance was an attempt of Bedford's to bring
home the lessons of that crisis to Gloucester, and to
assure him of support on condition of his continued
good behaviour.
Beaufort's The charge of private ambition or personal jealousy
policy. in the movement of 1422 remains unproven against
Beaufort. It is probable that neither was entirely
absent ; it is improbable that either was the dominant
motive. His policy, whether of limiting the protec-
torate or of restraining Gloucester, was in the main an
honest policy conceived in the interests of the nation.
If the Beauforts had been regarded by Henry V as
likely to hold the balance, it was probably because
" he knew that while to the actual holders of sovereign
power their personal interests are apt to be the first
consideration, to a house in the position of the
Beauforts," of semi-royal blood yet of no independent
position, " the first object is the preservation of the
dynasty."1 A strong council at home seemed to
Beaufort and the barons who stood with him the
one need of the nation during the King's infancy,
while the strong man of the royal house was working
to win and keep the new realm abroad. Yet their
suspicion of the possibilities of the protectorate in
the hands of Gloucester led them perhaps too far.
Restriction at every turn in affairs at home drove him
to seek an outlet for his energies in foreign ambitions
which imperilled the interests of England, and forced
him when he was at home into a policy of agitation
1 Stubbs, iii, 97.
business.
FINANCE AT THE COUNCIL 113
or at least into an attitude of hostility, the first stage
of the faction that broke later into civil war. Con-
sequences of this kind were too remote and indirect
to be foreseen by his opponents in 1422, and cannot
be laid to their charge. Yet Shakespeare, unhistorical
as he was in detail and in chronology, was right in
principle in tracing the thread of the Wars of the Roses
back into the early part of the reign of Henry VI.
From January to July, 1423, the council met with Financial
great regularity. Minutes are recorded for seventeen
of the twenty-eight days of February. x Its business
was mainly concerned with finance and local adminis-
tration. Ample provision was made for Gloucester's
expenses. His salary was fixed at 8,000 marks, the
usual salary of the regents of the last reign. Mean-
while difficulties had arisen with regard to the late
King's will. Dismayed perhaps by their liabilities,
the executors to whom the late King's personal
property had been assigned in the parliament of 1422
refused to discharge their duties. The supervisors
of the will were Gloucester, Exeter, and the Bishops
of Winchester and Durham, the latter being now
chancellor, and they dealt with the matter in council.
Those of the executors who were members of the
council agreed to administer to a limited amount,
and the remainder of the executors one by one con-
sented to act with them. On the same day, February
15th, the question of the Bishop of Winchester's loans
came before the council. The question had appar-
ently been raised whether the prior claim upon the
customs which the late King had given the bishop was
not in conflict with the last parliamentary grant
of a subsidy for the defence of the realm. It was
now decided with the advice of the justices and
1 Proceedings, iii, 23-45.
9 — (2210)
114 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
sergeants-at-law that the concession of such security
was not contrary to the act of parliament, since the
bishop's loan was expended in the defence of the
realm ; and the treasurer was further instructed to
issue bills to the chancery authorising the bishop
to appoint one customs-officer in every port to watch
over his interests.
On February 22nd the bishop received two tallies
for £2,000 in exchange for those which had been given
him by the treasurer by order of the late King and
which had expired with the King's death. The
old tallies were now returned to the treasurer, and new
ones issued for the payment of the same sum by the
collectors of the subsidy on wools, hides, and leather
in the port of London. The debt secured by these
tallies was part of the last loan for £3,000 made by
the bishop to Henry V when he sailed from Dover in
1421.
The A much more important matter came before the
Council of iords 0f the council that same day. The Council of
Constance had decided that a general council should
be summoned at the end of five years, and the council
had been duly summoned to meet at Pavia in 1423.
The English privy council appointed the Bishops of
Winchester and Worcester, the Earl of Northumber-
land and four other laymen along with a doctor of
divinity and a doctor of laws "to go oversea on an
embassy of the King to attend the general council
at Pavia, as it is called," and the next day the council
issued a commission for the Bishops of Lincoln and
Chichester and the Prior of Sullac in Aquitaine, who
were " to go oversea to the court " (i.e., of Rome) to
demand for Henry VFs French representatives the
place of honour " due to him in virtue of his realm of
France," which took precedence of the realm of
Pavia.
DELEGATES AT PA VIA AND SIENNA 115
England. There is no record, however, of Beaufort's
journey to the council or of his doings there.
Letters of protection were issued in March to William
Brugges, garter king-at-arms, going to Rome on the
King's service in the retinue of the Bishop of Win-
chester, and similar letters to Sir Henry Hase going
in the bishop's retinue to the general council. The
council met at Pa via, but was driven by an epidemic
to migrate in August to Sienna, and was finally dis-
solved there by the Pope in March, 1424. But Beaufort
was in attendance at the privy council in England till
its last meeting on July 18th, and was present at its
next series of meetings from October 21st onwards.
Moreover John Whethamstede, Abbot of St. Albans,
who went to Pavia in March, 1423, as one of the twelve
delegates of convocation, and returned in February,
1424, seems to have seen and heard nothing of the
Bishop of Winchester. The Bishop of Lincoln was
there, using the opportunity to hold forth against the
iniquity of allowing religious communities to claim
exemption from diocesan jurisdiction ; the Bishop of
Chichester brought the abbot on his sick bed an
indulgence from the Pope ; and the Bishop of Carlisle
was president of the English " nation " at the council
when the poor abbot on the eve of his departure
called to see him, and asked his support for the cause
of St. Albans and its order.1 Beaufort may have
paid a flying visit to the council at Sienna or to the
Pope at Rome between July and October, but it has
left no trace in history. It is possible that he realised
beforehand the futility of the council, and occupied
himself elsewhere. The King's delegates had been
given letters of commission to the princes of Germany,
and Beaufort may have been exerting himself to bring
1 Chron. Mon. S. Alb., i, 142, 150, 181.
116
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Marriages
of Bedford
and
Gloucester.
The
Mortimer
conspiracy.
Sigismund and his vassals into action against the
rival King of France, Charles VII. More probably
he stayed at home to watch Gloucester. There are
no traces of any conflict between the two at the privy
council up to July. But there may have been danger
in the atmosphere.
The parliament which was opened by Gloucester in
October, 1423 (under a special commission as in 1422),
had an eventful as well as a long session. In certain
of its transactions Beaufort and Gloucester were
content to give and take. The bishop, with other
creditors of the crown, was given security to the extent
of 20,000 marks for loans recently made or yet to be
made, of which the bishop himself lent 18,000 marks ;
and he was now repaid the last instalment of the loan
of £14,000 which he had advanced in 1421. Glouces-
ter's wife was naturalised, and Bedford's wife also.
It was a strange conjunction. Bedford's wife was the
pious and lovable Anne, sister of the Duke of Bur-
gundy, whose betrothal in June, 1423, was the seal of
a formal alliance between her brother and her future
husband made at Amiens in April. Gloucester,
" either blinded with ambition or doting for love,"1
had married the wayward Jacqueline, though her
existing marriage to John of Brabant was yet un-
annulled by papal authority, and the new marriage
spelt defiance to the Duke of Burgundy.
Another strange conjunction was the coupling of
the names of Beaufort and Gloucester in the discredit-
able story of Sir John Mortimer's end.2 Mortimer
was the cousin of the Earl of March, who had inherited
the rival claim to the English throne. Mortimer
himself was a prisoner in the Tower, on a yet untried
1 Hall, p. 116.
* Kingsford, Chron. Lond., pp. 282, 283.
MORTIMER AND THE EARL OF MARCH 117
suspicion of treason, and on February 23rd was
detected in a second attempt at escape. A gaoler
who was supposed to have assisted him in the attempt
told the special jury, on February 25th, an extra-
ordinary tale. Mortimer, he said, had avowed his
intention to lead his cousin the earl into revolt in
Wales, or failing this, for his cousin " was but a daw,"
he intended to claim the crown as his cousin's heir,
and to appeal to the Dauphin of France to invade
England. " He said he would fear (i.e., terrify)
the Duke of Gloucester and smite off his head and all
the lords' heads ; and specially the bishop's head of
Winchester, for Mortimer would play with his money."
The Earl of March was probably innocent of this plot,
but he was in disgrace at the time. He was appar-
ently quite content to serve the Lancastrian dynasty,
but he had excited Gloucester's suspicion by attending
this very parliament with a large retinue, and the
council had ordered him off to his lieutenancy in
Ireland, where he died a few months later. Mortimer
was given short shrift. A special act of parliament
was passed on February 26th for this occasion to
convert escape into treason, and he died a traitor's
death at Tyburn that same day. " Of whose death
no small slander arose," says Hall, " amongst the
common people." It is not even certain whether the
gaoler was an accomplice of Mortimer or of the
authorities. The guilt of Mortimer's murder, if not
of the alleged plot, lies between Gloucester and the
Beauforts. Either together or singly they could have
stayed the lords from this crime. Whether the
motive was a cowardly desire for personal revenge
on a man who was said to have threatened their lives
and fortunes, or perhaps rather a less ugly anxiety
" to avoid things that might chance " in the way of
118
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Predomi-
nance of
the Privy
Council.
civil war, remains a mystery. It was a futile wrong
if it was meant to save the house of Lancaster. The
heir to the wealth and the claim of March was his
nephew, Richard of York, thirty years later the
victor of the battle of St. Albans in the War of the
Roses.
The rift meanwhile between Gloucester and the
council was widening rather than closing. The coun-
cil was reappointed and enlarged, and new rules were
framed for its procedure which seem to describe
Gloucester as at once a colleague and an opponent,
and to contemplate him in particular even where
he is not mentioned by name. " My lord of Glouces-
ter ne none other man of the council . . . shall no
favour grant neither in bills of right ne of office ne of
benefice that longeth to the council," but shall refer
all petitions to the council as a whole. It was declared
to be " too great a shame that into strange countries
our sovereign lord shall write his letters by the advice
of his council . . . and singular persons of the council
to write the contrary," — apparently an allusion to
Gloucester's independent action in the question of
Hainault. The council reserved to itself the right to
withhold from the courts of common law any case in
which " unmight " was pitted against " too great
might " ; and a law officer of the crown was assigned
to act without payment on behalf of poor suitors.
The last paragraph of these regulations in the acts of
the council was omitted in the rolls of parliament ;
it was a resolution that in any case of dispute between
members of the council the judgment of the rest of
the council must be final. " This ordinance above-
said to keep my lord of Gloucester openly assured in
his own person to all the remnant of my lords."
Exeter was absent, but the Bishop of Winchester
JAMES KING OF SCOTS 119
signed next to the primate. The whole series of
ordinances was a victory for the council. *
The most important event of the session was the Marriage
release of the King of Scots, 2 who had spent seventeen "jf f
of his thirty years in England in a captivity which the King
had been monotonous rather than miserable. Twice °* Scots,
he had been taken to France in the retinue of Henry V,
probably to put the Scots in the French service into
the position of traitors. He had made friends in
England, and had lately found a sweetheart. Henry V
had contemplated his release in 1421, and the council
now considered the matter ripe for settlement.
England apparently stood to gain in every way by the
return of James I to his own realm. If reminiscences
of English friendships did not keep him at peace
with England, the anarchy of his own realm might
keep him at work in Scotland. His ransom would
be a welcome accession to the impoverished treasury ;
his influence might recall the Scots from the service
of the Dauphin. The council instructed the English
envoys in July, 1423, to ask for a ransom of £40,000,
which was to be described as the repayment of the
expenses of the King's maintenance at the English
court, to press for a truce with a view to a perpetual
peace, to require the withdrawal of the Scottish troops
from France, or at least a promise to send no more
during the expected truce, and to suggest the possi-
bility of a marriage with some English lady of noble
or royal birth. The agreement was concluded at
York in September. The Scotch consented to pay
the £40,000 in six yearly instalments, to give no further
assistance to the French forces, and to send envoys
to London in October in pursuance of the proposal
1 Proceedings, iii, 148-152.
2 Ramsay, i, 336-339, 344, 345.
120 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
for an English marriage. No name was mentioned,
but the name was not unknown. The lady was
Joan Beaufort, daughter of the late Earl of Somerset,
and niece of the Bishop of Winchester. Readers of
old literature will remember the stanzas of The King's
Quhair, in which the poet-king tells how he looked
down from his chamber at Windsor one May day in
1423 and saw her walking under the tower,
The fairest or the freshest young floure
That ever I sawe methoght before that houre,
and how
Onely through latting of myn eyen fall,
That sudaynly my hert became hir thrall
For ever of free wyll ; for of manace (menace)
There was no takyn (token) in hir suete face.
The marriage took place while the details of the
liberation were yet being arranged. The council
treated James handsomely. They gave him 200
marks for his bridegroom's outfit and £24 for a piece
of cloth of gold, and on his wedding day, February
13th, 1424, presented him with the first instalment
of his " expenses," which fell due that day, as a dowry
for his bride. The two lovers were married in the
church of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, probably by
the bride's uncle, for after the wedding " great
solemnity and feast was holden in the. bishop's inn
of Winchester,"1 Beaufort's palace near the church.
The final settlement took place at Durham on March
28th. Scottish hostages were given for the payment
of the ransom ; a truce for seven years was sealed ;
and James undertook to keep in order the Scots now
serving in France as soon as they came back to
Scotland. In May James was crowned at Scone.
1 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., p. 282.
GLOUCESTER'S VIEW OF THE ALLIANCE 121
In 1440 Gloucester made this Scottish alliance one Glouces-
of his grievances against the bishop. * (1) He ter s t
complained that the terms on which the bishop in I440#
released the King were " presumed to be done by
authority of parliament, where indeed I have heard
full notable men of the lower house say that they
never heard of it amongst them." This charge is hard
to reconcile with the facts of the case. On November
21st, 1423, a deputation of the commons waited upon
the upper house to thank Gloucester and the other
lords for their services in carrying through the
preliminary treaty of September, and to ask them
to hasten the conclusion of the matter. On January
28th parliament authorised commissioners to com-
plete the arrangements. On February 14th the
council gave its instructions to the final embassy
which settled the last details. It is evident from the
special reference to his name in November that
Gloucester was largely responsible for the early stages
of the negotiations. His charge against Beaufort
must therefore relate to the details of the later stages.
Here again it was not the bishop, but the council who
laid down the final terms of negotiation. If Beaufort
was responsible for their origination, the council was
responsible for their approval. Gloucester's temper
must have deranged his memory. Twice in this one
paragraph he described the bishop pointedly as
" then being chancellor of England." Beaufort did
not succeed the Bishop of Durham in the chancellor-
ship until July, 1424, five months after the Scottish
marriage. (2) Gloucester complained that this ar-
rangement " was to great defraudation " of the King's
highness. He mentioned separately the remission
of 10,000 marks of the stipulated " costs." But it is
1 Stevenson, Wars in France, ii, 444.
122 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
hard to see what " defraudation " there was in the
terms of the treaty apart from this remission. The
ambassadors, it is true, only secured a truce, not a
peace, but the council had distinctly admitted in
their instructions that a peace was too difficult an
achievement to anticipate. (3) Gloucester asserted
that the matter was arranged by Beaufort " all to
wed his niece to the said King." It is true that the
silence about the name of the lady in the early
negotiations seems at first sight open to the suspicion
that the Beauforts wished to get the marriage safely
through without comment. But it is more probable
that the ambassadors of July, 1423, gave the true
explanation of the silence when they remarked that
" English ladies are not wont to offer themselves in
marriage." It was as genuine a love-match as can
be found in royal annals. No doubt the pardonable
ambition of the Beauforts welcomed the discovery of
the romance. Possibly it was even utilised by them
to bribe James into acceding to the English terms.
But the idea that the treaty was subservient to the
marriage in the purpose of the council is untenable
in view of the fact that the release of James had been
contemplated for two years before he saw his future
bride. (4) Gloucester's last point of attack was the
fact that " of the great sum he hath paid you right
little." This was true enough. The Scottish mar-
riage was disappointing to all parties in England.
Little more than £6,000 of the £40,000 came to the
English treasury. This fact, however, may indicate
rather that the sum fixed was exorbitant than that
James was let off cheaply. Each instalment of the
ransom (one-sixth) was equal to two years' gross
revenue of the Scottish realm. But the non-payment
of the ransom was the least serious grievance.
DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE BEAUFORTS 123
The stream of Scottish auxiliaries ceased indeed to Disap-
flow to the standard of the French King. Violations JEjJjjJ^f
of the truce on the Border were neither frequent nor the
serious, nor all on the northern side. Yet the marriage,
situation was precarious. In 1428 James promised
to give his infant daughter in marriage to the Dauphin,
and to send a Scottish army to France, in return for
which the French were to cede to him territory in
Saintonge. The army was not sent, but the little
princess Margaret went at last in 1436, and was
married to the Dauphin early in 1437. Her father's
murder in that same year left Scotland under a regency
which had too much work at home to do any more for
France. Still Gloucester or any Englishman looking
back in 1440 might well consider a bare truce on the
Border a poor result of the Scottish marriage of 1424 ;
and the Beauforts must have felt keenly the disap-
pointment of all their hopes. Yet they could scarcely
be blamed for the policy prompted by those hopes.
They made a bid — a costly bid, Gloucester thought
after the event had made him wise — for peace in the
North and advantage across the Channel. They
could hardly foresee that even a beloved English wife
would fail to win her Scottish husband from the
traditional policy of his house.
CHAPTER VII
Third
tenure of
Chancel-
lorship.
Glouces-
ter's claim
to Hainault
THIRD CHANCELLORSHIP : CONFLICT WITH GLOUCESTER
1424-1426
On July 16th, 1424, Beaufort became chancellor for
the third time. The explanation of his appointment
depends upon the question whether it was Bedford
or Gloucester who was responsible for the change of
ministry. It may have been a precaution on Bed-
ford's part to put " a check upon the vagaries of his
brother/'1 or it may have been a compromise on
Gloucester's part to secure the bishop's acquiescence
in his action in the matter of Jacqueline's inheritance.
The problem of Hainault was becoming acute.
Gloucester had considered the dispensation of the
old anti-Pope Benedict warrant enough for his
marriage, but Burgundy was still indignant and
obstinate in his threat of war in the event of Glouces-
ter's intrusion into Hainault. Bedford tried hard to
mediate between the two. Burgundy's support was
indispensable to the English regent in France ; but
Gloucester was reckless of this consideration, and his
case against the legality of Jacqueline's marriage with
the Duke of Brabant was too strong to be ignored.
Nothing short of a papal bull would convince Bur-
gundy, and Bedford urged the Pope to settle the
question soon, but urged in vain. Meanwhile
Gloucester turned impatiently to the sword to cut
the knot. The English council had been warned
that an invasion of Hainault meant war with Bur-
gundy and disaster to the English cause in France.
The letter in which this warning was contained has
1 Stubbs, iii, 103.
124
THE CHANCELLOR IN CHARGE AT HOME 125
been attributed to Beaufort ; it was more probably a
message from the loyal University of Paris conveyed
to the council through Beaufort. * Gloucester, how-
ever, sailed with Jacqueline for Hainault on October
16th. It was an anxious time for Bedford, whose
victories at Cravant in 1423 and at Verneuil in
August, 1424, seemed now on the point of being
wasted. Beaufort was no less anxious, and was kept
informed of the progress of the expedition by an
unknown correspondent on the spot. 2 It ended in
failure and dishonour, and in April, 1425, Gloucester
returned to England, leaving his wife to fall into the
hands of Burgundy, and transferred his affections
to her lady-in-waiting, Eleanor Cobham.
Meanwhile the government of England had been The
practically in the hands of the chancellor for five jort"ce"
months from October, 1424. On February 23rd, services
1425, the council voted him a special salary of 2,000 and salary,
marks in addition to his ordinary income as chan-
cellor and councillor. The reasons assigned for the
grant were (1) his near relationship to the King,
(2) the heavy labour and expenditure which he had
already sustained in discharge of his office " and
apparently would have to sustain in the future "
during the absence of the Dukes of Bedford and
Gloucester, and (3) the fact that the chancellor
11 always had been and was now very generous in
advancing money and in divers other services for the
King and the preservation of his realms of France and
England."3 The grant was to cease on the return
of either duke, and no future chancellor was to rely
upon the grant as a precedent. Beaufort was in fact
1 Vickers, p. 131.
2 Stevenson, Wars in France, ii, 396-400, 409.
3 Proceedings, iii, 165.
126
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Glouces-
ter's
influence
in Council
and
Parliament.
making a new series of loans to the crown. In
December he lent £1,000, in March £4,000, and in
June £3,900 ; of the £20,000 for which parliament now
gave security to the bishop and other creditors,
£11,032 16s. Id., to be precise, represented the
bishop's share. There is no such emphatic evidence
of extraordinary labour. Only eleven meetings of
the council are recorded for the winter of 1424-5.
These minutes, however, cannot have represented the
whole of the administrative work of the chancellor,
who was now practically vice-protector of the realm.
The country was apparently quiet, but there was
trouble in the city, partly industrial, partly political,
perhaps the first muttering of the storm which burst
in the autumn.
Beaufort and the council evidently contemplated
the possibility of a long absence of Gloucester. The
French chroniclers say that when he returned in
April the council was not sparing in its criticism of
his recent proceedings in Hainault. Beaufort may
have spoken his mind, but the protest, if made, must
have been overborne. The only reference to Glouces-
ter in the acts of the council is the resolution of May
22nd which granted him the custody of the lands of
the late Earl of March, which were now in the
possession of the crown during the minority of the
earl's heir, the Duke of York. l The rolls of parliament
contain yet fuller evidence of the influence which
Gloucester still retained. The session was opened
by Beaufort on April 30th in the presence of the little
King. The chancellor's text was unsuggestive,
" Glory and honour and peace to every one that
worketh good," and its application general and vague.
He dwelt upon the three kinds of good, the obedience
1 Proceedings, iii, 169.
THE CHANCELLOR IN PARLIAMENT 127
of subjects, the wisdom of councillors, the financial
support due to King and realm. There may perhaps
be a subtle reference to Gloucester in the quotation
under the head of obedience, " obey your masters,
not only the good but also the froward," — or to the
danger of individual predominance in the quotation
under the head of counsel, " safety in the multitude
of counsellors." The latter text was made the basis
of a quaint comparison between the ideal counsellor
and an elephant. The elephant " is without gall,
inflexible, and of great memory." So, too, a coun-
sellor must be free from hatred and bitterness, rigid
in refusing bribe or favour, and thoughtful alike of
past, present, and future. Perhaps the hearers were
meant to contrast certain great counsellors whom
they knew, but they were given no further guidance
in the application of the simile. Finally, the chan-
cellor pointed to the victories of the last two years
as proofs of the good hand of God over the young
King. * But whatever Beaufort may have thought or
wished, parliament showed itself kind to Gloucester.
It decided the dispute for precedence between the
Earl Marshal and the Earl of Warwick in favour of
the Earl Marshal, who had commanded Gloucester's
troops in Hainault ; 2 it forbade the duel to which
Burgundy had challenged Gloucester, and committed
" the personal quarrel and debate " between the two
to the arbitration of Bedford and the Dowager Queens
of England and France ; 3 and it compensated Glouces-
ter for any touch of disappointment in this prohibition
or for any annoyance at the decision of parliament to
negotiate with Burgundy for the release of " my
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 261.
2 Rot. Pari., iv, 262-274.
3 Rot. Pari., iv, 277.
128
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Personal
relations
of
Gloucester
and
Beaufort.
lady's person of Gloucester M by granting in July a
petition of the commons which in the face of a deficit
of £20,000 in the treasury recommended a loan of
20,000 marks in four yearly instalments to meet " the
diverse necessities " of the King's " bel uncle of
Gloucester," and suggested that the lords of the
council should give the necessary security for the
loan. *
The relations between Beaufort and Gloucester
during the earlier part of 1425 are obscure. It is
possible that both had much to say, and said it.
Rolls of parliament and acts of council are sometimes
as studiously silent on the personal relations of states-
men as chroniclers are gratuitously explanatory of
their motives. There is nothing improbable in the
conjecture that Beaufort resented the early termina-
tion of his quasi-protectorship by Gloucester's return,
or found it hard to slip back quietly into a secondary
position on the council ; or in the suggestion that
Beaufort commented upon the policy and strategy of
the campaign in Hainault, and that Gloucester
" retaliated by an attack upon the bishop's adminis-
tration during his absence." The official records from
April to July show no sign of such a collision, but the
sequel proves that a crisis was even then impending.
When the crisis came, it was evident that the relations
of the two men had moved a long step further for the
worse. Questions of policy, details of administration
were still the casus belli. But it is a true estimate of
the case to say that " it was about this time that the
struggle between the two chief men in the kingdom
passed from the stage of political rivalry to that of
personal competition."2
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 289.
2 Vickers, p. 164.
DISORDER IN THE CITY 129
The enmity between protector and chancellor did Beaufort's
not break into open conflict until October, 1425, but JiyP^ular"
already in February the chancellor had made enemies London,
in London. On the night of February 14th " were
cast many bills in the city and in the suburbs again
the Flemings, and some were set in the bishop's gate
of Winchester and in other bishops' gates."1 Next
morning, the chronicler adds, the bishop sent Sir His
Richard Wydeville " to keep the Tower of London ^r£se°ning
with men of arms as though it had been in the land of Tower,
war," and the Tower remained so garrisoned until the
end of October. The acts of the council on February
26th contain a resolution to entrust the custody of
the Tower of London during the King's pleasure to
Richard Wydeville, knight, chamberlain of the Duke
of Bedford, " on account of certain urgent causes then
moving them and certain imminent dangers." The
seriousness of the situation is proved by the fact that
Wydeville was authorised to use his own discretion as
to the number of men-at-arms and archers required,
and to make his own arrangements with the treasurer
for their payment. If the chronicler's date, February
15th, is correct, the garrisoning of the Tower was the
action of the chancellor, who, in the absence of
Gloucester, was practically acting as chief councillor
and virtual protector. Gloucester's absence makes
it plain that the chancellor's action in the matter
of the Tower, though it became in a few months a
casus belli between himself and Gloucester, was in the
first instance honestly prompted by his fear of an
anti-foreign riot in the city. It was a bold stretch
of his authority, but the council by sanctioning the
step showed that it shared his alarm. The other
councillors present on the 26th were the Archbishop
1 Gregory, p. 158.
io— (2210)
130 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Worcester, and
Bath (the treasurer), the keeper of the privy seal, and
Lords Cromwell, Scrope, Tiptoft and Hungerford.
The prelates were possibly the " other bishops "
whose London houses had been placarded like the
chancellor's, evidently because they had supported the
policy against which the placards were a protest. It
would be precarious to build any theory on the absence
of the greater lay lords on the 26th, for they were
absent from the council on the 23rd and 25th also,
when altogether different business was on hand.
There is no doubt, however, that the chancellor acted
with a high hand. The chronicler's dates are vague,
but somewhere in " that same year," and probably
before Gloucester's return in April, " there were many
worthy men of London appeached of treason by a false
boy Peloure by excitacion of the Bishop of Winchester,
as many men noised and said, ' ' though the good citizen
adds, " if it were true or not, I remit me to God."1
The same happened in other towns also, Leicester,
Winchester, Canterbury, Exeter, Bristol, Coventry,
York ; evidently the anti-alien movement was
gaining ground in other commercial centres. But
it was in London that the chancellor took the severest
measures. He sent to Windsor for most of the
retinue of the King's household, and ordered the
prentices of the Inns of Court to Westminster, " and
there they come in their best array " ; and then he
summoned the mayor and aldermen, and " arrested
many worthy men of the city." The grievance of
the merchants found expression in the parliament
His which met in April. There " was much altercation
commer- between the lords and the commons for tonnage and
cial policy. p0Undage." Eventually the wool duties from all
1 Gregory, p. 158.
CHANCELLOR AND FOREIGN MERCHANTS 131
merchants, native and foreign, were renewed, and
tonnage and poundage also from foreign merchants ;
but the grant of tonnage and poundage from native
merchants, the first grant of the kind in this reign,
was only made on condition that " all manner of
aliens should be put to host as English men been in
other lands " — i.e., should place themselves at once
under the roof of a responsible landlord—and sell
off all their goods within forty days. This condition
was broken that very year by the Bishop of Win-
chester, " as the most people said, he being chan-
cellor the same time," and the violation gave rise to
"much heaviness and trouble in this land."1 We
are not told how he broke the condition, but the
reference to his chancellorship suggests that perhaps
he acquitted foreign merchants prosecuted for not
fulfilling the requirements. His motive in taking such
a line of action was probably as honest as the action
itself was fearless. His private interests as the
greatest wool-merchant of the land might lead him
rather into co-operation against foreign traders than
into conflict with English traders. It was probably
the supreme national interest of the maintenance of
friendly relations with Burgundy which led him to
favour the Flemings trading in England, especially at
a time when those relations were being imperilled by
Gloucester's proceedings in Hainault. Gloucester's
name is not mentioned in this matter of the anti-
Flemish agitation, but it has been suggested that he
was responsible for the earlier exemption of English
merchants from tonnage and poundage. He was
certainly as popular with the commercial magnates Gloucester
of London as Beaufort was unpopular. There was, f^dustri
however, an industrial crisis that same year in which Sfcfe,
1 Gregory, p. 157.
132 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Gloucester seems to have shown a leaning towards the
lower classes. Parliament had at the instance of the
commons passed a statute prohibiting "the annual
congregations and confederacies made by masons in
their general chapters and assemblies." These trade-
unions were combining to defeat the provisions of
the Statutes of Labourers. 1 The mayor and alder-
men, in pursuance of the new statute, made certain
ordinances " against the excessive taking of masons,
carpenters, tylers, dowbers (i.e., plasterers) and other
labourers for their daily journeys," and the labourers
showed their resentment by circulating placards of a
seditious character in which they threatened to rise
in their thousands. Beaufort in 1426 complained
that Gloucester " did not the devoir and diligence
which it seemed to my said lord the chancellor that he
might have showed," and in fact allowed the agitation
to assume a dangerous aspect. 2 The accusation has
been denied on Gloucester's behalf on the ground
that the civic authorities, who supported him con-
sistently, would not have supported him if he had
disregarded their regulations. Beaufort may of
course have exaggerated Gloucester's encouragement
of the agitators ; on the other hand, it is possible that
Gloucester may have adopted an attitude of non-
intervention with the view of winning the favour of
the working classes as far as it could be won without
losing the support of their employers.
The Gloucester's main grievance, which led to the final
struggle conflict, was his exclusion from the Tower. Wydeville
Tower6 had strict orders from the chancellor to admit no
person " stronger than he " without express orders
from the council ; and after Gloucester's imprudent
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 292.
2 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., p. 85.
THE FIGHT FOR LONDON BRIDGE 133
interference on behalf of a political prisoner the
chancellor renewed the instructions with special
reference to Gloucester by name. At this moment the
custody of the person of the young King, then at
Eltham, became a matter of importance and conten-
tion. Gloucester accused Beaufort of intending to
take possession of the child ; Beaufort evidently
expected Gloucester to take the same step. Appar-
ently either disputant suspected the other of intend-
ing personal violence. Beaufort collected near his
palace in Southwark a force of archers from the
counties of Lancaster and Chester, retainers from
the royal duchies. Gloucester appealed to his friends
the mayor and aldermen, whom he had already taught
to regard the precautions taken at the Tower as an
insult to the city. The city fathers were dining in
state on October 29th, the lord mayor's day at that
time. Gloucester sent for them before the close of
their banquet, and urged the new mayor " to keep well
the city that night and make good watch." Next
morning the northern gate of London Bridge was The
strongly guarded by order of Gloucester and the mayor. conflict
The London chronicles are not consistent in detail, London
but apparently Beaufort's men attempted to force Bridge,
their way into the city. This move has been regarded
as an attack upon Gloucester's person, but it was
probably an attempt to occupy or reinforce the
Tower. The citizens closed their shops and swarmed
to the defence of the gate, and Beaufort's men fell
back and proceeded to fortify the Southwark end of
the bridge, where the knights and squires and archers
of his forces drew the chain of the " stulps " (i.e.,
posts), and barricaded the road and garrisoned the
windows, either to repel an expected attack from the
citizens or to resist Gloucester's supposed intention of
134
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Beaufort's
appeal to
Bedford.
making his way to take possession of the young King
at Eltham. At this stage, however, the primate
intervened with Peter, Duke of Coimbra and Prince
of Portugal, a son of Philippa, eldest daughter of
John of Gaunt, and therefore a nephew of Beaufort
and a cousin of Gloucester. Eight times on that day
the two mediators between protector and chancellor
rode across the bridge before they succeeded in
removing the danger of actual bloodshed. Then the
mayor and his aldermen persuaded the people of
London to go quietly home. The London chroniclers
are agreed that there was " none harm done through
all the city." Wavrin, the French chronicler, is
evidently wrong in his story that Beaufort was penned
up in the Tower for three days by the violence of
Gloucester and lost the lives of eight or ten of his
retinue, — perhaps an echo of a Burgundian and
therefore anti-Gloucestrian report. On the other
hand, the impression given by the London chroniclers
that the whole city came to Gloucester's defence as
" against the King's enemies " is probably an echo of
the popularity of the duke. Hall may be nearer the
truth in describing the shops as shut " for fear of those
two great personages, for each part had assembled no
small number of people." The city, moreover, was
at the mercy of the populace while its authorities and
its steadier citizens were rallying to Gloucester's side.
Beaufort wrote a brief message to Bedford the very
next day, urging him to return at once to England.
" For, by my troth, if you tarry, we shall put this land
in adventure with a field. Such a brother you have
here ; God make him a good man. For your wisdom
knoweth that the profit of France standeth in the
welfare of England."1 Bedford, knowing only too
1 Hist. MSS. Comm., 5th Report, p. 213.
THE RETURN OF BEDFORD 135
well how entirely success in France depended upon
peace at home, entrusted his command to three
trusty lieutenants — Warwick, Salisbury, and Suffolk —
and started for England. Meanwhile Gloucester was
master of the situation. On November 5th he
brought the young King to London, and on that same
day the council consented to lend him 5,000 marks
to be repaid when the King was fifteen, a loan which
he promptly spent in sending a small force to Jacque-
line's aid in Hainault, where it was crushed within two
months. Bedford landed with his wife on December
20th, and was met by Beaufort on his way to London.
The mayor and his citizens escorted the protector —
for Gloucester was now reduced by his brother's
presence to his secondary place as chief councillor —
from Merton to Westminster, where he took up his
quarters in the King's palace, the duchess and the
chancellor lodging in the abbey. The mayor and
citizens presented Bedford with a pair of silver-gilt
basins containing 1,000 marks, " and yet they had
but little thank." Bedford's coolness no doubt
implied disapproval of their recent antagonism to
the chancellor, and there is no reason to disparage his
judgment as a mere reflection of the chancellor's
story of the conflict.
Parliament had already been summoned to meet Interven-
on February 18th at Leicester, either because the Bedford
chancellor was afraid of Gloucester's influence in and the
London or because the council wished to secure a Counci1-
calmer atmosphere. Meanwhile Bedford and the
council did their best to reconcile the duke and the
bishop. On J anuary 29th they sent a deputation from
the council at St. Albans to urge Gloucester to meet
Beaufort at Northampton on February 13th, when the
council was to prepare business for the coming
136 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
parliament. The commissioners were to point out to
Gloucester that the dispute must come before par-
liament, and had far better be settled before parlia-
ment met. The duke was to be pressed to withdraw
his refusal to meet the chancellor. He need not fear
a riot, for the King's orders would keep the peace,
and the bishop had promised to restrain his men.
In fact — they were to tell Gloucester, but only if he
were still obdurate — the bishop had undertaken to
reduce his retinue if the duke would do the same.
" Justice and reason should be duly and indifferently
ministered " to the duke in " the matters of his
displeasance and heaviness " against the bishop ; but
even if he were king it would be unreasonable of him
to refuse to hear the " answer and excusation "of a
peer who had offended him. The late King when he
was Prince of Wales had to meet Archbishop Arundel,
the chancellor, at a time when there was enmity
between them. If the duke, however, made his
attendance at the council conditional upon Beaufort's
dismissal from the chancellorship, he must be reminded
that such dismissal would only be reasonable when
the chancellor had been proved guilty, and that the
demand for such a dismissal was " too great a taking
of any subject upon the King and his freedom."
In any case the duke's presence would be required
at the parliament at Leicester. Two things are to be
noticed in these firm and tactful instructions. If
Beaufort had appealed to Bedford against Gloucester,
Gloucester had now taken the position of complainant
against Beaufort, and the council accepted this view
of the case provisionally. On the other hand,
Gloucester had put himself in the wrong in refusing
to face his opponent; There is no need to attribute
BEAUFORT AND GLOUCESTER 137
these instructions to Beaufort's influence. They
evidently represent the judgment of Bedford.1
Whether Gloucester came to the council or not, the " TjV5
dispute was still unsettled at the meeting of " the of gats."
parliament of bats," so called because the hostile
retainers, forbidden to carry weapons, armed them-
selves with bats or bludgeons. The chancellor in his
opening speech maintained a discreet silence upon
the topic of the hour. He pleaded for three matters
of primary importance, (1) the " observance of the law
of God and the defence of the flock of God against
the invasion of perfidious heretics and Lollards,"
to the glory of God ; (2) good counsel and justice, to
the honour of the King ; (3) solid support of crown
and country with men and means, to the peace of the
people. His only allusion to the great quarrel lay
in his text, sic facite ut salvi sitis. 2 But the quarrel
was there, and for ten days it kept parliament waiting
in suspicion and alarm. At last the commons prayed
the lords to take steps to heal the dissensions which,
they declared with regret, they understood had arisen
between certain great men. On March 4th Bedford
and the. peers undertook on oath " to proceed truly,
justly and indifferently without any partiality " in
all matters between the duke and the bishop, and on
the 7th the duke consented at Bedford's request to
lay his case before a special commission of nine peers
and to abide by their arbitration, and Beaufort gave
a similar promise. The commission was strong and
well-balanced. Archbishop Chichele was at its head,
and associated with him were the Dukes of Exeter
and Norfolk (the bishop's brother and the duke's
friend respectively), the Bishops of Bath, Worcester,
1 Proceedings, iii, 181-187.
2 Rot. Pari., iv, 295.
138
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Glouces-
ter's accu-
sations and
Beaufort 's
answers.
and Durham, the Earl of Stafford, Lord Cromwell,
and William Alnwick, the keeper of the privy seal.
Before this commission Gloucester laid a written
statement of his grievances, and Beaufort a written
defence of his action. 1 It will be convenient to take
the charge and the answer on each point together.
(1) Gloucester complained that when he " being
protector and defender of this land " desired to take
up his quarters in the Tower, Wydeville, by Beaufort's
orders, refused him admission, and was " protected
and cherished " by Beaufort in this action " against
the state and worship of the King and of my said lord
of Gloucester." Beaufort replied that it had been
decided in Gloucester's presence, before he went to
Hainault, that the Tower should be " notably stuffed,
victualled and kept " for causes " such as were then
thought reasonable." The order was not executed at
once, but during Gloucester's absence in Hainault
the King's peace had been disturbed by a popular
agitation which threatened rebellion and frightened
strangers under the King's protection into flying from
England, and the Tower was then placed in Wyde-
ville's charge by the council to maintain order in the
city. Soon after Gloucester's return the council
heard that he had been expressing his sympathy with
the citizens, intimating that he would not have
allowed them to be overawed in this way if he had
been at home, and " offering them thereupon remedy
if they would." Shortly afterwards Gloucester had
removed from the custody of the lieutenant of the
Tower a " friar Randolph," imprisoned for treason
against the late King, and had refused to surrender
the prisoner, declaring that " his commandment was
sufficient warrant and discharge." The lieutenant
1 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., pp. 76-86 ; Hall, pp. 130-134.
ACCUSATION AND ANSWER 139
reported the matter to Beaufort, who considered
that the duke " took upon himself further than his
authority stretched unto," and began to fear that
" lest the Tower had be strong he would have pro-
ceeded further." This was the reason why the
chancellor, when Wydeville came to ask his advice
about Gloucester's renewed demand for admission
to the Tower, gave him the distinct order to exclude
Gloucester or any other magnate without special
warrant of the council.
(2) Gloucester's second complaint was that Beaufort
proposed on his own authority to remove the child-
King from Eltham " to the intent to put him in such
governance as him lust." This accusation the
chancellor simply denied, " for he ne could conceive
any manner of good or advantage that might have
grown unto him thereof, but rather great peril and
charge."
(3) Gloucester stated next that in virtue of his own
claim to " the governance of the King's person " he
intended to thwart Beaufort's purpose by going to
Eltham himself, and that Beaufort barricaded the
Southwark end of the bridge, and garrisoned the
street, " to the intent of final destruction of my said
lord of Gloucester's person as well as of those that
had come with him." To this Beaufort replied that
he had acted in self-defence. As early as the parlia-
ment of April he had been warned by various trust-
worthy persons that Gloucester " purposed him
bodily harm," and he had been urged to absent him-
self from Westminster by way of precaution. During
that very session a city mob had gathered on the
wharf near the Crane in Vintry Ward and threatened
they would have thrown the bishop into the Thames,
" to have taught him to swim with wings." Gloucester
140 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
himself had confessed his enmity. When the rest of
the council on the arrival of envoys from Bedford
called upon the duke at his inn on October 28th and
asked to know the truth, he admitted that " he was
heavy toward my Lord of Winchester and not without
causes, peradventure as he would put in writing."
On the 29th Gloucester had ordered the citizens to
remain under arms all night, for reasons unknown to
the chancellor, and strong language had been used
against the chancellor. That same night Gloucester
had ordered the men of the Inns of Court to attend him
at eight in the morning in their best array, and next
day had demanded of the mayor an escort of 300
horsemen, evidently to force his way to the King.
The blockading of the bridge by the chancellor's men
had been merely intended for " his own surety and
defence according to law of nature."
(4) Gloucester finally raked up the old story of the
arrest of the man who confessed that he was sent to
murder the Prince of Wales " by excitacion and
procuring of my Lord of Winchester," and withal
(5) the more probable but incompatible story that
the bishop had instigated the Prince to take advantage
of Henry IV's sickness to claim " the governance and
crown of this land " for himself. In answer to these
two charges the chancellor made a general protest
of his loyalty to all his sovereigns and especially to
Henry V, who " would not for the time that he was
King have set in my lord the chancellor so great trust
as he did, if he had found or trowed in him such
untruth before."
(6) Gloucester had apparently complained that
Beaufort's letter to Bedford implied an intention on
the part of the chancellor " to gather a field " and
break the King's peace. Beaufort's answer was that
AWARD OF THE ARBITRATORS 141
the language of the letter proved his loyalty to the
King and his anxiety to avoid the very danger he
was accused of inviting. It was Gloucester's negli-
gence in the face of the rioting of the labourers of
the city that had encouraged the " field-making,"
and necessitated the appeal to Bedford.
It is difficult at this distance to strike a true Settlement
balance between the conflicting evidence of the two °? *Jj®
antagonists.1 The support which the Londoners
gave to Gloucester was too largely a tribute to his
personal popularity to be taken as a conclusive proof
of the justice of his claim to stand for the cause of
law and order. No doubt the struggle was mainly
" a fight as to who should govern England." Yet
on the whole Beaufort's was the right cause, though
he handled it unwisely. Gloucester's proceedings in
the matter of the Tower were an attempt to override
the limitations of his protectorship and ignore the
authority of the council. On the other hand Beaufort
in his resistance to Gloucester's self-assertion against
the council was led into a self-assertion on behalf of
the council which spoiled his case. His letter to
Bedford was written a week too late. He had made
the mistake of pitting his own strength against
Gloucester's instead of calling in the superior authority
of Bedford in the first instance. At bottom the
question was constitutional, but Beaufort's action
gave it a personal aspect. Something of this idea
seems to have underlain the award of the arbitrators.
They ignored the constitutional issue and dealt only
with the personal. On March 12th they ruled that
1 The fullest discussion of the conflict is Vickers, Gloucester,
pp. 170-174, an able defence of the duke. For views
favourable to Beaufort see Ramsay, i, 360-362, 365-367 ;
Oman, p. 297.
142
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the bishop was to make solemn declaration in parlia-
ment of his faithful allegiance in the past to the three
Lancastrian sovereigns, and Bedford in the name of
the King and council was to declare him a true and
loyal subject. The bishop was then to swear that he
" never imagined ne purposed thing that might be
hindering or prejudice " to the " person, honour or
estate " of the duke, and Gloucester was to reply :
" Bel uncle, sith ye declare you suche a man as ye
saie, I am riht gladde that it is so, and for suche I take
you." The two were then to shake hands, " in sign
and token of good love and accord ; the which was
done."1 Shakespeare draws an unwarrantable con-
trast between the sincerity of the duke and the
insincerity of the bishop.
Glouc. So help me God, as I dissemble not.
Winch. So help me God, as I intend it not.
[Aside.
Beaufort's
resignation
of the
Chancellor-
ship.
If insincerity there was, it was mutual. Beneath
the outward reconciliation still smouldered the
" privy wrath " that broke into flame again and again
in later years. Even now it was impossible for both
men to remain in office. Two days later Beaufort,
conscious of practical defeat or consenting to an
appeal from Bedford, resigned the chancellorship,
and Bishop Stafford, the treasurer, followed his
example. The chancellor had one immediate con-
solation. The commons, voicing apparently the
request of the merchant classes, wanted to withhold
the payment of the subsidies granted in the parliament
of 1425, evidently on the ground that the restrictions
upon foreign merchants had been evaded. A vigorous
1 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., pp. 91-94 ; Hall, pp. 134-137 ;
Rot. Pari., iv, 296-299.
2 Henry the Sixth (First Part), Act iii, Scene 1.
RETIREMENT FROM OFFICE 143
debate ensued, in which doubtless Gloucester sup-
ported his London friends ; but Bedford and the lords
decided that the subsidies must be paid without
reference to the conditions. *■ Bedford's decision may,
of course, have been partly due to the pressure of
financial needs ; but it is probable that he shared
the chancellor's disapproval of the harsh treatment
of traders of an allied nation. Beaufort, however
practically retired from public life. He only attended
the council four times in the next twelve months.
He was present on November 24th when the council
drew up fresh rules to secure freedom of discussion
and efficiency of administration. But he was not
present on the memorable day in January, 1427,
when the new chancellor (Kemp, now Archbishop of
York) and the lords of the council asked and received
of Bedford a pledge emphatically recognising the
supremacy of the council except where parliament
had given definite powers to the protector. Neither
was he present on the next day when they visited
Gloucester, who lay sick in his inn, and secured from
him a similar pledge with the significant addition of
an apology for the reckless language in which he had
asserted his independence. 2 It is probable that the
interview with Bedford was pre-arranged to secure
the success of the interview with Gloucester. The
whole affair was an indirect and partial justification
of the late chancellor in so far as he had recognised
and resisted the danger of Gloucester's bid for personal
supremacy. Beaufort could well afford to be absent
on such an occasion.
The bishop was, however, contemplating a more
complete retirement from the scene. On May 14th,
1 Rot. Pari, iv, 301 ; Ramsay, i, 367 n. 5.
2 Proceedings, iii, 231-242 ; Stubbs, iii, 108.
144 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
1426, the council received a petition in which he
requested the King, in consideration of his " humble
chaplain's long continuance in his service," to give
him licence to fulfil a long-deferred vow of pilgrim-
age. 1 When he went abroad with Bedford in March,
1427, it was to receive the insignia of a cardinal.
1 Proceedings, iii, 195.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CARDINAL AND THE HUSSITE CRUSADE
1426-1429
With his promotion to the cardinalate Beaufort Beaufort
moved out into the main stream of the church life of g^lish
the West. For some three years past he had been church
more closely involved in ecclesiastical affairs than affairs,
appears at first sight. In August, 1423, he was
associated with the papal nuncios in the instructions
which Martin V issued for the detection and prosecu-
tion of forgers of papal letters and indulgences ; and
a week later he was instructed along with the primate
to proceed against the Irish prelates who had been
attempting to extend to themselves the benefits of
the anti-papal legislation which England had enacted
during the schism.1 Martin was evidently deter-
mined to retain the services of his former supporter.
At the same time Beaufort had his part to play as an
English bishop. In April, 1425, when he appeared in
convocation as chancellor to commend the prosperity
of the country to the prayers of the clergy and to
request a subsidy for Bedford's operations in France,
he directed the attention of the prelates and clergy to
" certain defects in the English Church then more
prominent than usual," which were said to be dimin-
ishing the devotion of the king's subjects to the
Church. 2 The language is ambiguous. The defects
may refer to Lollardism itself, in which case the
warning is parallel to his demand in the parliament
1 Papal Letters, vii, 14.
2 Wilkins, iii, 433.
145
II— (22 10)
146 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
of February, 1426, for the suppression of heresy and
disorder. They may, however, refer to such abuses as
the non-residence of parochial clergy, which had been
the burden of more than one petition of the commons,
and had been urged upon the attention of the episco-
pate. In that case, the warning in convocation is the
complement of the appeal in parliament. The Church
must set her house in order if the state was to guard
her privileges. It was not enough to suppress the
Lollards ; the abuses which roused their protests
must be remedied. It is a curious comment upon this
question to find the council in March, 1426, giving
permission to the Pope's nephew, Prosper Colonna,
to hold English benefices to the annual value of 500
marks on condition that the King was to receive
papal bulls securing the right of next presentation
to the proper patrons.1 Colonna's case was one of
Preferment the few points at which Gloucester and Beaufort were
of the content to give and take. The Pope " provided " his
nephew. nephew to the archdeaconry of Canterbury in 1424,
but Gloucester seems to have used his authority to
delay the young man's entrance upon his archdeaconry
by way of bringing pressure to bear on the Pope in the
still unsettled question of Jacqueline's divorce, and
Martin wrote reluctantly acquiescing in the delay and
pretending to understand that Gloucester was doing
his best.2 The concession made by the council to
Colonna in March, 1426, was probably an attempt to
bribe in Gloucester's interests the Pope whom the
thwarting of Colonna had failed to coerce. But later
in the spring of 1426 the Pope wrote to Beaufort to
thank him for his continued devotion to the Roman
Church, and to John de Obicis, papal collector in
1 Proceedings, iii, 190.
2 Bekynton, i, 284.
POLICY OF MARTIN V 147
England, to express his delight at hearing of Beaufort's
efforts on behalf of his nephew and to urge him to
thank "his brotherliness " (the bishop) and make full
use of his services in the business of Pope and Church. x
Prosper was at last admitted to the archdeaconry by
Archbishop Chichele in July, 1426. This time it was
probably not the protector but the bishop who did
the Pope a good turn.
Greater things, however, were at stake in 1426 than Beaufort
the fortune of a young Roman. Martin was still bent car&nY
upon the removal of the statutes which barred the and Legate,
free exercise of papal claims in England. The council
of regency in 1423 had like the late king ignored his
appeal for the abolition of the statutes, and Martin
had to content himself with overawing Chichele in
1423 into withdrawing his proclamation of indulgences
to Canterbury pilgrims as an invasion of papal
privilege. 2 Beaufort's resignation of the chancellor-
ship in March, 1426, was Martin's opportunity.
Gloucester, anxious as he was not to be counted an
enemy at Rome, was a nationalist in church politics
like Chichele. Beaufort on the other hand was
regarded at home and abroad as a papalist, and seemed
just the man to further the interests of the Pope in
England. Martin accordingly nominated him
cardinal-priest of St. Eusebius on May 24th, 1426.
There is no record of the date or manner of the
consent of the English government to his acceptance
of this dignity. Perhaps it was merely a tacit
permission, the negative expression of Gloucester's
readiness to see him depart. In any case, he did not
leave England until March 19th, 1427. The council
made him a parting present of permission to ship 800
1 Papal Letters, vii, 26.
a Papal Letters, vii, 12.
148
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Martin V
and
Archbishop
Chichele.
sacks of wool to Cherbourg or Caen, duty paid.
Bedford's consent was much more positive. The
London chroniclers describe in detail the ceremony of
investiture in the presence of the duke and his wife on
Lady Day in St. Mary's Church at Calais. " Before
the bishop went to mass the Pope's cousin brought
the cardinal's hat with great reverence and set it
upon the altar. And when the mass was done there
was put upon the bishop a cardinal's habit of scarlet
furred with puryd. And then there kneeling upon
his knees before the high altar, the Pope's bulls were
read to him ; and the first bull was his charge, and the
second bull was that he should have and rejoice all
the benefices spiritual and temporal that he had in
England. And then the regent of France set the hat
on the bishop's head of Winchester, and bowed and
obeyed to him and took him afore him, and so went
to their inns."1
The ecclesiastical crisis in England had already
become acute. Martin had written in haughty terms
to Chichele in December, 1426, requiring him to lead
the Church in an attack upon " the execrable statutes "
of Provisors and Praemunire. 2 The primate pleaded
that he was willing but helpless. It was rumoured
that the Pope intended to supersede the archbishop
as standing representative of the Papacy (legatus
natus) by the appointment of Cardinal Beaufort, and
the rumour was speedily confirmed in May, 1427, by
a bull of suspension for the primate and a bull of
interdict for England. The council arrested the
bearer and seized the bulls. Chichele appealed to a
general council, and protests and testimonials on his
behalf came fast to Rome from the bishops, the
1 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., pp. 95, 131.
3 Papal Letters, vii, 24 ; Wilkins, iii, 482.
PARLIAMENT AND THE PAPACY 149
University of Oxford, and even the House of Lords. 1
The Pope poured out in succession appeals to King
and parliament, and curt and insolent letters to the
archbishop, who at last in January, 1428, pleaded
with the commons to repeal the obnoxious statute of
Provisors. His plea was fruitless ; all that the
commons did was to petition the King in council to
send an embassy to Rome exculpating "our aller good
father the archbishop of Canterbury and primate of
all this land " from all charge of disregard for " the
liberties of the court of Rome in this land."2 The
envoys were sent in July, 1428, and the matter was
dropped ; the Pope could humiliate a gentle primate,
but he could not dictate to an obstinate parliament.
There is no evidence of Beaufort's intervention in
these later stages of the conflict, and it is difficult to
disentangle the threads of intrigue and trace the hints
of partisan jealousy which are so frequent in the earlier
letters of the primate and his supporters. It is
possible that some of the indications point to the
influence of Beaufort or his party as having been
exercised on the papal side. But no definite accusa-
tion was then made, and no conclusion can now be
drawn.
Meanwhile Beaufort was doing the Pope good £aPal
service in a very different field. In a letter an- against the
nouncing the despatch of the cardinal's hat and Hussites,
vestments, Martin remarked that their colour was
not to please the eye, but to remind him that he must
be ready to shed his blood for the Church. 3 The hint
was explained in a later letter dated March 19th, 1427,
1 See the whole collection of documents in Wilkins, iii,
471-486.
2 Rot. Pari., iv, 322 ; Proceedings, iii, 301 ; Rymer, x, 405.
3 Papal Letters, vii, 25 ; Raynald, s.a. 1426.
150 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
which probably reached the cardinal shortly after his
investiture at Calais, but may not have been an
absolute surprise. Beaufort was to receive a further
commission which had been contemplated by the Pope
when he conferred upon him the title of cardinal, but
which was all the more acceptable and practicable
now that the cardinal was leaving England. If he
was powerless to carry through the papal designs
upon the liberty of the Church of England, he was at
least free to lead the papal crusade against the
heretics of Bohemia. The crisis there was more
urgent than ever. In June, 1426, the Bohemian
patriots had inflicted a crushing defeat upon the
Saxon forces that blocked their advance at Aussig.
The Pope had striven not without success to rouse
the chivalry of Germany, but he needed a strong man
to unite and lead the divided and undisciplined forces
of the Empire, and a man of rank and influence to
win support in England and France for the cause of
the Church. Martin found both men in Beaufort,
and with the full approval of Sigismund he appointed
the cardinal papal legate in Germany, Bohemia, and
Hungary to organise the new crusade against the
Hussites. In his letter of March 19th the Pope
explained to Beaufort that although his legates had
failed hitherto he had not yet lost hope. It was still
his daily prayer that the sick flocks might be healed
of their leprosy or be cut off from the land of the
living lest they should infect others with the contagion
of their heresy. Various reasons, he said, had led
him to single out the cardinal for this task of conquer-
ing or converting the heretics — the ability that
Beaufort had shown in the matter of the unity of the
Church (i.e., at Constance), his high lineage, his
experience in affairs of state, and the soldierly fame
LEGATE AND CRUSADER
151
of his realm and nation. The last qualification
consorts but ill with the comparison of the legate's
mission to that of " an angel of peace " ; the whole
tenor of the commission implied that conquest rather
than conversion was its aim, and the sequel proved
that the truth was rarely to have a chance of wielding
its own proper weapons. The cardinal was urged to
make his acceptance of the task the first fruits of his
cardinalate ; and the Pope wrote separately also to
the King of England, to the bishops and other mem-
bers of his council, and to Bedford, to urge Beaufort
to undertake the task. At the same time, he wrote
to the Bishops of Wiirzburg and Bamberg and to
Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg, announcing
Beaufort's appointment as legate and authorising the
bishops to enlist and absolve soldiers and supporters
of the crusade.1
Beaufort wrote to Martin from Mechlin on June Preferment
15th in high spirits, accepting his commission and Beaufort's
promising immediate action. He utilised the occa- nephew,
sion to press the claim of his nephew, Robert Nevill,
son of the Earl of Westmoreland, to the bishopric of
Salisbury. Nepotism was a common fault of the age,
but this particular case is interesting as evidence of
a rift between Beaufort and the English council.
The chapter had elected its dean, Simon Sydenham,
but Nevill had been recommended both to the Pope
and to the chapter by letters in the king's name
procured probably by Beaufort's influence. On May
15th Gloucester and the council, including the two
primates and three other bishops, gave their opinion
man by man in favour of permitting Sydenham to
prosecute his claim at Rome " notwithstanding the
royal letters, etc." The Pope's reply to Beaufort's
1 Papal Letters, vii, 30-32 ; Rayaald, 1427.
152 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
appeal was shamelessly frank. On July 9th, the day
after his receipt of Beaufort's letter, he had nominated
Nevill to the vacant see. The election of the dean
by the chapter was, he said, canonical and unassailable,
and the bishop-elect highly recommended by many,
whereas the cardinal's nephew was open to objection
on the score of age ; he had, however, resisted all
persuasions and annulled the election, choosing to
please the faithful cardinal alone rather than many
others. * Chichele had to consent to consecrate the
cardinal's nephew in October, 1427. Sydenham
had to wait his turn ; in February, 1431, he was
consecrated to Chichester by the cardinal himself.
Defeat of The response of the Germans to the papal appeal for
the crusaders was large ; the force was variously num-
atUTadchau bered from 150>000 to 200,000. The legate himself
brought a thousand men, who must have been drawn
from the forces in France, for it was only in 1429 that
he obtained permission to raise troops in England.
Halting on July 13th at Nuremberg to make a vain
attempt to secure at least a truce between the Arch-
bishop of Mainz and the Landgrave of Hesse, he crossed
the Bohemian frontier near Tachau at the end of
July only to meet the vanguard of the huge German
army pouring back in panic before a far smaller
Bohemian force which they had not dared to face.
Astounded at their cowardice, he urged them in the
name of God and for the sake of their honour and
salvation to turn and confront the enemy, and unfurl-
ing the papal ensign placed himself, crucifix in hand,
at the head of his own contingent. He succeeded in
rallying the whole army, and knowing that dissension
made them their own worst enemies, induced the
princes to take an oath of mutual fidelity. The
1 Papal Letters, vii, 32 ; Proceedings, iii, 269.
SOLDIER AND REFORMER 153
Bohemians, weak in number but strong in spirit,
moved steadily forward with their formidable fighting-
waggons, which were more than a match for cavalry ;
and their advance started a second panic in the
German host. This time the Cardinal of England
strove in vain to check the stampede. Pleading and
threatening in turn to deaf ears, he seized the imperial
flag and tearing it to shreds flung the pieces with
words of scorn and anger at the feet of the German
princes, retreating himself at the last only in time to
save his own person from the hands of the victorious
Hussites. The Bohemians bursting through the
forest inflicted heavy loss upon the beaten army on
its disorderly flight across the frontier, and took the
town of Tachau by storm. 1
The disaster made a great impression upon the Beaufort's
western world. Various explanations were forth- endeavours
coming at once. The Germans covered their disgrace rally°the
by charging their princes with treachery. The Germans,
Margrave of Brandenburg, it was said, had been
tempted by the Praguers with an offer of the Bohe-
mian crown, and the army was paralysed by his
abstention from the fight. Beaufort saw clearly one
reason for the failure. Defective organisation and
poor tactics made the very magnitude of the army
a disadvantage and a danger, and he set himself in a
businesslike and soldierly way to raise a small paid
standing army. His diagnosis was so far correct ;
but even Beaufort was unwilling or unable to see that
the best organisation could not give a miscellaneous
mercenary force the strength which patriotism and
1 Aeneas Sylvius, Hist. Bohem., c. 48 ; Raynald, 1427, § 5 ;
Andreas of Ratisbon, Chronicon, in Hofier, Geschichtschreiber
der Hussitischer Bewegung, ii, 454 ; Palacky, Geschichte von
Bohmen, iii, 443-447.
154 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
conviction gave to the Hussite. The Pope was as
blind or as obstinate. The rout of " the faithful,"
which Nicholas Bildeston, the legate's chancellor,
had reported at Rome, was a terrible blow to Martin's
hopes. He wrote bravely, however, in September,
thanking and commending his legate for all that he
had done or attempted, and urging him to persevere,
especially in his efforts to rouse or control the princes
and prelates of Germany. The cardinal would not
need specific instructions, but he would of course deal
stringently with the bad example set to the German
laity by the alleged immorality of the Archbishop of
Cologne and the Bishop of Wiirzburg, and he would
insist upon a reconciliation between the prelates of
Cologne and Mainz, whose abstention had so seriously
weakened the late crusade.1 Bulls were issued
throughout Christendom asking for a tenth to pay
for the new standing army ; the Pope himself was
prepared to give a fifth of his revenues. The faithful
at Pilsen, a town near the scene of the disaster, were
warned to abstain from controversy with the heretics ;
the faith needed no other defence beyond the martyrs,
the councils, and the fathers. Martin wrote to John,
(2) to Bishop of Olmiitz, who had been made cardinal at
convert the ^g same tjme as Beaufort and with the same
emians, pUrp0Se^ urging him to prevent disputation, or, if it
were inevitable, to obtain the expert services of doctors
from the University of Vienna. Beaufort, more
sanguine of success in the war of words, had already
written to two former masters of the University of
Prague to undertake the task of enlightening the
misguided Bohemians. This particular disputation
was not without interest, for one of the two antagon-
ists of Beaufort's champions was Peter Payne, a
1 Papal Letters, vii, 35.
REORGANISATION IN GERMANY 155
Wycliffite refugee and an old Oxonian. But it was a
fruitless effort. Its aim was apparently rather to
conciliate the moderate reformers than to convert the
extremists ; but it left the various parties on worse
terms than before.
The Cardinal of England was meanwhile throwing (3)^0
himself whole-heartedly into the work of preparing for organise
a second crusade on a plan which was little less than crusade,
a scheme for the organisation of the Empire. Largely
through his efforts an imperial diet was held at
Frankfort in the November and December of 1427.
A " Hussite-tax " was ordered, to provide funds by
February, 1428. A small federal council was ap-
pointed to superintend the preparations, and the
legate and the Margrave of Brandenburg were to
head the new army which was to meet on the Bohe-
mian frontier in June. Beaufort's plan promised
well, but the promise was not fulfilled. Funds came
but slowly. Many of the clergy paid their share
promptly ; but many princes and cities collected
their quota and then kept the money in hand under
the pretext of awaiting further orders. The Pope
pleaded and scolded, and the princes met in council
again and again, but without result. Later in the
summer Beaufort made his way to England to collect
funds and forces, without entrusting his authority in
Germany to any responsible deputy ; and in his
absence the fatal weakness of the Empire asserted
itself once more, and for lack of patriotism and self-
sacrifice on the part of the German princes the system
fell to pieces.1
When the cardinal landed in England in August, Attitude of
1428, the crusade was already a familiar topic. He chufdfand
1 Andr. Ratisbon, Dialog. (Hofler, i, 579) ; Chron. (Hofler, Govern-
ii, 455) ; Palacky, ii, 455-467. ment-
156 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
had himself sent the primate a copy of the " bull
legatine" of March, 1427, for publication in the
province of Canterbury ; and Martin had written to
Chichele in October enclosing a copy of the general
letter to all Christendom in which he asked for a tenth
for the new crusade. Early in May, 1428, the papal
nuncio, Conzo de Suola, presented his credentials to
the privy council and also bulls describing the Bohe-
mian heresy in flagrant terms and requesting a subsidy
for its extermination.1 The written answer then
given by the council is not extant ; but from Beau-
fort's own subsequent petition it is evident that the
council consented " to grant people and captains
notable out of this land," though no definite arrange-
ment was made, and certainly no subsidy was
granted. On May 15th Chichele published a papal
letter on behalf of the crusade. A London chronicler
also records the coming of this " pardon against the
heretics, the which pardon was that men should every
Sunday in the beginning of every month go in
procession with vii psalms and the litany, and they
should have a c days of pardon unto the same pro-
cession."2 The King and the Queen-mother and
the lords actually " went on procession through
London " on June 2nd. Convocation, however,
ignored Conzo's appeal for funds in June and July ;
and little more seems to have been done before
Beaufort's arrival in September. When he published
his legatine commission early in November, Gloucester
in the name of the King and the council entered a
formal protest against the exercise of the office of
legate in England without the permission of the
crown. Ten days later the convocation of Canterbury
1 Proceedings, iii, 295.
• Gregory, p. 162.
CONVOCATION AND THE CRUSADE 157
again ignored the nuncio's demand of a tenth for the
crusade. Martin had written to the bishops and
clergy of the Church of England, regretting the
postponement of the expected subsidy, and urging
various reasons why the clems Angliae should have
been prompt to respond to his appeal. England as
the nursery of the Wicklefistae was both the source and
the support of the Hussite heresy, and had reason
still to fear similar outbreaks at home. God had
enriched the English Church with endowments far
beyond those of other churches. Finally, they had
been generous enough in providing for the secular
needs of their King, and ought to be at least as
generous in defence of the faith and the Church. 1
The Pope's appeal was made in vain. Fortified by the
protest of the government on November 11th, con-
vocation paid no attention to the papal demand, but
proceeded to deal with the Lollards and to grant a
half-tenth to the King. Its action was misreported
to Martin. Chichele wrote to complain to the Pope
that one James, papal nuncio to the King and to the
cardinal, had stated that the bishops had overruled
the desire of the clergy to grant a subsidy, and were
endeavouring " to govern the realm and oppress the
church." As a matter of fact, Chichele said, he had
acted with the full consent of the cardinal. The
council had told the cardinal that he must choose
between men and money, and he had chosen to take
men. The question of a subsidy had therefore been
postponed until the expedition should be ready. 2
The supremacy of the crown and the independence Enlistment
of convocation having been thus asserted, the council of
was not unwilling to grant the cardinal something of ^England.
1 Brown, Fasc. Rer. Expet., ii, 616, 617.
2 For proceedings in convocation see Wilkins, iii, 491 foil. ;
Bekynton, vol. i, pp. xciii-xcviii.
158 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
what he desired. The acts of the council contain an
interesting petition from Beaufort with the answer
of the council and a formal indenture based upon that
answer. * The indenture is dated June 18th, 1429 ;
but as the cardinal started with his contingent on the
22nd, and as the answer of the council makes a stipula-
tion with reference to his coming negotiations with
the Scottish king, it is obvious that the petition and
answer must be placed before his visit to Scotland
in February, and early enough to allow time for the
raising of the contingent. In this petition the
cardinal sought permission to collect an English force
of 500 spears and 5,000 archers, in fulfilment of the
promise made by the council to Conzo the nuncio.
The terms of his petition mark at once the zeal of the
churchman and the experience of the soldier. He
asked for leave to publish the crusade in all parts of
England, remarking (in obvious allusion to Bishop
Despenser's expedition in 1383 against the French
anti-Pope) that " cruciats (i.e., crusades) have been
late seen in this land where the cause was not so
great " ; and he wished to enlist any man who would
offer his services " only of devotion and for soul's
health." But he proposed to offer a definite rate of
pay, to appoint his own officers, to enforce strict
military discipline upon the volunteer as well as upon
the mercenary, and to charter sufficient ships for
transport ; and he announced his intention " not
under colour of the said cruciat to suffer no religious
men " that were likely to take advantage of the
crusade " rather far to walk in apostasy than for desire
of merit." The council, in view of the diminution of
the population " by mortality and wars," and in view
of the military needs of the King, limited the number
1 Proceedings, iii, 330-338.
ORGANISATION OF THE CRUSADE 159
of the force to 250 spears and 2,500 bows, and stipu-
lated that the cost should be met by voluntary
offerings and not by " a common charge " upon the
clergy or other estates of the realm, and that all money
so given should be spent in England in the purchase
of supplies for the troops raised in England. The
cardinal was also required to refrain from recruiting
from the English forces in France, and to provide for
the return of his men to England.
A vivid picture of the organisation of the crusade is
to be seen in three documents preserved in the registry
of the Prior of Canterbury, viz., (1) the articles of the
bull which the cardinal-legate had already forwarded
to Chichele for publication in his diocese, (2) the
cardinal's own instructions to the preachers of the
crusade, and (3) the supplementary instructions
issued by the archbishop in January, 1429, to officials
of his own diocese. 1 Varying degrees of absolution
or indulgence were to be granted to different kinds
of supporters, to crusaders serving in person, to
senders of men, to donors of small sums, to women
and such other persons as could only fast and pray.
Special forms of divine service were provided for the
conferring of the crusaders' badges, and for the
monthly masses and litanies and processions on behalf
of the crusade. The faithful of each rural deanery
were to be summoned together and notified of the
times and places at which the indulgences were to be
obtained ; copies of the indulgence were to be supplied
to any curate who desired to promote the crusade
among his people ; and the chief churches of the
diocese were to have at their doors collecting-boxes
marked with the cross and labelled, " This chest is
for the crusade."
1 Brown, Fasc. Rev. Expet., ii, 611-626.
160
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
with the
Scottish
King.
While these preparations were in full swing, the
cardinal turned his attentions to the northern king-
dom, the home of his royal niece Joan. On February
10th the council gave him permission — without which
special permission " our cousin the cardinal dare not
take upon himself " the matter in question— to
Conference arrange a conference with the Scottish King on matters
" touching the state of the catholic faith and the
honour and advantage of the universal Church, as well
as the honour and interest of the realm."1 The
cardinal was anxious to obtain Scottish support for
the crusade ; the council no less anxious to prevent
Scottish assistance to France. In their answer to
the cardinal's petition for licence to publish the
crusade, they had stipulated that he should do his
best to secure the friendship of the Scottish King and
the observance of the truce and the " other appoint-
ments made with the King " of England, i.e., the
payment of his ransom. The cardinal promptly made
his way northwards. On February 12th he broke
his journey at St. Albans, where he was received in
solemn procession as became a cardinal and a legate,
the whole convent wearing their red copes. On the
morrow, the first Sunday in Lent, he took part in the
regular procession, preceded by his cross-bearer, and
attended by the abbot, and gave the benediction.2
His friendly conference with the Scottish King and
Queen at Coldingham lasted right on into March, but
it bore no tangible fruit. The agents of the council
brought back their receipts instead of the instalment
of the ransom for which the receipts were to be given ; 3
and a week after the cardinal's visit to St. Albans
1 Proceedings, iii, 318.
3 Amundesham, i, 33, 34.
3 Ramsay, i, 408.
ATTITUDE OF THE COUNCIL 161
on April 11th on his return to London the council
were busy commissioning ships to intercept the
French fleet which was rumoured to be on the point
of conveying a little Scottish princess and 6,000 Scots
to the court of France. Yet kinship and diplomacy
had not entirely failed ; there is no record of a
Scottish contingent for the cardinal's crusade, but a
suggestion had been made of the possibility of a
marriage between another little Scottish princess and
the seven-year-old King of England, which for a time
engaged the efforts of the council in an attempt to
neutralise her sister's French alliance. *
A bitter disappointment awaited the cardinal on
his return to London. Pending the settlement of the
question which Gloucester had raised as to his
retention of the bishopric of Winchester, he was
requested to refrain from attending the festival of
St. George at Windsor, at which he was expecting to
officiate as prelate of the Garter. It is by no means
certain even that the licensing of his crusade was not
intended, on Gloucester's part at any rate, to remove
him from the scene of political action at home. It
must have been with mingled feelings that he signed
the agreement with the council on June 18th, which
confirmed the conditions of the crusade. The council
on their part revealed their lingering suspicion of the
cardinal's designs by inserting a clause forbidding him
to allow his men to be employed " in any other war or
service save only to the reduction or chastising of the
heretics of Beeme (Bohemia)," except that he might
take 200 as an escort " to accompany him further
unto the court of Rome." At last on June 22nd the
cardinal and his men took the road for Canterbury ;
but when they set sail from Dover in July it was to
1 Proceedings, iii, 323, 324,
12 — (22Io)
Crusaders
diverted to
the aid of
Bedford in
France.
162 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
proceed direct to the relief of Bedford, who was hard
pressed near Paris.
The advent of " the maid of God " (la pucelle de
Dieu) in March, 1429, had brought new life to the
French army in spite of the sceptical inaction of its
King. Early in May Jeanne d'Arc had driven the
English to raise the siege of Orleans ; and on June
18th, the very day on which Beaufort's indenture
was signed, she defeated and captured Talbot at
Patay. Bedford was expecting daily a small rein-
forcement under Sir John Ratcliff. This force left
England on June 29th. It numbered all told 100
spears and 700 bows, about half the number that
Bedford in April had asked the council to send.
Alarmed by the news of the regent's danger, the
council urged upon Beaufort the necessity of allowing
his crusaders to serve for six months in France, and
an agreement to that effect was signed between the
cardinal and the council at Rochester on July 1st. 1
There is much in this agreement that is simply
inexcusable. Beaufort was to be relieved of responsi-
bility by despatches from the council ordering
Bedford to detain the crusaders in France. Bonds
were given to Beaufort by the council in which they
guaranteed the repayment to the Pope of the cost of
the six months' service of which he was to be robbed.
These bonds, however, were only for the immediate
security of Beaufort as against the council. For fear
that their dates might give rise to " suspicion of
collusion between the King's council and the cardinal,"
these bonds were to be replaced by similar bonds
dated after the issue of Bedford's orders for the
detention of the crusaders. Beaufort was to induce
Bedford to pay as much as possible of the cost of the
1 Proceedings, iii, 339-344.
CARDINAL AND COUNCIL
163
men's service in France, " in no wise letting my lord of
Bedford wit of any surety made here of repayment to
our said holy Father " ; and the bonds given by the
councillors were to be reduced in proportion. Imme-
diately after the publication of Bedford's " prohibi-
tion " of the crusaders' departure from France,
messengers were to be sent " unto our holy father
the Pope and to the princes of Almain with letters
of excusation containing the causes of restraint and
delay of passing into Bohemia of the said cardinal's
retinue, as well in discharging of the King and
declaration and keeping of his name and fame as
the foresaid cardinal's." It was bad enough for the
council to secure the cardinal's compliance by
conspiring with him to shift the blame and the expense
respectively upon Bedford in the hour of his need.
It has been suspected, however, that "the whole
business was a fraud from the very beginning. ' ' 1 The
indenture of the crusade was signed on June 18th.
On June 15th sergeants-at-arms were ordered by
letters patent to impress and pay ships and mariners,
and on June 16th " harbingers " were appointed to
provide quarters in Kent, for " Henry Cardinal of
England and his company" going abroad on the
Ktng's service. This may mean that the government
was giving the same facilities for the despatch of the
cardinal's crusaders as if they were a contingent
destined for the army in France. On June 26th
officers were appointed to attend the muster of the
cardinal's archers and men-at-arms and report to the
King2, as if the council were still keeping a watchful
eye upon a force which they did not intend to exceed
the number licenced. On the other hand it is a
1 Lingard, iv, 67.
2 Cal. Patent Rolls, 1422-1429, pp. 554, 555.
164 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
remarkable fact that the contingent numbered
roughly twice as many men as the council were then
managing to send out under Ratcliff in response to
Bedford's appeal made in April. It is possible that
the council did not realise the gravity of the situation
in France until they heard the news of Patay. It is,
however, just as possible that they were surprised to
find that they could only raise for Bedford against
the Maid half as many men as Beaufort could raise
for himself against the Hussite. They may even have
intended from the very first to utilise Beaufort's men
in France. In any case, Beaufort himself was innocent
and unaware of any purpose beyond the crusade.
That crusade was one of the most whole-hearted efforts
of his life, and he was clearly taken by surprise when
the proposal to borrow his crusaders reached him on
the eve of his departure. His motive in acceding to
the proposal was honest and honourable. Four days
later the council rewarded his compliance with a
present of a thousand marks for his trouble, and this
reward has been read backwards into a bribe. It
would indeed have been a poor bait for a rich man. It
was an altogether inadequate compensation for his
loss of his reputation at Rome ; and the very dis-
honesty of the agreement of July 1st bears witness to
his anxious anticipation of the resentment of the
Pope if ever he found out that his trusted legate had
consented, however reluctantly, to the diversion of
the long-expected reinforcement of the crusade. It is
not unlikely that Gloucester and others welcomed the
thought of alienating the Pope from his legate. The
cardinal's reluctance was real and great. Even Hall,
usually so prejudiced against the cardinal, approves
of his action in this case. " By reason," he writes,
" of the crew sent into Bohemia," Gloucester was
THE CARDINAL'S MOTIVES 165
unable to raise troops at once, and wrote to Beaufort
at Dover urging him to stop and help Bedford on
his way. Beaufort was " moved with this counter-
mand," but obeyed " lest he should be noted not to
aid the regent of France in so great a cause."1 He
may have yielded partly from a desire " to disarm
domestic opponents," or to win confidence for himself
and his future action as legate by giving proof now of
his readiness to postpone his own ambition to the
interests of his country. More probably he was
convinced that the need of the hour was the crisis
in France, and consented to come to the rescue in the
hope that his help would restore the balance of the
war and that he might soon pass on to the discharge
of his original commission. The latter hope was
doomed to disappointment. His arrival saved the
situation ; but he was kept hard at work in France,
and the Pope gave him no second chance.
The Maid had fought her way to Rheims and seen Beaufort
Charles VII crowned there on July 17th ; and on in France,
July 23rd the French army was within striking
distance of Paris. Two days later the cardinal and
his crusaders entered the capital. On landing at
Calais he had marched straight to Amiens, and leaving
his men there paid a flying visit to the Duke of
Burgundy at Corbie. The duke's sister Anne,
Duchess of Bedford, had returned with her brother
at the close of his last visit to Paris, and was doing
her best to keep him faithful to his English allies.
The duke and the cardinal had " great consultations
and came to rapid decisions " ; and Beaufort, having
thus stiffened a wavering ally by the way, returned
to Amiens, and led his men without further delay to
1 Hall, p. 152.
166
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Efforts to
retain
support of
Burgundy.
the regent's assistance. l Bedford was relieved by
their arrival from all immediate danger, though after
his first demonstration in force with the new reinforce-
ments he had to remain on the defensive through
August in a strong position between Paris and the
French army. France was renewing her strength
under the influence of the Maid, and Bedford had
soon to leave Paris and divide his forces between the
capital and the endangered northern provinces ; but
on September 8th Jeanne made an unsuccessful
attack on Paris, and her superiors, who had left her
unsupported, withdrew across the Seine and disbanded
the army.
Beaufort's doings in France after his relief of
Bedford are unrecorded, with the exception of a loan
to Bedford in September for the payment of troops
to defend Paris ; but early in October he was again
in the capital, taking his part in the problem of the
retention of the support of Burgundy. 2 Charles VII
and his advisers were making advances to Burgundy
all through August. Bedford did his best to counter-
act their influence. He sent envoys, possibly under
Beaufort's leadership ; he appointed the duke
governor of Paris ; he used his wife's influence with
her brother for all that it was worth. The failure of
Jeanne's attack and its sequel decided Burgundy ; he
turned cool to the French, and marched into Paris on
September 30. Bedford, less and less sanguine of
success in the enforcement of the English claims, now
contemplated confining his own efforts to the com-
mand in Normandy and leaving Burgundy in author-
ity over the rest of the English realm in France ; and
1 Wavrin, 1422-1431,
2 Beaucourt, ii, 411,
ii, 126, 141, 536 n.
Engl.
412;
Tr., p. 190.
Stevenson, Wars in France,
THE CARDINAL'S SACRIFICE 167
the cardinal was entrusted with important diplomatic
work during the month of October. On the 10th he
and the abbot of Mont St. Michel were busily engaged
in conference with representatives of Burgundy and
the French court on the question of a general peace ;
but the only definite result was the proposal of a
further conference at Auxerre on April 1st, 1430,
under the auspices of the Duke of Savoy and under
the mediation of cardinals appointed by the Pope.
On the 17th, Burgundy and Bedford both left Paris,
Bedford " with a heavy heart." Beaufort, who was
still occupied in arranging the transference of the
government into the hands of the new regent of
France, for such Burgundy practically was now,
returned to England shortly afterwards for the
coronation of the little King early in November.
Meanwhile the cardinal had paid the price of his Resentment
compliance with the wishes of the English council. oftheP°pe.
Bedford was grateful enough for that compliance, to
judge from the language of his defence before the
council in 1434. He spoke then with evident sincerity
of " the refreshing of the retinue that mine uncle the
cardinal had made for the Church, the which was
notable and came thither in full good season," and
enabled him to " set and keep " himself " on the field
diversdays " against the " enemies that purposed to
have gotten the remnant of the country." x But the
gratitude of the regent could not compensate the
cardinal for the displeasure of the Pope. On August
11th Martin wrote to Charles VII stating that he had
heard a rumour of the cardinal's employment of
English crusaders against the French, and denying all
responsibility for an action which had left the expec-
tant Catholics of Germany hopeless and struck a blow
1 Proceedings, iv, 223.
168 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
at a faithful son of the Church. On September 7th
he wrote to Charles again, expressing his regret and
his helplessness, and giving the explanation which
he had received from the cardinal, to whom he had
sent a strong protest. The cardinal's excuses were
that he had merely obeyed the orders of the crown,
orders stated in terms which precluded disobedience ;
that his men were not in a mood to be forced into
Bohemia when they knew that they were wanted in
France ; and, finally, that the Pope would be repaid
the cost of the crusaders' services. Martin himself
attributed the blame in vague but not unintelligible
language to certain persons (doubtless the English
council) " who preferred to pursue their own interest
rather than the common interest of the orthodox
faith." He regretted that he could do nothing to
help the King of France. He could exercise no
control over the crusaders ; they were a long way
off, and they were Englishmen and would obey their
King. However, he was writing to restrain Beaufort
from displaying his legatine dignity in the English
service. The letter to Beaufort was written next day ;
and he was forbidden to dishonour the Pope and to
disgrace himself by wearing the insignia of the
legatine office in France.1 A year or more later
Martin appointed a new legate for Germany. The
whole affair was a vivid illustration of the impossibility
of serving two masters ; and the strongest disapproval
of the terms of the Rochester compromise need not
preclude the proper appreciation of the fact that
when the inevitable choice had to be made, Henry of
Winchester chose to risk the loss of a papal career for
the sake of his country.
1 Papal Letters, vii, 38, 39.
CHAPTER IX
THE CARDINALATE AND THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND
REALM
1426-1432
The first great English historian to do justice to The
Cardinal Beaufort admitted that the acceptance of the difficulties
cardinalate in 1426 was " the great mistake of his at home.
life."1 The offer of that dignity seemed to be the
appropriate fulfilment of an undoubted ambition
which he had sacrificed in 1418 in obedience to the
will of his sovereign. Its attraction was all the
greater because it seemed to open up a prospect of
honour abroad just when the door was closing against
his influence at home. Yet grievous disappointment
awaited both the cardinal and the Pope who counted
upon his services in England and on the Continent.
The cardinal found himself beset by difficulties at
every step. He was at once compelled to take an
open part or was suspected of exercising a secret
influence in the struggle between the Papacy and the
Church and realm of England over questions of the
independence of the national episcopate. He lost
something of the goodwill of his own countrymen for
the simple reason that a papal legation meant to the
mind of the ordinary Englishman a heavy addition
to the charges upon national resources already
strained to the verge of bankruptcy. Finally, he was
given but a short respite from the enmity of
Gloucester, who seized the welcome opportunity of
fighting him at every point of constitutional precedent
1 Stubbs, iii, 111.
169
in London.
170 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
and principle with reference to the position of an
English ecclesiastic holding an office in the papal
service. The Pope's disappointment was no less
keen. Long before the cardinal proved by his
turning aside to the help of Bedford in France that
his own patriotism was stronger even than his
churchmanship it was evident that his usefulness to
the papal cause was seriously impaired by the cir-
cumstances of his own position as well as by the
general attitude of the English government.
His On September 1st, 1428, " the Bishop of Winchester
reception an(j Cardinal of Rome," as he rode into London on his
return from a year's crusading against the Bohemians,
was received in state by the mayor and citizens
" reverently arrayed in red hoods and green robes,"
and was attended in solemn procession to St. Paul's
and thence to Westminster by the abbots of St.
Albans and Waltham and a multitude of friars of the
four orders. The chronicler of St. Albans was
greatly impressed by the cardinal's grandeur. Before
the civic procession came in sight, he had changed
his travelling garb for a cope of crimson red velvet,
with sleeves which covered his palfrey from ears to
crupper, and a velvet hat and an ample hood like a
scholar's cope. His cross was carried on foot before
him, and on either side rode a knight holding by the
brims a red hat — " not such very good ones," noticed
the chronicler to his surprise — while squires held the
bridle of silver and enamel, and couriers cleared the
way in front. " The people were greatly delighted " ;
the conflicts that centred round the papal emissary
were no concern of a London crowd. The whole
scene was " to the great honour of city, realm, and
commonwealth." So says the monastic annalist.1
1 Amundesham, i, 26.
A DOUBTFUL WELCOME 171
The London chronicler contents himself with recording
that the bishop-cardinal was " received worthily and
royally of the mayor and all his brethren."1 The
city fathers could not refuse outward tokens of
respect to a cardinal of royal blood, but they had
not forgotten the street-war of 1425 between the
bishop and their favourite "good Duke Humphrey."
There were, moreover, significant abstentions from
the day's proceedings. The only nobleman mentioned
as present was the cardinal's companion, his nephew
Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Mortain in Normandy.
The only bishop to meet him was his nephew Robert,
whom he had helped into the see of Salisbury.
Abbots and friars, who owed to the Papacy their
independence of bishop and parish priest, had reason
to welcome the man whom the Pope delighted to
honour ; but the monastic chronicler noted that " no
other bishops were present at the reception " of the
cardinal.
On September 22nd the cardinal paid a state visit
to St. Albans. 2 The convent wore their white copes
in the procession, and " the new organs made a
mighty noise." The cardinal gave the benediction,
and " offered " at the martyr's shrine ; and thence
passed on to Langley to dine with Queen Joan, the
widow of Henry IV, who was living there in enforced
retirement. The cardinal also took part in various
religious ceremonies of note before Christmas. On
November 19th there was a sermon by an Augustine
friar and a solemn procession in the city of London,
and the cardinal was there with his cross like the
archbishops.3 On the first Sunday in Advent the
1 Gregory, p. 162.
2 Amundesham, i, 28.
3 Amundesham, i, 31.
172
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Protest
against his
legatine
office.
cardinal celebrated mass at St. Paul's, in the presence
of both archbishops and a number of bishops and
abbots, over the body of his kinsman, Thomas
Montague, Earl of Salisbury, who had lost his life in
the siege of Orleans.1 Yet each of these functions
had been preceded by a conflict or a repulse. A week
before the London sermon Gloucester made his first
open protest against the cardinal's position. On
November 11th, when the legatine commission was
published, Richard Caudray, the King's proctor, in-
structed by Gloucester and the council, entered a
formal veto in the name of the crown against all and
any acts of the legate. He asserted that by statute
and custom alike no legate could enter the realm of
England " except at the summons, petition, requisi-
tion, invitation, or request " of the King for the time
being. The cardinal had come uninvited " affirming
himself to be a legate of the holy Roman see, and using
the insignia of his apostolic dignity after the manner
of a legate." The King and his council would not
object to his approaching them " not as legate but
just as a cardinal of the holy Roman Church " sent
by the Pope, especially in matters concerning " the
exaltation of the catholic faith and the suppression
of heretics." They would give willing attention to
such a commissioner, for indeed they were " a most
Christian prince and catholic men and faithful and
devoted sons of the Roman Church " ; but there must
be one saving clause — " always without prejudice to
the rights and privileges of the crown of my said lord
the King and his illustrious realm of England."
These rights, the cardinal "said openly and expressly"
1 Salisbury's only child Alice was married to Richard
Nevill, son of the Earl of Westmoreland and his wife Joan,
the sister of the Bishop of Winchester.
A ROYAL VETO 173
in his reply, it was never his intention to violate, and
he met the veto placed upon his legation by a public
promise not to exercise his commission without
consent of the crown or in derogation of the rights
of King and realm. 1 It seems clear that although the
futile bull of 1427 was a suspension of Chichele's
ordinary authority as legatus natus, yet Beaufort was
not actually given a special commission as legate to
England. The particular exercise of legatine author-
ity against which the protest of 1428 was made was
an attempt to collect funds for the anti-Hussite
crusade in virtue of his original commission as legate
for Germany. Such a protest was an appropriate
reception for an English legate, whose commission was
as foreign in its extent as it was in its origin, and
whose visit to his native land had been preceded by
a bull authorising him to tax English revenues for the
Pope's continental needs. Gloucester and the council
had spoken on November 11th for the liberties of the
realm. A week before the cardinal's association with
the English bishops in the funeral of the brave Earl
of Salisbury, convocation had given the Church's
answer to the cardinal's mission by silently passing
over the demand of a tenth for the crusade.
The state had asserted its right to control the legate Question
in the exercise of his authority. The Church had ^t^
proved its right to grant or refuse his demands. The 0f his
cardinal was now permitted to raise men and means bishopric,
by voluntary effort. The council sent envoys with
him to Scotland either to keep a watchful eye upon
his proceedings or more probably to take advantage
of his personal relationship to do the council's own
business with the Scotch sovereign. The council
paid the cardinal's expenses. Immediately before his
1 Fasc. Rer. Expet, ii, 618 ; Duck, p. 82.
retention
174 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
return, however, in April, Gloucester made a second
attack upon his status. The opposition to Beaufort
this time took the form of a protest against the reten-
tion of an English see by a cardinal of Rome.
Gloucester raised the question during the cardinal's
absence whether his acceptance of the cardinalate had
not ipso facto involved the resignation of the bishopric
of Winchester, since a cardinal as such was exempted
from the jurisdiction of Canterbury. Beaufort
brought the question to a test on a side issue. The
see of Winchester carried with it the office of prelate
of the Order of the Garter, and Beaufort now claimed
the right to exercise this office. At a meeting of the
" great council " held on April 17th at Westminster
in the presence of the little King the question was
discussed whether the cardinal ought or ought not to
be allowed to officiate, as he claimed, at the annual
service at Windsor on the approaching feast of St.
George. The councillors were asked their opinions
separately, the two archbishops, twelve bishops, and
four abbots, as well as twelve lay peers and others.
They all agreed in substance that their first desire
was to safeguard the authority of the King, and that
as the matter was " ambiguous and undecided " the
bishop should be directed to refrain from attending
and exercising his claim ; and " this conclusion the
King " — with such responsibility as could attach to a
monarch of the age of seven — " confirmed with his
own mouth and ordered that the lord cardinal should
be told to abstain, etc." This answer was conveyed
to the cardinal by four lay peers. He brought his
reply in person next day, and pressed for justice
or for reasons why justice should not be done to his
claim. He was asked to withdraw, and the lords of
the council gave their opinions singly once more.
THE CARDINAL AND HIS SEE
175
They said that it was " an unusual thing to be a
cardinal and at the same time retain a bishopric in
England," but still they neither desired nor dared to
prejudice either the authority of the King during his
minority, or the privileges of the bishop and his church ;
so they would content themselves with requesting him
to refrain from attending the festival for the present. x
It was a drawn battle. Beaufort was too strong to be
driven from his position on a side issue ; and two years
later the question of the retention of the bishopric
was raised by Gloucester directly on its own merits.
On the other hand Beaufort had been compelled to
waive the claim which he had counted on vindicating.
The cardinal was doubtless glad to fling himself for Coronation
the next two months into the work of organising his of Henry VI
crusaders, and then to exchange the bitter limitations SiMteJ"
of English politics for the freedom of service abroad,
even though Bohemia had to be forsaken for France!
In October he returned to England to make the most
of a fresh opportunity. Bedford had urged the
council at home to send the young King over to '
France to secure the loyalty of his French subjects ;
and the parliament which met in September, realising
the urgency of the request all the more now that
France had crowned its own King, began to make
hasty preparations for the coronation of Henry VI
at Westminster which must precede his coronation
in Paris. The cardinal came home for the purpose.
He took part in the state ride from the Tower to
Westminster on the eve of the coronation, and in the
" hallowing " of the young King in the Abbey on
Sunday, November 6th, the feast of St. Leonard.
The chronicler of St. Albans says that it was the
cardinal who celebrated the mass and Archbishop
1 Proceedings, iii, 323; Rymer, x, 414; Vickers, p. 213.
176
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Position
of the
Cardinal
at the
Privy
Council.
Chichele who anointed and crowned the King.1
According to the elaborate account of the ceremony
given by the London chronicle of Gregory it was the
archbishop who sang the mass ; the Bishop of London
administered the chalice to the little King, while " the
Cardinal of Winchester and another bishop held to
him the towel of silk " as he knelt before the altar.
In the procession from the Abbey to the hall first came
the new knights and the lords, then the chancellor
(the Archbishop of York), bare-headed with his cross,
" and after him came the cardinal with his cross in
his habit like a canon in a garment of red chamelet,
furred with white meniver ; and then followed the
King," led between the Bishops of Durham and Bath,
with his train borne up by his tutor the Earl of
Warwick. The new Earl of Salisbury, Beaufort's
nephew, acted as Constable of England in Bedford's
absence, Gloucester as steward, and Norfolk as
marshal. At the banquet in Westminster Hall " the
King kept his estate, and on the right hand sat the
cardinal with a lower estate, and on the left side sat
the chancellor and a bishop of France, and no mo at
that table."2
The lords decided at once that the coronation had
reduced Bedford and Gloucester from the rank of
protector to that of chief councillor. Gloucester may
have suspected the hand of Beaufort in this matter.
At any rate, he seized the first opportunity to strike
again at the cardinal's position. This time it was the
cardinal's right to sit on the King's council that was
challenged, and this time the cardinal won his case.
His place on the council was retained for him by a
resolution of the lords spiritual and temporal passed
1 Amundesham, i, 44.
3 Gregory, pp. 165-170.
THE CARDINAL'S SEAT AT JOUNCIL 177
on December 18th, which illustrates at once his
personal influence in parliament and yet the suspicion
which parliament felt with regard to the position of
a prince of the Roman Church at the court of the
English realm. It was contrary to precedent, they
stated, that Englishmen who became cardinals should
be " admitted to the King's councils as councillors
of the King and realm " ; but in consideration of
Beaufort's near relation to the king, in recognition of
his past services to the crown, especially his recent
expedition to France (i.e., the diverted crusade), and
in expectation of future services, the cardinal was to
be not merely admitted but urged to resume his seat
upon the council. Two very significant stipulations
were, however, made. He was to abstain from
attendance at the council when any matter had to be
discussed which concerned the King and realm on the
one side and the apostolic see on the other ; and the
protest made by the council on his first arrival in
England as cardinal and recorded in the acts of the
council was to remain unprejudiced and unimpaired.
Beaufort accepted the situation, and thanked the
King and the lords for their favour.1 It was a
double-edged favour, at once an inexpensive tribute
to his own importance and an effective annulling of
his cardinalate in the only matters where that office Commons'
had any importance of its own. The personal tribute confidence
was, however, more emphatic than its limitations, and in the
was echoed by the commons. In granting the King Cardinal,
a second subsidy on December 20th, they prefaced
their resolution with " a special recommendation of
the right-reverend father in Christ the lord Henry by
divine permission cardinal-priest of St. Eusebius,
commonly called the Cardinal of England." This
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 336-338.
13 — (2210)
178 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
" recommendation " has been taken to mean that the
commons' second subsidy was granted in response to
an appeal from the cardinal made out of gratitude
for the decision of the lords in his favour. He may
have used his influence in this direction, or the
subsidy may itself have been a proof of the satis-
faction felt by the commons at that same decision in
the cardinal's favour. In any case, the context of the
paragraph in the roll of parliament proves that the
" recommendation " was the testimony borne by the
commons to the cardinal's merits. Lords and
commons alike spoke well of the cardinal, and
Gloucester was powerless to gainsay their will. The
sacrifice of the crusade five months ago had not been
fruitless. There was a little nervous anxiety on the
score of the possible influence of the cardinal's office
in questions between Rome and England, but there
was every confidence in his personal devotion to the
interests of his country in all other matters.
Return to In February, 1430, the cardinal crossed the Channel
France with to negotiate with the Duke of Burgundy, and on his
the King. return was induced to cross once more in attendance
upon the King. He went with some reluctance.
Perhaps he was afraid of the latent feuds between
certain noblemen in the King's retinue ; perhaps he
was unwilling to surrender the prospect of a new
lease of power at home which seemed probable in the
light of the recent support given to him in parliament.
Gloucester on the other hand appeared anxious to be
rid of his uncle's restraining presence. His com-
mission as regent during the King's absence required
him to act only with the concurrence of that part of
the council which remained in England, and Beaufort's
presence on the council would make the requirement
of its concurrence a real check.
RENEWED OPPOSITION 179
Parliament did not meet again until January, 1431. The
Beaufort came over to attend the session, and for once Session of
there was an approach to harmony between the two I431*
rivals. They seem to have met on friendly terms
in connexion with the proposal of this parliament
that the two royal dukes and their uncle should discuss
with envoys of France and of Rome the possibilities
of peace. The session as a whole was uneventful,
but there is no need to attribute its peaceful character
either to any special excellence in Gloucester's
government or to any weakness of the cardinal
owing to the absence of " his turbulent supporters "
in France.1 The commons were unusually liberal
in their grants to the King. Perhaps Beaufort used
his influence in that direction ; but Gloucester was
probably no less convinced than Beaufort that peace
was yet but a pious hope. In April the cardinal
went back to the trial of the Maid at Rouen, and
Gloucester spent the summer and autumn in dealing Demand
vigorously with an outburst of political Lollardism f<* the
and cognate disorders in the provinces. Before the [f0sng^"his
end of the year the cardinal's position was attacked bishopric!*
once more. The absence of Beaufort and some of
his staunchest supporters in France gave his opponents
an opportunity which they used to the full. No doubt
the attack was timed deliberately for another reason
also. The King's return was imminent, and his return
meant the return of Beaufort and his friends and the
reduction of the regent to chief councillor again.
Gloucester may have wished to humiliate beforehand
the man whom he regarded as bent on his own
humiliation. At all events he authorised the lawyers
of the crown to make out a case against the cardinal
before a great council of fourteen spiritual and eight
1 Vickers, p. 221.
180 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
temporal peers. Precedents were quoted to prove
that the acceptance of the dignity of a cardinal had
always involved the resignation of an English see.
Archbishop Kilwardby in 1278 and Archbishop
Langham in 1368 had been deprived on this ground,
and the rule must be maintained in the interests of
the welfare of the kingdom. The King's sergeant
and attorney accordingly presented a formal petition
that the cardinal should be compelled to resign the
see of Winchester and refund the revenues received
from the see since 1426. The regent himself asked
the Bishop of Worcester whether it was true that the
cardinal had purchased from the Pope for himself, his
city and his diocese, an exemption from the jurisdiction
of Canterbury. The bishop reluctantly admitted
that the Bishop of Lichfield had told him that he had
acted on Beaufort's behalf at the papal court in the
procuring of such an exemption. No further evidence
of this offence, which was an undoubted breach of
the statute of Praemunire, was forthcoming at the
time ; on the other hand the statement of the Bishop
of Worcester was not denied by the Bishop of Lichfield
who was present at this very council. The bishops
and other lords of the council all declared their desire
to maintain the interests of the crown and realm, but
in view of the cardinal's services to the nation and of
his relation to the King they suggested the postpone-
ment of the whole question until he could return to
give an account of his action in the matter, and they
advised that in the meantime the records should be
searched and the judges asked for their decision on
the point of law.1 This stay of proceedings was
bare justice to an absent defendant. But the council
» Proceedings, iv, pp. xxxi-xxxiii, 100, 101, 103 ; Rymer,
x, 497.
STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE 181
was not without justification in merely suspending
instead of quashing those proceedings. They were
probably aware that one of the bulls presented at the
time of the cardinal's investiture at Calais in 1427 pro-
vided expressly for the retention of all his ecclesiastical
preferments in England. The acceptance of a bull
of this character exposed the cardinal to the penalties
of the statute of Praemunire just as his acceptance
of his benefices exposed him to the statute of Provisors.
Probably it was only Beaufort's rank that saved him
from summary condemnation on this occasion. The
matter in question lay entirely within the region
which the lords in December, 1429, had expressly
marked off as dangerous ground on which the cardinal
was not to take part in the deliberations of the council.
So there was no inconsistency in the lords in welcoming
and requesting his presence as an English bishop
at the council in 1429 and in contemplating now the
possibility of his being condemned for defiance of
the standing law of the English constitution. That
their action in postponing the issue for fuller investi-
gation did involve the contemplation of a verdict
against his position seems clear from the fact that
the only lord who protested against their action was
the Bishop of Carlisle, a known adherent of the car-
dinal, whose appointment to Carlisle had been met
by a strong objection from Gloucester in 1429.
Gloucester was not satisfied with the proceedings Writs of
of the lords. They had gone too far to be tolerable p^^^nire
for a supporter of the cardinal ; they had not gone clrdinal?16
far enough to be acceptable to his opponent. He had
not, however, long to wait. On November 20th the
privy council ordered writs of Praemunire and attach-
ment upon the statute to be prepared for service upon
the cardinal. The issue of formal writs of this
182 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
character implies that the opinion of the judges had
been given, and given against the cardinal. The
councillors would not have proposed or consented
to take such a definite step without some legal
authority. The decision of the judges was, of course,
in this case an expert opinion, not a formal sentence.
But it was sufficient to give moral weight to the
prejudice against the cardinal's position. Gloucester
hastened to make the most of his new advantage.
It was a " great council " which had suggested the
consultation of the judges. But the temporising
character of their suggestion gave reason to doubt
whether they would be eager or even willing to proceed
to extremities against the cardinal. If the opinion
of the judges was that Beaufort had violated the law
of the land, the law had yet to be set in motion.
There were some at least among the members of that
larger body who were neither wholly content to
accept Beaufort's connexion with Rome nor wholly
pleased to assist Gloucester in his opposition to
Beaufort. The great council had not been unanimous
even about Gloucester's salary. The privy council,
or rather that portion of the privy council which
remained in England to advise the regent, was more
fully in sympathy with Gloucester or more completely
under his control. It was to the privy council
accordingly that Gloucester turned to give effect to
the opinion of the legal authorities.1 Here again,
however, he was compelled to accept less than he
expected. Some of the councillors remembered that
the cardinal was the King's kinsman, that he had
gone abroad at the request of the council, and that he
had rendered notable services to the King. Other
1 Proceedings, iv, 104, 105, with Sir H. Nicolas'
explanation, Preface, xxxiv-xxxvi.
ATTITUDE OF THE COUNCIL 183
reasons for delay were urged by the bishop's vicar-
general, the Abbot of Chertsey. The lords of the
council, therefore, decided unanimously to postpone
the execution of the writs until the King's return.
Gloucester was reluctant to abandon the hope of
speedy satisfaction ; but the lords pleaded with him
to give way, and at last he yielded. The cardinal
was left, therefore, still in possession of his wealth
and his freedom.
Henry came back to England early in February, The
1432. He was now the duly crowned King of England Cardinal 's
and of his titular realm of France, and though he Parliament
had not reached his tenth birthday he was growing
rapidly " in conceit of his high and royal authority,"
as the Earl of Warwick, his tutor, told the council. 1
Gloucester seized the opportunity of the King's
presence to effect at once a change of ministry and
to replace the chief officers of state by partisans of
his own. Parliament met in May amid gathering
clouds which soon burst. The session began with
a solemn farce. The late regent professed his desire
to work in harmony with the lords, and obtained their
consent and promise to work in harmony with him
and with each other ; and the chancellor duly re-
ported " this pleasing fiction of concord " to the
commons. 2 It was more of a challenge than a
concession on Gloucester's part, and the challenge
was promptly taken up by Beaufort, who had returned
to defend himself and now met the charges hanging
over his head by a bold appeal to the lords in parlia-
ment, where his strength lay. He complained that
on his way to Rome, whither he was travelling in
obedience to repeated instructions from the Pope
1 Proceedings, iv, 132-137.
2 Stubbs, hi, 118; Ramsay, i, 440.
184 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
and in virtue of special permission obtained from the
King at Calais, he heard in Flanders, both from letters
written to him and from busy rumour, that he had
been accused and attacked at home on a charge of
treason. Preferring the integrity of his fair name
to the preservation of his worldly goods, he had
returned to England to declare his loyalty and
innocence in the presence of the King, and to demand
there a statement of the accusation made against him,
" whatever might be the estate, rank or dignity "
of his accuser, — a thinly disguised hint at the person
of the late regent, his only superior in station beneath
the King. The accusation itself he was prepared to
answer in such manner and form as became a person
of his position. The cardinal's demand was discussed
by Gloucester and the lords in the presence of the
King, and finally by command of the King and by
the advice and assent of the duke and the rest of the
peers present he was told that nobody had accused
him of treason, and that nobody, it was believed, could
or would make such an accusation ; on the contrary,
the King held, considered and declared him to be
his true and faithful liege. The cardinal thanked the
King for this declaration, and requested that it might
be given him in writing under the great seal, but not,
he said, because he wished to use the record as a reply
to any future charge of treason that might be made,
for he was ready always to answer for himself. His
request was granted. Orders were given for the
entering of the proceedings on the roll of parliament
and for the issue of letters under the royal seal to be
kept by the cardinal.1 There is some doubt as to
the precise reference of this charge of treason. If the
cardinal referred to the issue of the writ of Praemunire,
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 390, 391.
APPEAL TO PARLIAMENT
185
the denial given by Gloucester in the King's name was
simply false. Probably the cardinal's statement had
reference to an informal, constructive charge of
treason. Gloucester or his adherents had talked of
the breach of Praemunire as practical treason. In that
case the denial simply amounted to an explanation
that the cardinal's offence was regarded as merely
a technical violation of law and not as a conscious
disloyalty to his sovereign. Such a concession was
something, but not everything. Gloucester was
still in possession of the King's favour, and not
humiliated as a false accuser. The cardinal's char-
acter was cleared, but his position remained
precarious.
Beaufort had a second grievance which he now Protest
proceeded to state. His plate and jewels which he cfnfisca-*1*
had sent home in advance, including probably certain
of the King's regalia pledged to him for a recent loan,
had been seized by the officers of the crown at
Sandwich. Gloucester was in some way responsible
for the seizure, and apparently had some personal
claim upon the jewels or made some such claim.
It has been suggested that perhaps they had been
formerly pledged to him by the King and never fully
redeemed,1 and that he seized them now to secure
the repayment of the balance due to himself. It is
nowhere stated that any of the jewels were royal
property ; but the supposition is a fair inference from
the stipulation that the value of the jewels was to be
retained by the King in the event of his proving to
have " a good and just title " to them. Beaufort
1 Vickers, p. 233. Lingard, iv, 71 (ed. 1849) suggests that
the jewels may have been seized " under the pretence of a
false entry at the custom house as to their description or
value." This, however, could only have been the pretext,
not the reason for the seizure.
tion of his
jewels.
186 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
was not under actual sentence, for the writs of
Praemunire issued by the council in November, 1431,
had not yet been put into execution. The jewels,
therefore, can scarcely have been confiscated by way
of an instalment of the penalties due under that
statute. Probably the King's supposed title to the
jewels was based upon an assertion that Beaufort had
been fully repaid and was not now entitled to retain
possession of the pledge. Whatever the facts of the
case were, the dispute was settled by a compromise.
Parliament agreed to restore the jewels to the cardinal,
and he agreed to pay £6,000 into the exchequer on
their account. This payment was to be regarded as
a loan to the King. If at any time within six years
the King could justify the seizure of the jewels, the
loan was not to be repaid ; otherwise the cardinal
was to receive the whole sum at the end of the period.
If Gloucester proved to have any just claim on any
portion of the value of the jewels, he was to be paid
off by the King. The cardinal agreed also to advance
a second sum of £6,000 to the King as an ordinary
loan, and to surrender certain securities which he
held on the score of recent loans made to the King
in France to the extent of nearly 13,000 marks.
Parliament consented at the same time to repay these
two last sums, in all nearly £14,600, out of the first
subsidies available. It has been said that Beaufort
" ultimately managed to creep out of the engagements
that he had made." * The statement probably refers
1 Vickers, r . 233. Lingard, on the other hand (iv, 72 n.),
states, on the evidence of the Pell Records, 425, that the
King paid the cardinal ^8,000 in June, 1434, the estimated
value of the jewels. If this payment is distinct, as it seems
to be, from the repayment of ^6,000 ordered in May, 1434,
the only conclusion is that the cardinal had not received his
jewels back again in 1432, in spite of the agreement in
parliament.
RECOGNITION OF HIS CLAIMS 187
to the fact that the sum of £6,000 paid by the cardinal
in consideration of the restitution of the jewels was
repaid to him while Bedford was in England in May,
1434, after the expiration of two only of the six years.
But the sum was repaid because the cardinal succeeded
in obtaining a declaration from the King at the
request of the lords that the seizure of the jewels in
1432 was illegal, and he thereupon promptly lent the
crown another sum of 10,000 marks.1
Beaufort had bought his share of this compromise Act of
dearly, but he speedily received ample reward for his indeJ£mty
sacrifice. The commons rallied to his side with a Cardinal,
petition to the crown for a statute to secure him
against all risk of procedure under the acts of Prae-
munire and Pro visors, in recognition of " his great
and notable services " to the King and to his father
before him. The petition was granted, and the
cardinal "received full parliamentary absolution."2
The language of the petition is interesting. In pre-
vious entries on the rolls of parliament in connexion
with the vexed question of his position, Beaufort is
described simply as cardinal ; in this petition he is
described as cardinal and Bishop of Winchester, and
again as " the said Henry cardinal, by whatever
name the said Henry may be named." If the lan-
guage is deliberate, the only inference is that the
question was not merely shelved ; the retention of
the bishopric was at last formally recognised and
sanctioned. In 1440 indeed Gloucester returned to
the charge that the cardinal had forfeited his bishop-
ric. " He sued to our holy father the Pope to have a
bull declaratory that notwithstanding that he was
assumpt to the state of cardinal, that the see was not
1 Proceedings, iv, 236-239.
2 Ramsay, i, 441. For the petition see Rot. Pari., iv, 392.
188
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Grounds of
opposition
to the
retention
of his
bishopric.
void, where indeed it stood void by a certain time or
that bull was granted, and so he was exempt from his
ordinary by the taking on him the state of cardinal ;
and the bishopric of the Church of Winchester then
standing void, he took it again of the Pope, the not
learned not knowing wherein he was fallen in the case
of provision, whereby all his good was clearly and
lawfully forfeited to you, my right doubted lord
(i.e., Henry VI), with more, as the statute declareth,
for your advantage."1 But whether the commons
in 1432 regarded their petition as a pardon for a real
offence on the part of the cardinal in 1426, or only
as a refusal to reconsider the question of his status,
it is certain that Gloucester's futile outburst in
1440 was the only subsequent protest against the
constitutional position of " the Cardinal of England."
It is difficult to estimate the weight to be assigned
to the various motives which had lain behind this
opposition to the cardinal's tenure of the bishopric.
Gloucester's attitude was largely determined in the
first instance by political rivalry and afterwards by
personal enmity. Chichele stood for the constitu-
tional self-government of a national church. Others
of the bishops on Gloucester's side had designs
perhaps upon the possible vacancy in the rich see of
Winchester. But all parties involved seem to have
shared that inconsistency which marked the attitude
of English statesmen of that age towards the Papacy,
and which is vividly illustrated by the language of
Gloucester's elaborate protest of 1440. He was
willing to admit that Henry V had no objection to the
cardinalate being held by English clerks without a
bishopric in England, but he insisted that the King's
idea was never intended to permit the elevation of a
1 Stevenson, ii, 442.
ENGLISH CHURCHMEN AND THE PAPACY 189
suffragan above his metropolitan. He was ready
enough to sanction a preferment which gave him what
other Christian kings had, " a promoter of his nation "
at the court of Rome, who might watch over and work
for English interests at a general council or in any
matter " that might concern the weal of him and of
his realm," but " not to abide in this land as any part
of his council.' ' " And therefore," Gloucester pro-
ceeded in his appeal to Henry VI, " though it like
you to do him (i.e., the cardinal) that worship to set
him in your privy council where that you list, yet in
your parliaments, where every lord spiritual and
temporal have their place, him ought to occupy his
place but as bishop," not as cardinal. Englishmen
were willing to recognize the papal power at a distance,
and to accept or invite its action from Rome in certain
matters and within certain limits, varying with the
circumstances of the time ; but they were reluctant
to give its direct representatives as such a footing
at home in the Church and realm of England.
Beaufort's own conception of his place and purpose The
as a papal dignitary is no less difficult to determine. Cardinal's
i own views
There are but few letters or speeches of his to reveal
his view of the relations between his two masters,
the Crown and the Papacy. Private ambition may
well account for some part of his motive in accepting,
perhaps seeking the cardinalate. It was the path to
an international reputation, if not to the papal throne.
Patriotism may account for more. In an age typified
by the Council of Constance with its inextricable
blending of political and ecclesiastical interests, a
position of honour at the court of Rome might serve
a statesman-bishop as a lever to be worked in the
cause of his King and his country. Such a position
was fraught with personal complications for himself
190
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
and with dangers for both Church and nation ; the
complications he was prepared to risk, the dangers
he was probably rather inclined to minimise. He
did not share Chichele's idea of English ecclesiastical
polity, but it is doubtful whether he shared Martin's
idea of a Papacy governing to the exclusion of the
English episcopate and in defiance of the English
monarchy. He had no theoretical solution of the
problems of church government, no burning zeal for
church reform. He was neither a philosopher nor an
enthusiast in the way of churchmanship, but rather
an opportunist. Yet his opportunism had its limits.
More than one act of self-sacrifice or self-restraint
proved that the English statesman was stronger in
Henry of Winchester than the Roman prince.
His acceptance of the cardinalate was, however,
a grave misreading of the future. The retention of
his see was an evil precedent soon followed. The
cardinalate. concession granted in his case as a personal privilege
became a common custom. Primate after primate
accepted the position of cardinal and special legate ;
and as the real inherent authority of the archbishop
came to be obscured by the dignity of a derived office,
the national church lost more and more of the visible
signs of her independence and of the self-government
of her provincial synods. x Even if the Cardinal of
England was partly blind or indifferent to the loss
thus involved for the church of his primary allegiance,
he must have felt with increasing disappointment
the suspicion with which his action was watched by
his countrymen. In 1430 a report was heard that
the Pope had endeavoured at the instance of the
King's enemies to detach Beaufort from the King and
his council in France. The report was perhaps true.
1 Capes, p. 201.
Unfortu-
nate
results
of his
THE CARDINALATE A MISTAKE 191
Martin may have tried to influence the cardinal in the
interests of France. Beaufort's patriotism was no
doubt proof against such a temptation. But the
report led to an order forbidding any of the King's
subjects to accompany the cardinal if he left the King
without special permission.1 In 1434 when he
requested the licence of the privy council to go abroad
when and where he liked, and with such money as he
wished, on a pilgrimage which it was not safe to make
known publicly, he concluded with the plea, " consi-
dering that my full purpose is with the grace of God
for to die in this land."2 His request was granted,
but it is not clear whether his vow of pilgrimage was
a mere cover for some political design secretly known
and approved by the privy council, or whether his
concluding plea was intended to remove a suspicion
that he contemplated carrying his wealth abroad to
spend the rest of his days there, in the hope perhaps
of rising even now to the papal throne itself. Three
years later he requested permission to go to " the
court," i.e., to Rome, to perform " his duty," and
pleaded that he had obtained " a patent of rest,"
i.e., an exemption from further service, and that the
King was now old enough to dispense with his attend-
ance. The council refused his request, grounding
their refusal plausibly on " the unsure ty of the way
and the great jeopardy of his person," and on the need
of his services at home or abroad in the negotiations
for peace with France.3 The very next year the
minutes of the privy council contain the blunt resolu-
tion " that the King grant no licence to my lord
cardinal to go to the general council."4 The English
1 Rymer, x, 472 ; Proceedings, iv, p. xv.
2 Proceedings, iv, 235 and lxx, lxxi.
3 Proceedings, v, 9.
* Proceedings, v, 93.
192 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
government was certainly resentful of the interference
of the Council of Basel in the congress of Arras in
1435 ; but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the
cardinal himself was suspected of pursuing his own
designs at the expense of his country's interests.
The cardinal may be acquitted of this suspicion in
the light of history, but the suspicion itself is intelli-
gible enough. It was the natural view for his
contemporaries to take of his dual position as an
English statesman and a member of the sacred college
at Rome, and it was no slight hindrance to the working
out of the most unselfish features of his policy for
England.
CHAPTER X
THE STRUGGLE FOR FRANCE
1429-1433
The abandonment of the Bohemian crusade and the The
loss of his legatine dignity left the Cardinal of England Cardinal's
free, though at a great price, to devote himself to the l^f1
affairs of his own country ; but for the last twenty
years of his life his attention was divided between
two anxieties. There was the wearying alternation of
war and diplomacy in France ; there was the inter-
mittent conflict at home which owed its gravity to the
persistent enmity of Gloucester, and found its points
of attack at one time in the ecclesiastical position of
the cardinal-bishop, at another in his foreign policy.
The attack upon the cardinal's status was practically
dropped in 1432, though something of the suspicion
aroused by his connexion with the Roman court still
lingered after that connexion had been accepted and
recognised. It was the cardinal's foreign policy on
which the criticism of Gloucester fastened more and
more as the cardinal's once precarious position gained
in security. In fact, the references made in 1440 to
Beaufort's early offences against the precedents of
Church and realm were merely part of a general attack
upon the statesman who had dared to make sacrifices
for the sake of peace. His preferments, his loans,
his home administration, everything that could be
turned into fuel,— all were flung into what was meant
for a final conflagration to consume the cardinal and
all his works.
193
14 — (2310)
194
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Beaufort
and
Burgundy.
The history of English policy in France after 1430
falls into two chapters. The first was an anxious bid
for victory, which began with the coronation of the
child-King and ended with the conference at Arras
and the death of Bedford in 1435. The second was
a reluctant passing from defeat to surrender, which
ended in the marriage of the King to Margaret of
Anjou in 1445. While there seemed to be still a
prospect of success, Beaufort spared neither himself
nor his countrymen in the effort to regain the hold of
England upon France. He contributed loan after
loan ; he gave both diplomatic and military support
to Bedford ; he strove by concession and conciliation
to retain the indispensable support of England's only
ally, the Duke of Burgundy. When in one month
Burgundy went over to the side of France and the
death of Bedford robbed England of her greatest
leader, Beaufort was wise enough to read the hand-
writing on the wall, though none too soon, and strong
enough to revise his country's policy and to work
for peace. The final surrender was made by other
hands, and went further than the author of the policy
had contemplated. But the cardinal deserves full
credit for the wisdom and courage of the first steps
towards the abandonment of an impossible task.
In October, 1429, the regent and his ally left Paris
almost ungoverned and unprotected. Bedford retired
to Rouen to retain or recover what he could of
Normandy. Burgundy went off to Flanders to
marry his third wife, Isabella of Portugal, who was to
play such a prominent part in the negotiations between
England and France. The daughter of John the First
of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster, she was the
half-niece of the cardinal and the cousin of Bedford,
and she had lately stayed in England on her way from
THE ADVICE OF BURGUNDY 195
Portugal. Burgundy himself had been on terms of
truce with France since August, and was pledged
to a conference at Auxerre in April, 1430. In
November his envoys and those of the Duke of Savoy
met the French representatives to prepare for the
conference ; and the French king promised to take
part in the conference on condition that the English
would bring over the prisoners of Agincourt and
provide facilities for communication between the
exiled nobles and their king. In December the
duke's agent, Lannoy, was in England laying before
the council his master's advice. They must take
part in the conference, if they wanted to show their
sincerity in the cause of peace and to retain the
support of their French subjects. The one thing
needful was to secure a friendly cardinal as mediator.
At the same time they must prepare for vigorous war.
The King must come in person and in force before the
conference met. The French believed themselves to
be the masters of the situation, and peace was
improbable ; the duke must therefore be given
territory, authority, troops, and pay to induce and
enable him to clear the neighbourhood of Paris in
preparation for Henry's arrival. The support of
Savoy, Richemont, and Brittany must be bought,
and the friendship of neighbouring princes secured
Finally, " the Cardinal of England " must be sent
at once to direct affairs in France and to consult the
Duke in Flanders on his way. *
The English government followed these suggestions
on nearly every point. On December 15th the
cardinal was granted £1,000 for his mission to
Burgundy, though his salary was to be reduced if he
returned within three months, except at the King's
1 Beaucourt, ii, 415, 416.
196
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
The
Cardinal
recom-
mended to
the Pope as
a mediator.
command. His passage was paid on February 8th,
and before the end of the month he had concluded an
agreement with Burgundy. The duke was to receive
Champagne and Brie and to be repaid the cost of
their conquest. Meanwhile on December 20th letters
had been addressed to the King's French subjects
announcing that he was coming to their help in such
force that he trusted to see them soon " living, labour-
ing and trading in good peace and tranquillity."1
In significant contrast to these brave promises stands
the very next document in the records of the council,
dated January 5th, 1430. It was a commission to
Dr. Nicholas Billeston, evidently the Nicholas
Bildeston who as the chancellor of the Cardinal of
England in 1427 had conveyed to the Pope the tidings
of the crusaders' rout at Tachau. Billeston was to
go to Rome and tell the Pope that the King had heard
that " certain princes " had decided to ask his holiness
to send certain cardinals into France as negotiators
or mediators in the cause of peace. He was to
request the Pope in that case to send mediators
who had not already shown themselves favourable to
" the King's adversary of France " ; otherwise the
negotiations were predestined to failure. In particu-
lar he was to express the King's desire that the
Cardinal of England, who for more than thirty years
had taken part in the councils of the King and
diligently done the King's business, and therefore
knew the state of the King and of his realms, might
attend the conferences held in France or elsewhere
" for the pacification of the said wars." If his
holiness wanted to know in what capacity the King
desired the cardinal to attend, as a mediator or as
a partisan, Billeston was to answer, "in whichever
1 Proceedings, iv, 10.
DISQUALIFICATION OF THE CARDINAL 197
capacity his holiness should please. " If the cardinal's
relation to the King or his place of birth or other
reasonable cause prevented his being regarded as
" an indifferent person " or " a suitable mediator,"
permission was to be sought for the cardinal to attend
at least as an advocate of the King. The whole
commission betrays the anxiety of the council as to
the composition of the peace conference or to the
conduct of the negotiations. Gloucester and Beaufort
both signed the envoy's instructions. The envoy,
however, was changed. Robert Fitzhugh, the King's
proctor at Rome, was after all entrusted with this
delicate mission. 1 It is an interesting query whether
Billeston was dropped because his name recalled
previous errands to Rome in 1427 and after in the
service of the cardinal-legate. The Pope had indeed
" other reasonable cause " to refuse Beaufort as a
mediator. Only six months had elapsed since the
diversion of the crusaders to France. The council
must have felt that their request was doomed to
failure ; and the cardinal must have realised more
deeply than ever the cost of his patriotic action in
July, 1429. It had cut short his own ambition then ;
now it was all too likely to limit his opportunities of
serving his country. The venture was made none the
less. An order was signed on January 18th for the
payment of two sums of £2,400 and £4,833 owed by
the council " as well to the lord Pope as to the
lord cardinal " for the troops retained for the defence
of the realm and sent into France in the company of
the cardinal. 2 Perhaps this order was intended as a
tardy restitution and a tentative propitiation.
1 Proceedings, iv, 12-15.
a Ibid., 16.
198
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Failure of
the confer-
ences.
Precautions
against
dissensions
on the
Council.
The conference, however, itself was but a pretence
on either side to gain time. The Duke of Savoy was
reluctant to abandon the hope of a meeting, but in
March, 1430, first Burgundy and then his chief vassal,
John of Luxemburg, withdrew, and finally on March
27th Savoy wrote to the King of France that the
Burgundian chancellor had come to tell him that the
Cardinal of England and the other English envoys
had asked for a postponement of the conference from
April 1st to June 1st. The King of France consented
to the postponement, remarking that he had seen
no sign of peaceful intentions on the part of the
English, for they had taken no steps to bring over the
captive French nobles upon whose arrival the negotia-
tions in part depended. The Duke of Savoy soon saw
that the French king was not a whit less determined
to abandon the conference ; and on May 29th his
last hope was destroyed by a long letter from his
nephew of Burgundy at Compiegne enclosing a reply
in the negative from the Cardinal of England, intimat-
ing that he himself shared the Englishmen's doubts
of the sincerity of the French, and concluding with
the triumphant announcement that on May 23rd he
had captured "her whom they call the Maid."1
Burgundy's own desire for a peaceful settlement had
vanished on the arrival of men and means from his
English allies.
The cardinal had returned to England at the end
of March or early in April, 1430, bringing a favourable
report of the loyalty of their Burgundian adherents.
He had made good use of his time. On May 13th an
order was signed for the repayment of £500 advanced
by the cardinal to Sir John of Luxemburg, whose
service he had secured for the King while he was on
1 Beaucourt, ii, 419 foil.
THE DIVIDED COUNCIL 199
his mission to Burgundy. x On his return he found
fresh work waiting for him. He was requested to
cross the Channel again almost at once in the retinue
of the young King. He was reluctant to go back to
France so soon, and consented only on conditions of
his own. On April 16th, so runs the memorandum
in the acts of the privy council, " at Canterbury, at
the great and busy prayer and instance of my lord
of Gloucester and the remnant of the lords of the
King's council, my lord the cardinal granted to go
over into France with the King and to abide there
with him and to do the good that he may, if so be
that he find at his thither coming that the lords and
captains and other that go at this time also over with
the King will be of good rule and governance and
eschew division and taking parties one against an-
other by dissension or by their own authority, and
else he protested to come home and report the cause
of his departing from thence to the King's council
here." Various articles of agreement were accord-
ingly drawn up and accepted by the council. Quarrels
" betwixt lord and lord or party and party " were to
be settled by the rest of the lords. Decisions of the
lords of the council in France were to hold good as
the acts of the whole council, except in important
matters requiring the consultation of all the council-
lors in England and France " personally or by writ-
ing." Bedford's regency of France was to cease on
the King's arrival. Councillors and chief officers
were not to be dismissed nor appointed except by
consent of the whole council. Promotions and
recommendations of individuals were to have the
sanction of both parts of the council. This insist-
ence upon mutual reference, doubtless a necessary
1 Proceedings, iv, 33.
200 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
safeguard, especially against Gloucester's proceedings
at home, was yet a hindrance to prompt and efficient
administration. But the precautions taken against
dissension and insubordination, a sad confession indeed
in the face of a great undertaking, show that the
cardinal had a shrewd conception of England's real
danger. It is interesting to find Gloucester assenting
to Beaufort for once. The Duke of Norfolk and the
Earls of Huntingdon and Warwick then and there
" at the instance of my lord the cardinal made
assurance in the hands of my lord of Gloucester "
that they would submit any dissension or quarrel to
the council. x
Beaufort The English government had done its best to
with the respond to Burgundy's appeal for vigorous action.
France" The forces that crossed with the King numbered 1 ,200
lances and 3,500 bows, and, dissensions apart, there
was a gallant array of commanders, including two
dukes, six earls and eight barons. Gloucester, who
was left at home with a strictly defined commission as
Lieutenant of England, had few but bishops to counsel
or control his action. The expedition crossed the
Channel on St. George's Day, April 23rd ; and king,
cardinal and lords went straight to mass together at
St. Nicholas' Church at Calais immediately after their
landing " at ten of the bell before noon." The troops
then moved out and forward at once in various
directions to begin their task of fighting the way to
Paris clear for the King. It was no easy task ; three
months elapsed before Henry could safely venture
southwards. The cardinal seems to have remained in
attendance upon the King at Calais. He was cer-
tainly there at the end of June, for on June 22nd he
received instructions from the council to expel thence
1 Proceedings, iv, 35-38.
BEAUFORT AND BURGUNDY 201
certain Englishmen who had been guilty of serious
misbehaviour.1 Meanwhile Bedford and his com-
manders were slowly but surely regaining a firm hold
upon Normandy and Paris, and on July 29th Henry
VI made his state entry into Rouen, where he re-
mained for more than a year. In August the English
resumed possession of Paris, and in January, 1431,
Bedford once more rode into the capital.
Burgundy himself had met with little but failure Discontent
in his part of the campaign of 1430. His own QU^eof
dominions were attacked by the French ; he had to Burgundy,
retire to take possession of Brabant, which had fallen
to him on the death of its duke ; and the Anglo-
Burgundian force which he left to besiege Compiegne
was at last compelled to retreat. On November 4th
he wrote to Henry VI a letter of mingled complaint
and apology. 2 He had done his best, he said, to fulfil
his agreement with his uncle the cardinal, but he had
not received payment for his own artillery or for the
English troops in his service. Even his own territories
were now endangered and his revenues stopped by
the hostility of the Emperor. At the same time he
instructed his envoys to press for payment, and to
warn the English council of the disasters that must
befall the joint cause in default of more vigorous
financial support. If there were difficulties in the
way of payment, " the said envoys/' so ran the duke's
instruction, " might secretly and discreetly open "
the fact that the cardinal had on previous occasions
suggested that the Duke of Bourbon might be surren-
dered in payment of the King's debt ; the Duke of
Burgundy would gladly accept this settlement in lieu
of money. The envoys were to state also that the
1 Stevenson, ii, 147.
2 Stevenson, ii, 156-164.
202
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Peace
negotia-
tions
sanctioned
by
Parliament.
Pope had appointed two cardinals to come into France
and negotiate for peace ; and it had been arranged
that the expenses of one should be paid by the King
and the expenses of the other by " the Dauphin and
the adverse party." The duke would be glad of the
King's advice ; the Pope, it was said, would sanction
the levying of half a tenth for the payment of the
cardinal-mediator, but the King must advance ready
money before the cardinal could come. x The English
council at Rouen was in no hurry to reply. Finance
was an increasing difficulty ; diplomacy was once
more in the air. Parliament had been summoned to
meet early in January, 1431, and on December 20th
Beaufort went to England to attend the session,
probably also to lay Burgundy's complaints and
requests before the councillors at home. The
commons responded with a great effort ; besides the
ordinary subsidies and duties a new land-tax was
instituted, and securities were authorised for loans
to the amount of £50,000. But the monetary burdens
of the nation were reaching the point of exhaustion.
The council sent £14,000 for the war in France during
the winter. The payments, too, for Beaufort's
services were a heavy item. His salary was £1,000
a quarter. Gloucester was " still more rapacious " ;
in November, 1431, his salary, reduced to 2,000 marks
in 1429, was raised to 6,000. Gloucester, moreover,
was no lender to the state. Beaufort had advanced
£2,800 in Normandy in November, 1430, and over
£600 in February ; the sums were, it is true, repaid
in March, 1431, but they had served their purpose in
meeting the demands of the hour for the payment of
starved troops. Parliament, however, conscious of
the growing burden of debt, was not unwilling to pave
1 Stevenson, ii, 164-181.
THE PROSPECT OF PEACE 203
the way for the discussion of peace. Pope Martin,
while urging Burgundy privately to make peace even
if it meant abandoning his English allies, had written
to Beaufort at Calais to exercise his influence with the
King in the direction of peace, and the cardinal had
found Henry inclined to accept the suggestion, — at
least so said the council in 1433. x It was probably
at this juncture that the council at Westminster on
November 7th forbade the King's lieges to accom-
pany the cardinal away from the King without special
leave. 2 The council was perhaps alarmed at the
possibility of Beaufort's being captured by papal
influence. In November, 1430, Martin nominated
Nicholas Albergati, Cardinal of St. Cross, to undertake
the work of pacificator, and in December wrote to ask
Henry VI to welcome his legate. Parliament took
the opportunity to give its preliminary consent to
the idea. By the Treaty of Troyes it was stipulated
that no peace should be made with the Dauphin
without the consent of the three estates of both
realms. The lords and commons now authorised
Bedford, Gloucester, and Beaufort to treat for peace
on such conditions as they might think " convenable
and expedient." Special reference was made to the
reported mission of the Cardinal of St. Cross, and also
to the pending negotiations with Spain and Scotland
for a similar purpose. It was admitted that it would
be wrong for " a Christian prince to refuse peace
offered with means reasonable " ; but this pious
sentiment was outweighed in sincerity by the second
ground which parliament assigned for its action, —
" also considering the burden of the war and how
1 Stevenson, ii, 250, 251.
2 Rymer, x, 472.
204 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
grievous and heavy it is to this land, and how
behoveful therefore the peace were to it."1
Reply This resolution of parliament set the Cardinal of
Council to England free to act as circumstances might require,
Burgundy, and he returned to France to see the end of the trial
of the Maid. 2 On May 28th the English council at
Rouen replied at last to the Duke of Burgundy,
doubtless in the light of the cardinal's report from
home. The King, they said, regretted the sufferings
and losses of the duke's territories as much as if they
had been his own, and would do his best to help the
duke as he had done in the past ; they hinted by the
way that things had been managed better there two
years ago by my Lord of Salisbury. They promised
to place 600 lances and 1,200 bows at the duke's
service for his campaign in Picardy during July and
August. They would inspect the agreements made
with the cardinal at Bruges, Ghent, and Calais with
reference to the payment of the Burgundian artillery,
and would be glad to discuss the matter with the
duke's agents. With regard to the hostility of the
Emperor, his envoys were now with the King, who
would consult the duke before making any arrange-
ment with the Emperor. With regard to the release
of the Duke of Bourbon, the cardinal, who had lately
returned from England, had told the council at Rouen
that he was not aware of any decision having been
made in England. The matter had indeed been
discussed, but the Duke of Bourbon had declined to
entertain the proposals made, and there the question
had remained. They would enquire whether it had
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 371.
2 On April i8th he was given a licence to ship 800 sacks of
wool from any English port to any foreign port, subject to
any custom or subsidy such as other native merchants were
liable to pay ; Cal. Patent Rolls, Henr. vi, 1429-1436, p. 1 18.
A WAVERING ALLY 205
proceeded any further since the cardinal left England,
and would in that case inform the duke. 1 It was not
a satisfactory reply from the duke's point of view. Truce
The duke's position, moreover, was becoming preca- between
rious, and self-interest swung him steadily to the side ^Trance
of France. The diplomacy of Cardinal Albergati
had worked towards the same end. Martin's death
in February, 1431, had only delayed Albergati's
mission ; the new Pope, Eugenius IV, confirmed his
appointment as mediator, and wrote to the duke to
co-operate with his efforts, and Albergati followed up
his visits to Charles VII and Henry VI by a visit to
Burgundy, who was glad to accept as an immediate
relief to himself the truce which the cardinal urged
as an instalment of a wider settlement. 2 The duke
reserved the right to serve Bedford with not more
than 500 lances; but his real attitude towards the
English cause at this moment was revealed by his
absence from the coronation of the young King at
Paris on December 16th.
The year 1431 was marked by a heartless crime Trial and
and a hollow ceremony, both intended to further the execution
English cause in France, and both doomed to failure. oftheMaid-
Jeanne d'Arc was burned at Rouen on May 30th ;
Henry VI was crowned King of France in the Church
of Notre Dame on December 16th. Beaufort took
part in both scenes. Nothing is known of his share
in the earlier stages of the Maid's fate. It was Bed-
ford apparently who had made up his mind that the
Maid must die ; four years later he described her as
1 Stevenson, ii, 188-193. The bearer took with him also
a short private letter to the duke from the cardinal which
contained, however, nothing beyond kind words and a
reference to the bearer for further information ; ii, 194 195
2 Beaucourt, ii, 438-442.
206 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
" a disciple and limb of the Fiend that used false
enchantments and sorcery."1 The agents of the
crime were her own countrymen, but their action
was at least sanctioned by the English regent of
France, and the cardinal at least assented. The Maid
was captured on May 24th by the troops of John of
Luxemburg, a vassal of Burgundy ; and the duke,
ignoring the application of the University of Paris,
which claimed her as a heretic, sold her in July to the
English council for 10,000 francs, paid out of a subsidy
which Bedford levied from the parliament of Nor-
mandy. The agent in this bargain was Pierre
Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, " a creature of the
Anglo-Burgundian party," who claimed the right to
try the Maid on the ground that she had been captured
within his diocese. At the close of the year she was
conveyed by the English to Rouen ; the Chapter of
Rouen gave the Bishop of Beauvais a faculty to
exercise his jurisdiction in their city ; and he pro-
ceeded to hold his court in conjunction with the local
vicar of the Inquisition and a number of doctors of
the University of Paris. The Maid was cross-
examined day after day through February and March
on her visions of the saints and on the " voices "
which had guided and encouraged her in the field
and in her cell ; and her simple assertion of her direct
mission from heaven was cunningly pressed into
apparent defiance of the authority of the Church.
In April her answers were submitted to divines who
pronounced her visions mere delusions or emanations
of the devil. She was threatened with torture ; her
honour was endangered by the insults of her gaolers,
until the Duchess of Bedford intervened to protect
her ; at last she was practically condemned to death
1 Proceedings, iv, 223.
DEATH OF JEANNE D'ARC 207
and then privately and treacherously urged to recant
in order to secure her relapse. On May 24th she was
brought before her judges again in the churchyard
of St. Ouen, with the executioner's cart standing by
the side of her platform. On this occasion her judges
were accompanied by Cardinal Beaufort, who had
been absent in England from December to May, and
Bishop Alnwick of Norwich, " the only Englishmen
who appeared in this black business." 1 The preacher
ended his sermon with a last vain demand for her
submission, which Jeanne answered by an appeal to
the Pope or to any tribunal but her present judges ;
and Bishop Cauchon began to recite her formal
condemnation, when the Maid broke down and con-
sented to sign a paper in which she confessed that she
had sinned in taking up arms and in wearing man's
attire and that her visions were delusions. She was
then sentenced to imprisonment and perpetual
penance. Four days later she was declared to have
relapsed ; she had resumed male garments for pro-
tection's sake, and she had heard the voices of
St. Katharine and St. Margaret, reproaching her for
denying her divine mission. On May 29th the court
met again in haste to condemn the Maid as a relapsed
heretic— the deliberate end and aim of their whole
procedure— and next morning she was burned in the
old market-place of Rouen, looking piteously upon a
crucifix brought at her request from a neighbouring
church, and calling upon Christ and the saints to help
her at the last.
Beaufort's share in the last stages of this dark The
tragedy is placed beyond doubt by the evidence given Cardina1'
during the " process of rehabilitation " in 1455 by the'triS.
1 Oman, p. 315.
208 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
which the reputation of the Maid was vindicated.1
It was Warwick and Beaufort who paid the expenses
of the trial of 1431 out of English revenues in France.
It was they who summoned physicians and instructed
them to attend to the Maid's health; from the
statement of one of the physicians it is clear that
it was Warwick who frankly avowed that she had
cost the King too dear to be allowed to die a natural
death, but Beaufort's silence seems to imply his
assent to the avowal. It was to the Cardinal of
England that the Prior of Longueville was reported as
a partisan of the Maid and denied the report to save
his life. It was the cardinal who kept in his own
hands or his secretary's one of the three keys of
Jeanne's prison-chamber in the castle of Rouen, the
other two remaining with the inquisitor and the
prosecutor, " for the English feared greatly that she
would escape them." At " the sermon of St. Ouen "
an English clerk, bachelor in theology, and keeper of
the private seal of the Cardinal of England, inter-
rupted the Bishop of Beauvais, who was urging the
Maid to save her life by recanting, and accused him
of partiality in her favour. The bishop denied the
charge and threw down his papers in a temper, but
the cardinal reproved his chaplain and bade him hold
his tongue. When Jeanne yielded and consented to
recant her errors, the bishop turned to the cardinal
and asked him what he ought to do. The cardinal
replied that he must admit the Maid to penance,
and the bishop laid aside the sentence which he had
begun to read, and gave the Maid a form of abjuration
to recite. The cardinal might well silence his
» Quicherat, Proas, i, 443 ; ii, 6, 348 ; iii, 51, 55, 184, 185,
243, 355; Murray, Jeanne D'Arc, 106, 127, 161, 187, 190,
198, 199, 208, 209, 254, 259.
THE CARDINAL AND THE MAID 209
chaplain ; the pressure put upon the Maid to recant
was no mercy but a means to a more cruel end.
When Warwick complained to the bishop and the
doctors that the King had lost his prisoner, one of
them replied that they would soon have her again.
They were working for a relapse which would put
the Maid absolutely in their power. Ysambard, a
Dominican friar of Rouen and an assessor of the judges
of 1431, said in 1449 that the Cardinal of England
and many other Englishmen were moved to com-
passion and to tears by the contrition and penitence
of Jeanne's last hour, and by her " speaking words so
pitiful, devout, and catholic." It was in any case but
a passing emotion ; the Archdeacon of Rouen stated
afterwards that it was the cardinal who ordered the
ashes of the Maid to be collected and flung into the
Seine, doubtless to destroy the popular belief in her
divine mission and power. It is an ugly page in
English history. The only thing that can be said
for the Englishmen concerned is that even their guilt
was less than the guilt of the French, of the King
who could have saved his saviour by the mere threat
of retaliation upon such a prisoner as Lord Talbot, of
the clergy who resented the unauthorised inspiration
of " the Maid of God," of the nobles who hated the
leadership of a poor and pious girl. The only thing
that can be said for Beaufort is that even a Bedford
could initiate or sanction the crime which he could
help to commit. The whole story is a lurid revelation
of the ghastly contrasts within the character of that
age.
The execution was not even a political success. Coronation
It was not the death of the Maid that " checked for ?nf ^[sy VI
a time the uprising of French nationality,"1 but the
1 Ramsay, i, 431.
15 — (3210)
210 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
weakness of the French King and still more the
supremacy of adventurers at his court, the same
causes which had robbed the Maid of success again
and again. It is doubtful even whether it was her
execution which enabled the English to crown
Henry VI as King of France. It certainly did not
enable them to crown him in the time-honoured place
of sacring, the Cathedral of Rheims. The English
council had contemplated his coronation at Rheims,
but had left the course of the King's campaign to
" the discretion of my Lord of Bedford, the cardinal
and others of his blood and of his council," suggesting
merely that it might be expedient to visit Paris and
strengthen its loyalty on the way to Rheims.1 In
the exercise of this discretion, Bedford and Beaufort
decided to hold the coronation at Paris. It was more
important thai the King should be crowned without
further delay than that he should be crowned in the
traditional place. The King entered the capital in
state on December 2nd, escorted by the cardinal, the
Bishops of Paris, Therouanne (Louis of Luxemburg,
the English Chancellor of France), Noyon, Bath, and
Norwich, the Dukes of Bedford and York, and the
Earls of Warwick, Salisbury, and Suffolk. The civic
authorities met their English King in a gorgeous
procession, and the city was ablaze with pageantry ;
but the French nobility of the Burgundian party was
practically unrepresented. The coronation itself took
place in the Church of Notre Dame on Sunday,
December 16th. It was the cardinal who "hallowed "
the young King and sang the mass, to the great
annoyance of the Bishop of Paris, who was " not
content that the cardinal should do such a high
1 Proceedings, iv, 92, 97.
THE CORONATION AT PARIS 211
ceremony in his church and jurisdiction."1 It was
indeed a needless offence to the Church of the realm,
and the absence of many of the local clergy gave the
coronation the unfortunate appearance of " a purely
English affair."2 The ritual, too, was "more after
the English than the French use " ; and the flagon
in which the King made his offering of wine was seized
by his officers and only restored to the canons of the
cathedral church, whose perquisite it was, after a
costly suit before the King and his council. The
banquet which followed the coronation was a fiasco ;
the premature irruption of the crowd left the great
men of the city and the university to struggle for their
places with common folk, and the people who had lent
the plate had reclaimed it for fear of thieves. A later
writer adds a far more serious disaster to the mishaps
of the day. Hall relates that Beaufort, brooking no
equal, insisted on Bedford's dropping the title of
regent during the King's presence in France, and that
Bedford " took such a secret displeasure with this
doing that he never after favoured the cardinal, but
repugned and disdained at all things that he did or
devised," and so " through this unhappy division the
glory of England began fast to decay and fade away
in France."3 Hall's judgment is seriously at fault
there. The failure of the English cause in France
lay ultimately in its own unrighteousness. Neither
is his account of the facts correct. Bedford and
Beaufort continued to labour together in that cause.
As a matter of fact the suspension of the dignity of
regent was one of the provisions of the agreement
1 Hall, p. 161.
2 Oman, p. 317 ; cp. Ramsay, i, 432. For a full account
of the ceremony, see Journal d'un Bourgeois de Paris, pp
274-278 ; Monstrelet, p. 631 foil.
3 Hall, p. 162.
212
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Fruitless
negotia-
tions
abroad.
made by the privy council in April, 1430, before the
King left England. 1 It is true that those provisions
represented largely the judgment of Beaufort, who
made their acceptance the condition of his consenting
to go abroad with the King, and it was probably at
his suggestion that they were read over and confirmed
by the council in England on May 1st, 1431, just
before he went abroad again to the King. The fact
remains, however, that if he did insist that " the
authority of the substitute was clearly derogate," as
Hall says, he was not merely expressing a strictly
correct opinion of his own, but enforcing a resolution
of the council at home which had the assent of
Gloucester.
Less than a fortnight after his coronation the young
King left Paris for Rouen and Calais, leaving dis-
content behind him. The University of Paris had
been rewarded for its zeal in the cause of the Maid's
trial by a remission of taxation ; but the city had no
remission or amnesty or largess to mark its English
King's coronation. In February the King was back
in England. Bedford, disappointed by the failure
of the King's visit to rally his French subjects, turned
to face a new year which proved to be his worst in
France. Rouen was just saved ; Chartres was lost ;
Lagny was besieged in vain ; and in November the
plague robbed him of his wife, Anne of Burgundy, who
had spent herself in the service of the famine-stricken
poor of Paris, and whose death now severed the one
personal link that bound the two dukes together.
The record of the year 1432 was no less disappoint-
ing in the field of diplomacy, if indeed the English
hoped or cared to make any actual progress with
negotiations in which they were as disinclined as the
1 Proceedings, iv, 37.
THE CARDINAL AND THE POPE 213
French to make any real concession. The cardinal
seems to have taken no direct part in these negotia-
tions. He had remained behind in France when the
King returned to England, and when he did come
back in time to make his defence against Gloucester
in the parliament of May, 1432, he stated that when
the news of his impeachment for treason reached him
in Flanders he was on his way to Rome by special
permission of the King and in answer to repeated
instructions from the Pope. It is possible that these
instructions had reference to the negotiations which
Cardinal Albergati was conducting. In that case
Beaufort's visit to Flanders was perhaps intended
to make sure of the correctness of the Duke of
Burgundy's attitude ; and his summons to Rome was
perhaps an invitation to discuss the French situation
with the Pope. It is more probable, however, that
the papal instructions referred to the general council
just opened at Basel in December, 1431. Beaufort
as an English bishop and statesman and a cardinal
of Rome was perhaps to be enlisted in support of
the Pope's attempt to control the council. Whatever
was the purpose of his journey towards Rome, it was
prevented by his return to England to face the danger
which threatened him there, and there he remained
at least until the autumn. He was given permission
in November, 1432, to attend the general council.
Meanwhile many proposals were made but few steps
taken towards the holding of the expected conference
in France. Cardinal Albergati did his best by corre-
spondence and by interviews with Bedford, Burgundy
and the French court. Meetings of envoys took
place in November, 1432, near Auxerre, and in March,
1433, near Melun ; 1 an English embassy had come
1 Beaucourt, ii, 442-453.
214
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
The
Cardinal's
efforts to
reconcile
Bedford
and
Burgundy.
over between the two meetings but had apparently
gone no further than to consult or instruct Bedford.
At last the Cardinal of St. Cross persuaded Charles VII
to accept the English proposal of a conference of all
parties at Calais, including the French prisoners from
England, and to offer a truce for four months. The
captive Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon were waiting
meanwhile anxiously at Dover, and Gloucester spent
a month waiting at Calais (April 22nd-May 23rd) in
company with Bedford and Beaufort and the chan-
cellors and councillors of the two English realms.
They waited in vain ; the French envoys never came. 1
When the Cardinal of St. Cross held a new conference
at Corbeil in July, the English Chancellor of France
(Louis of Luxemburg) refused to sign the agreement
brought by the French. He gave no reason, but one
obvious reason was that the French had simply
played with the English offer of a conference at Calais.
Another reason was given in a later despatch from
the English council to Burgundy ; a short truce
would enable the French to revictual their garrisons,
while it would not suffice for any adequate negotia-
tions for peace. The cardinal recognised that his
mission was hopeless and went off bitterly disappointed
to Basel. In August the Council of Basel itself took
up the task of negotiation.
Meanwhile the relations between Burgundy and
England had been seriously strained. The duke's
absence from the coronation at Paris in December,
1431, had given great offence. The Cardinal of
England, realising and perhaps sharing this resent-
ment at the time, took an early opportunity to
strengthen the bond of personal association between
the houses of Lancaster and Burgundy. In April,
1 Proceedings, iv, 257 ; Stevenson, ii, 254, 255.
THE CARDINAL AS PEACE-MAKER 215
1432, the duke's second wife, Isabella of Portugal,
the cardinal's niece, gave birth to her first-born son
at Ghent, the very city that gave her English grand-
father his surname of Gaunt ; and the cardinal stood
at the font as one of the sponsors for the child. x
The strongest personal link, however, between
Burgundy and England was the Duchess of Bedford.
It was a great misfortune for England to be deprived
of her mediating influence ; it was a fatal mistake of
Bedford to fill her place as he did. In April, 1433,
five months after her death, he married a handsome
girl of seventeen, Jacqueline or Jacquette, the
daughter of Peter of Luxemburg, Count of St. Pol,
and niece of John of Luxemburg, the chief commander
of the Burgundian army. It was her other uncle,
Louis of Luxemburg, Bishop of Therouanne, the
English Chancellor of France, who had taken advan-
tage of Bedford's passing fancy to press this match ;
and doubtless Bedford hushed his own sense of
disloyalty to the first wife of his heart by flattering
himself that he had gained the adhesion of a great
Burgundian house. The gain, however, was far
outweighed by the serious offence given to the Duke
of Burgundy. His sister's memory was dishonoured
by such a speedy remarriage ; his feudal dignity was
violated by the neglect to ask his consent. If Bedford
was blind to the danger, Beaufort was not. The
cardinal realised far more vividly than Bedford how
completely England depended now upon the assist-
ance of Burgundy, whether in securing satisfactory
terms of negotiation or in retaining or regaining hold
of conquests in France. Accordingly he did his
utmost to reconcile the two men. In this task he had
the unwonted co-operation of his rival Gloucester,
1 Monstrelet, Engl. Trans., 1810, vii, 106.
216 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
who had come over to Calais on April 23rd to meet
the expected envoys of the French court. Beaufort
yielded to the joint request of Bedford and Gloucester,
and lent a further sum of 5,000 marks to the King.
Gloucester put in writing a solemn statement of his
own readiness to submit to the arbitration of Beaufort
and Bedford all matters of dispute still unsettled
between himself and the Duke of Burgundy. This
declaration marked perhaps a momentary reconcilia-
tion of all three Englishmen between themselves ; but
it was perhaps intended at this juncture to conciliate
Burgundy.1 In that case it was indeed " a strange
turning of the tables " that Humphrey of Gloucester,
who had married a Jacqueline of Hainault in defiance
of Burgundy, should be now propitiating Burgundy's
wrath against the reckless marriage of John of
Bedford with a Jacqueline of Luxemburg. When
Gloucester went home in May, the cardinal took a
further step. He induced the two estranged allies to
consent to meet at St. Omer. They were to confer
together on " several public matters/' i.e., questions
of war or peace with France, and to consider " certain
angry expressions used and reported on both sides,"
i.e., between themselves. The time and place of
meeting had been all arranged to avoid the question
of waiting for one another ; but Bedford insisted on
waiting at his lodgings for a formal visit from Bur-
gundy, and insisted in vain. The lords of their
retinues tried in vain to mediate between the two.
At last the cardinal called on the duke, and drawing
him aside asked him in a friendly way why he could
not pay a complimentary visit to a royal prince who
1 Vickers, p. 236; Stevenson (ii, 417, 418) dated the
declaration 1428, but Vickers seems right in placing it here in
1433.
BEDFORD AND BURGUNDY 217
had taken the trouble to come to meet him in his own
town. The duke's only answer was that he was
prepared to meet Bedford at the place appointed.
The cardinal after a last appeal to the duke returned
to his nephew ; and the two dukes went their ways
" more discontented with each other than before."1
The cardinal was baffled and distressed. He returned
with Bedford to Calais, and did his best there to
minimise the mischief by giving audience several
times to a Burgundian envoy who had just returned
from England.
1 Monstrelet, Engl. Tr., vii, 116, 117.
CHAPTER XI
THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND
1433-1434
Bedford's At the end of June, 1433, the main scene of action
]England° was transferred to England. The war, indeed, was
still in vigorous progress. Willoughby, Huntingdon,
Arundel, and Talbot were holding their own, and
Burgundy had been driven in spite of his truce into
one of his most brilliant campaigns. But the centre
of gravity both in English politics and in Burgundian
diplomacy had shifted to London. Gloucester had
returned from Calais to England in May to summon
parliament ; Bedford and his new duchess entered
London on the last week in June ; and when parlia-
ment met on July 8th the three virtual rulers of
England, Bedford, Gloucester, and Beaufort, were all
present at Westminster, not unconscious that a crisis
was impending. Bedford's purpose in returning to
England was at least twofold ; he desired at once
to vindicate the record of his own action in France
and to urge the needs of the war. Possibly there
was a third reason ; if he was aware of the intended
mission of the Burgundian envoys who received their
credentials at Arras on June 15th, it was natural
under the circumstances of his recent quarrel with
Burgundy that he should wish to be at the English
court at the time of their arrival. The cardinal was
almost certainly aware of their mission, for after the
two dukes had parted at St. Omer without meeting,
he had several interviews at Calais with another
218
BURGUNDY & ENGLISH GOVERNMENT 219
Burgundian envoy who had paid a preparatory visit
to England in the spring.
In fact, though Philip of Burgundy and John of Burgun-
Bedford had quarrelled, they could not afford to embassy in
fight, and Burgundy now sent Hugh of Lannoy, his London,
ablest agent, to sound English feeling and to renew
his relations with the English government, but also
to feel the pulse of the French prisoners whose
mediation promised to be the next line of negotiation
with France. The story of Lannoy's mission is told
in the three letters which he and his companion
despatched to their master from Lille on July 18th. 1
On their arrival in London they found the English
generally ill-affected, and met with a harsh reception ;
but afterwards they came to the conclusion that
" things had softened down considerably." Their
master's chief fear was groundless ; the English were
not contemplating a separate peace with France ;
certain persons were indeed pressing the idea of a
marriage between the King and a daughter of " the
Dauphin," but such an alliance would only come as
part of a general peace. Such was the gist of their
preface. In the first of the three documents which
followed they described their reception in detail.
The Earl of Warwick received them graciously, though
" somewhat more gravely " than he had done in
France. Very early next morning they called upon
the Cardinal of England before he went to mass.
He, too, gave them a gracious reception, asked after
the duke, and promised to do what he could for their
success and their lord's pleasure ; " but truly," they
said, " we did find him somewhat stranger than
before this we have been accustomed to do."
They found the King and his uncles and lords at
1 Stevenson, ii, 218-248.
220 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Guildford, and were invited to lay their letters before
the King in council next week. At the council they
were compelled to state their message in writing,
and were told to communicate the details of their
master's proposals privately to the cardinal, the
Archbishop of York, and the Earl of Warwick ; and
next day at the cardinal's house they unfolded their
plans for the securing of the necessary support of
Brittany and Richemont and Savoy and other lords
of France and neighbouring countries. On July 7th
the council gave them a written answer to forward to
Burgundy, and referred them to the cardinal for an
answer to the proposals made at his house. The
cardinal's answer was that the King wished the duke
to proceed with his negotiations with Savoy, Brittany,
and Richemont ; the King could make no offer of
territory or money to these lords until parliament
had met, but the cardinal thought it certain that the
King would then send " a notable embassy " to the
duke to deal with this and other questions.
The second letter described their interview with the
captive Duke of Orleans at the house of his custodian,
the Earl of Suffolk. • Orleans protested that he had
offered his services to the English government as a
mediator ; but he was like a sword in its sheath,
useless until it was drawn. He could do nothing
unless he could confer with his friends in France ; he
was sure some of them would work for a general peace
on his lines. The Earl of Suffolk told the duke that
the King would gladly use him in the cause of peace.
None the less the envoys saw that Suffolk and the
English generally resented their conference with the
duke.
The third letter contained notes of various observa-
tions upon the state of opinion in England. Suffolk
FEELING IN ENGLAND 221
told them that peace was in sight ; the King had given
safe-conducts for envoys from France to the Duke of
Orleans. They had heard that the Duke of Orleans,
if he failed to induce the Dauphin to make peace,
would find a way out of his captivity somehow ; if he •
could only consult Burgundy or Brittany, the thing
could be done. The Regent of France, Bedford, had
been very kind. He had found them waiting at
Calais, and provided them with a ship. He was
reported to have spoken strongly on behalf of the
Duke of Burgundy at the council. He had told them
on their farewell visit how much he regretted the
duke's ill opinion of him ; the duke was one of the
princes whom he loved best ; their attitude towards
each other was harmful to the King's and to the
public good ; and he intended to do his utmost for
the King and the duke, and looked forward to a
renewal of their friendship. The cardinal, when
they went to take their leave, assured them that they
could tell his good nephew the duke that when
parliament rose (which it would do " either on peace
or on disturbance or to make more vigorous war than
ever before "), the King, he hoped, would send to
make all arrangements with the duke. As for their
own impressions, they believed that the English
were exerting themselves either to make peace with
the Dauphin on whatever terms they could or to find
money to raise a large and powerful army. " From
what we can perceive, they know very well that the
affairs of France cannot long continue in the state
in which they are now."
The answer given by the English council entirely Reply
bears out this last impression. The duke had urged °f the..
a more vigorous policy either for peace or for war.
The council recounted all the steps that had been
222 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
taken by the English in France to negotiate for peace
or a truce, by way of proving that the fault did not
lie with the English. As for the other alternative,
a vigorous campaign to enforce peace, the King was
grateful to the duke for his past help, and prayed
the duke to remember the heavy burdens which he
had borne from the first year of his life and was still
bearing. He was doing his utmost now to support
Burgundy in the field, and would soon lay the whole
situation before parliament. He had no intention
of abandoning his crown and sovereignty in France,
but he was prepared to treat for a peace long enough
to prevent unfair advantage being taken of the
interval. Finally, he repudiated all evil reports of
the duke, in whom he placed the fullest confidence. x
Bedford When parliament met on July 8th, the chancellor,
on his John, Bishop of Bath and Wells, delivered an alle-
gorical discourse upon the text, " The mountains shall
bring peace and the little hills righteousness unto the
people " (Ps. lxxii, 3). The mountains, he explained,
were the prelates and magnates, whose duty was
unity and concord ; the hills were the knights, squires,
and merchants, whose duty was equity and justice to
all classes ; the people were the yeomen, artisans, and
" the vulgar," and their duty was obedience to the
King and his laws. 2 The peace desired was appar-
ently peace at home. There was no distinct refer-
ence to foreign affairs. The silence of expectation
was broken on the sixth day of the session by a
challenge from Bedford. He had come home, he
said, for various urgent reasons touching not only
the King and the welfare of his realm of France but
also his own good name. He had heard that the
1 Stevenson, ii, 249-262.
2 Rot. Pari., iv, 419.
VINDICATION OF BEDFORD 223
losses sustained by the King in France had been
attributed to his neglect, and he asked to be confronted
with his accusers. His request was considered by the
council, and he was solemnly assured by the chan-
cellor that " no such profane and scandalous words "
had come to the hearing of the King or of Gloucester
or of any of the council ; and the King publicly
declared his confidence in his " true and faithful liege
and dearest uncle," and gave him special thanks for
" his good, laudable and fruitful services."1 Bedford
was scarcely satisfied, and it was probably his influ-
ence with the King that led to two significant changes
in the ministry. Lord Cromwell became treasurer,
and the Earl of Suffolk steward of the household!
They were adherents of the cardinal ; their prede-
cessors were part of the ministry which owed its
formation to Gloucester early in 1432. It has been
supposed on this ground, and also on the ground of
the similarity between Bedford's challenge on this
occasion and Beaufort's in 1432, that it was the
cardinal's "machinations"2 that had induced
Bedford to come home and adopt an attitude of
self-vindication which involved a tacit accusation of
Gloucester. It is true that the cardinal had always,
as far as can be seen, stood well with Bedford ; and
the cardinal's wealth was indispensable to the
commandant of the English forces in France. But
Bedford had other sources of evidence ; he had spent
a month with Gloucester and sundry lords of the
council at Calais quite recently. Bedford, moreover,
was too strong a man to act upon a judgment of even
the sincerest partisan. It is all the more important
to look closely at such an accusation against the
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 420.
2 Vickers, p. 237.
224
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Futile
mediation
of the
Duke of
Orleans.
cardinal, because there is perhaps a temptation and
a tendency to use the cardinal's jealousy of Gloucester
as a constant factor in English politics and the final
and sufficient explanation of every political movement
which is not quite transparently due to other forces.
Bedford was assuredly no echo or reflection of
Beaufort. It is quite possible, however, that the
danger which Bedford had returned to combat was
not merely the disloyal criticism of his brother of
Gloucester but rather the growing unpopularity of
the war itself. The subsidy of 1432 was limited
expressly to the defence of the realm and especially
the safe keeping of the sea. That same year saw the
first English embassy despatched to France to
negotiate for a peace or a truce, and the news of its
progress was awaited with anxious interest. Beau-
fort, who spent a large part of 1432 in England, may
have warned Bedford of this increasing discontent
with the continuance of the war ; and Bedford may
have seen and heard enough at Calais from Gloucester
and the lords who were in sympathy with this feeling
to convince him that his first duty was to grapple
with the opposition which found expression partly
in the attempt to throw the responsibility of failure
upon himself and partly in the refusal to make any
sacrifices of its own.
Parliament adjourned from August 13th to
October 13th. The vacation was occupied in a futile
effort to make something of the mediation of the
Duke of Orleans. On August 14th the Duke of
Orleans signed a secret agreement with the English
government.1 Henry VI was to send English
ambassadors to a conference at Calais or in Normandy
about October 15th ; the duke would invite Brittany,
1 Rymer, x, 556-563.
BEDFORD WANTED AT HOME 225
Bourbon, and other French lords. If peace were not
concluded within a year, the duke would return to
England. • In any case, he would recognise Henry's
claim to the French crown, hold his fiefs as Henry's
liege, secure the same recognition from certain lords
of France, and win the alliance of certain lords outside
France. Burgundy was informed of the approaching
conference, and appointed envoys to attend. Beau-
fort, Warwick, and Suffolk crossed to Calais in readi-
ness to meet the envoys of Charles of France, but
a second time they waited in vain. The King of
France made no response to the appeal of the Duke
of Orleans ; and the English plenipotentiaries
returned to take their places in the parliament which
had met again on October 13th.
On November 24th the commons, who had recently Bedford to
renewed their old protest against the countenance e^nd"1
given by certain great lords to crimes of violence in
the country, came forward with a petition to the
King to retain Bedford in England. He had done his
best in France, they said, shrinking from no danger
or hardship, and his life was too " great a treasure
to the King and both his lands " to be exposed to
further peril. Moreover, his coming into England
had been an untold boon ; " the restful rule and
governail of this land hath greatly grown and been
increased thereby, as well by the noble mirror and
example that he hath given to other, restfully govern-
ing himself and all his keeping, and obeying the
King's peace and his laws, and making those that be
toward him to do the same." * They urged the King
to desire him to remain in England for the sake of his
King and country. The King instructed the chan-
cellor to summon Gloucester, Beaufort, the two
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 423.
16 — (2210)
226 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
archbishops and other lords to consider this petition ;
and they reported in favour of the commons request.
Bedford, visibly touched by this unique proof of
affection and confidence, placed his services at the
King's command.
Financial The new chief councillor lost no time in setting an
Reform. example of self-denial for his country's sake. One
of the new ministers appointed under his influence
in July had already justified his appointment. Lord
Cromwell, the new treasurer, had spent the recess
in compiling a careful estimate of the finances of the
realm. Roughly the net revenue was £40,000 ; the
ordinary expenditure about £55,000; the debts
amounted to £164,000. 1 Cromwell had great diffi-
culty in getting parliament to face his budget in
October, but Bedford kept the figures in mind.
One of the heaviest burdens was the cost of the
ministerial salaries. The very day after his accept-
ance of the King's command to stay in England he
offered to content himself with an ordinary salary of
£1,000 instead of the £4,000 which Gloucester had
been receiving;2 Gloucester followed his example
three days later ; 3 at the end of the session Beaufort
and four other prelates made a similar sacrifice by
consenting to forego their allowance as councillors on
condition that they were not required to attend during
the vacations, thus saving the country £2,000 a year.4
Unfortunately, the commons admired without imi-
tating ; their grants showed no increase. At the
treasurer's earnest request a sort of financial com-
mittee of council was appointed, including Bedford,
» Rot. Pari., iv, 432-438.
2 Rot. Pari., iv, 424.
8 Proceedings, iv, 185.
4 Rot. Pari., iv, 446.
RETRENCHMENT AND REFORM 227
Gloucester, and Beaufort, " to see the books of the
King's revenues, yearly charges and debts," and to
determine the order in which the various liabilities
were to be met.1 It was a much-needed reform.
There was no maladministration, but there was no
system ; debts were paid by incurring new debts,
and the book-keeping was rudimentary, and the exact
balance often hard to determine. It is possible that
Beaufort advised or helped the treasurer in his
attempts at financial reform ; in 1442 the old cardinal
spoke strongly at the council on the subject of un-
businesslike methods of meeting the liabilities of the
government. 2 Meanwhile the Duke of Bedford laid
down very definite conditions to which he required
assent before he would undertake the conduct of
affairs at home. He asked to know the names of the
councillors who were to act with him ; he insisted on
the necessity of his own consent as well as of that
of the council in any change in its membership, and
in the summoning of parliament and the appointment
to bishoprics or to offices of state. These require-
ments have been rightly taken as proving that Bedford
saw that " conciliar government was not what the
country needed." 3 It is possible that Gloucester's
own self-assertion in past years may have had its
origin in part in a similar conviction that the council
must have a guiding and controlling head. Nothing,
however, marks more clearly the difference between
the two men than the fact that the lords gave gladly
to Bedford the place which in 1422 and in 1428 they
absolutely refused to give to Gloucester. It is a fact
which should be remembered in favour of Beaufort's
attitude towards Gloucester's claims in the past.
1 Rot. Pari., iv, 439.
2 Proceedings, v, 216.
3 Vickers, p. 241.
228
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Conflict
between
Bedford
and
Gloucester.
The desire of the commons to keep John of Bedford
at home practically involved the suggestion of the
abandonment of a vigorous policy in France. Bedford
had yielded to their desire without approving the
implied suggestion. The honour of England, the
memory of his brother, the labour of eleven of the
best years of his own life, were at stake ; if France
were a hopeless dream, Normandy could and must be
saved and kept. Probably the two motives that
weighed most in favour of his compliance with the
petition of November 24th were drawn from the
claims of the war. He needed rest to recruit his
shattered health for a fresh campaign; England
needed pulling together and rousing for a new effort.
Beaufort shared his view of the situation. Gloucester,
too, was probably sincere after a fashion in his zeal
for the honour of England in France, though his offer
of personal service was possibly prompted by dis-
satisfaction with his inferior position at home ; but
his idea of the war was as impracticable as it was
ambitious, and he could not even manage to put it
into shape without casting a reflection upon his brother
of Bedford. In April, 1434, he laid before a great
council summoned for the purpose at Westminster
certain proposals of his own for the conduct of the
war. Bedford asked for a written statement to
which he could reply. The council, including as it
did some of the ablest soldiers who had fought in
France, examined Gloucester's scheme and on May
5th rejected it unhesitatingly. It would require, they
said, at least £50,000 ; and the county commissioners
for loans and the treasurer could vouch for the
impossibility of raising such a sum. They spoke
strongly of the way in which the credulity of an
ignorant public had been misled by rumours that the
BEDFORD AND GLOUCESTER 229
council had rejected proposals which would have
relieved the people of taxation for years. Finally,
they suggested that Gloucester should explain how
the money was to be raised, and state whether he
wished parliament to be summoned to discuss his
plans. On May 8th Bedford produced his written
defence of his procedure in France, and now Gloucester
insisted on having an opportunity for a written
rejoinder ; but the council advised the King to close
the discussion by a declaration of confidence in both
his uncles.1 There is no record of the part taken
in this dispute by Beaufort or any other councillor.
It is quite likely, however, that as the next in influence
to the two parties in the dispute he used his position
to lead the council or to advise the young King. If
this supposition is correct, the scene was an interesting
counterpart to the parliament of 1426. Bedford had
held the balance then between Beaufort and Glouces-
ter ; this time it was Beaufort who turned the scale
against Gloucester in favour of Bedford. The public
reconciliation of 1426 left the duke and the bishop
still opponents at heart. The drawn conflict of 1434
left the two royal brothers still estranged. When
Bedford made his will in 1435 he appointed as his
executors Beaufort and Archbishop Kemp of York,
and never mentioned Gloucester at all.
Bedford's heart and conscience were in France, Bedford's
and in June he announced his intention of returning proposals
to his life's work. On June 9th he unburdened ^r^
his soul before the council. The King's subjects in
France were loyal, but they could not hold out in the
absence of solid and constant help ; the King's sub-
jects in England he had found kind and loving, but his
mission to England had been a failure. Yet he could
1 Proceedings, iv, 210-216.
230
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Beaufort as
trustee
of the
Lancaster
estates.
The
Cardinal's
loans.
not allow England to lose a conquest for which his
brother and comrades had laid down their lives. He
made three practical suggestions for the prosecution
of the war. He proposed that the garrisons of Calais
and its frontier should be placed at his orders, and
that the private estates of the Lancastrian house
should be devoted to the maintenance of 200 spears
and 600 bows, in which case he was prepared to
spend his own income from Normandy in the main-
tenance of a similar force. * The Lancaster estates
had been " enfeoffed " or conveyed by the late King
for the payment of legacies and debts, including his
own " chantry," i.e., the masses to be sung in his
memory. The cardinal and his fellow " feoffees " or
trustees did not see their way to break these obliga-
tions. " After long replication " they asked on June
14th for another day to consider their problem, and
next day the cardinal enquired " whether the King
and his lords then present could think that the foresaid
feoffees might with true conscience and their worldly
worships leave their estate, considering that the
King's prayers and desires, whose soul God rest, be
not yet performed." The council thought that if
the King assigned to the trustees sufficient revenues
from other sources they might surrender the
Lancaster estates " with conscience and worship
unhurt for so great a good to the King as this
is."2 The arrangement, however, was never carried
out.
On June 20th Bedford said good-bye to the council,
and urged them to keep the promises made in Decem-
ber, 1433 ; but the treasury had no money to pay for
his escort of 400 men, and after the lords had tried in
1 Proceedings, iv, 222-229.
a Proceedings, iv. 229-232.
LOANS AND SECURITIES 231
vain to borrow the sum, the cardinal came forward at
Bedford's request to their great relief and advanced
3,000 marks for the purpose. The acts of the council
during that month were largely concerned with the
cardinal's loans.1 On May 10th, he obtained a
decision in favour of his right to the possession of the
jewels confiscated in 1432, and therefore to the repay-
ment of the £6,000 advanced by him in 1432. He
promised at once to lend 10,000 marks and advanced
the money on June 2nd. He was rigid, however, in
his demands for security. Proper assignments were
to be made in his favour on the incoming revenues.
He was to receive such " weddes " (i.e., pledges) as he
himself approved and to keep them as his own pro-
perty in default of repayment at such time as he might
fix. The 10,000 marks were to be repaid " in gold of
the coin of England of just weight " ; if silver were
tendered he would keep his " weddes." He asked for
a statement of the salary due to him on the score of
his attendance on the King in France, and for pay-
ment of the net balance still owing. Finally, he
required a guarantee against any change or postpone-
ment of the assignments made on the revenues in his
favour. All these demands were granted, except that
he was promised " weddes " for 7,000 marks only,
the lords of the council making themselves responsible
for the remaining 3,000 ; the repayment of the whole
sum was assigned on the clerical and lay subsidies.
On June 16th he received letters patent for these
assignments. On June 18th certain lords received
an assignment on the lay subsidies to enable them to
repay him 5,000 marks which he had lent at Calais at
the request of Bedford and Gloucester and the council
for the payment of the garrisons in France and for
1 Proceedings, iv, 232-239, 242, 247-254.
232 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the siege of St. Val£ry. On June 20th he was given
a promise of security for the old loans not yet repaid,
and for the new loan of 3,000 marks for Bedford's
escort ; and on June 23rd the whole agreement was
embodied in letters patent. The " weddes " had been
taken out of the " great treasury " at Westminster
and placed in his possession on June 7th by Lord
Cromwell, the treasurer, and the indenture then made
between the treasurer and the creditor contains an
elaborate description of each of the " jewels." There
was " a pusan of gold called the rich collar," a great
" ouch " of St. George's arms, a jewelled sword of
gold called the Sword of Spain, a tablet of gold of the
Passion of Christ, a tabernacle of gold containing an
image of our Lady, a great ship called the Tiger, two
great gold candlesticks, two gold basons, and two gold
censers, valued in all at £4,924 6s. 8d., " and so
lacketh of the sum of 10,000 marks £1,742 6s. 8d."
It is evident that the cardinal was at least as scrupu-
lous in exacting security for his loans as he was in
requiring authority for the suspension of his obliga-
tions as trustee for the Lancastrian estates. The
very poverty of the treasury, however, is sufficient
justification for his demands. A banker must be
repaid if he is to lend again. On the other hand these
records reveal the extent of the cardinal's loans.
It is no wonder that when early in June he asked
permission to take large sums of money or plate
on a journey abroad for reasons which for safety's
sake were not to be made public, he baited his
request with the assurance that his full purpose was
with the grace of God to die in this land. The council
might well require assuring that their banker was not
removing his wealth permanently beyond the reach
of a needy government.
TROUBLE IN NORMANDY 233
Bedford crossed the Channel early in July, 1434, Beaufort
and was confronted at once by a series of peasant Honfleur.
risings in Normandy, which taxed all his resources
the rest of the year. It was a terrible disappointment,
for he had done his best to be just to Normandy.
He had built up a constitutional government ; he
had fostered industry and commerce ; he had founded
a university at Caen. Still he had been compelled to
tax the people heavily, and when the peasantry were
armed by the government against the depredations
of " free lances," they turned against the English
garrisons. A return of these garrisons for the year
1433-1434 was made by order of Bedford at Michael-
mas, and in this return the Cardinal of England
appears as captain of Honfleur, with three mounted
lances, ten unmounted, and thirty-nine archers.1
There is no reason to consider this particular garrison
as a merely titular command ; so it is evident that at
sixty the military instinct of Henry of Winchester
was still strong. The English on the whole held their
own in 1434. Arundel was successful in Maine, and
Talbot in Picardy, while Burgundy was steadily
recovering his own territories. In 1435 the tide
turned ; Arundel was defeated and slain in the north,
and elsewhere the French fought their way right up
to Paris. But it was not merely the vicissitudes of
war that led to the great effort made in 1435 to retain
the English position by diplomacy ; it was the growing
pressure of the Papacy and the Council of Basel, and
the yielding loyalty of Burgundy.
The general council which met at Basel in 1431 set The
itself to face three great tasks, the suppression of j^jj0^^
heresy, the reform of the Church, and the pacification the English
of Christendom. Its first year was mainly spent in Govern-
1 Stevenson, ii. [541].
234 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
a struggle for existence. l Pope Eugenius ordered its
dissolution, and it was only the support of Sigismund
that enabled the council to force the Pope in February,
1433, to revoke the dissolution. In June, 1432, the
University of Paris appealed to Oxford and Cambridge
to recognise and attend the council, and in July
Sigismund, the council and the Pope all sent envoys to
the English government ; and eventually the Earl of
Huntingdon, the Bishop of Rochester, and the Arch-
bishop of York were nominated as official representa-
tives. In November Beaufort was given permission
to attend the council and take £10,000 in money and
jewels to the value of 5,000 marks, though nothing is
said to show whether the money was intended for
private or for national purposes. 2 He did not make
his way to the council at once, for on February 16th,
1433, he was given a licence to take £20,000 on his
journey to the Council of Basel, and on February 20th
a safe-conduct for his journey to Sigismund, King of
the Romans, with whom he was to remain " on the
King's service " not more than one year. 3 Here
again details are wanting. It is uncertain whether
the cardinal's mission to Sigismund had reference to
the conflict still existing between pope and council,
or to the attitude of Sigismund towards the war in
France. It is even doubtful whether the mission
was carried out. Sigismund was in Italy, working
for his own coronation as emperor. Beaufort was at
Calais in April. There was time, however, for him
to attend the council. Some English envoys certainly
went to the council, and came back at once by way
of protest against an oath imposed by the council on
1 Creighton, ii, 61-91 (ed. 1892).
2 Rymer, x, 525.
3 Rymer, x, 538, 539.
COUNCIL OF BASEL 235
all delegates, possibly also against its method of
organisation. The council had rejected the method
of deliberation by " nations," which had enabled
England and Germany to play such a prominent part
in the Council of Constance. The Bishop of Lodi
wrote to Gloucester in June, 1433, to urge the return
of the English envoys, and Henry VI replied on
July 17th, no doubt in accordance with the advice
of his council ; Bedford, Gloucester, and Beaufort
were all then at Westminster. The King protested
against the imposition of the oath and against the
violent language of the council towards the Pope. 1
The English government resented the neutralisation
of national influence at Basel, and convocation in
November declared itself on the side of the Pope
against the council. In January, 1434, however, the
Pope, driven from Rome and beset with difficulties,
gave way and recognised the council, and decided to
send cardinals to preside.
Meanwhile the council had taken in hand the English
pacification of Christendom in August, 1433, imme- ^assy
diately after the failure of the mission of the papal council,
mediator, Cardinal Albergati. 2 First the Duke of
Burgundy and then the King of France accepted the
council's offer of mediation. A bishop from the
council came to consult the English government in
November, 1433, and early in May, 1434, an embassy
came from Burgundy. The English government
stated in its reply to Burgundy on June 11th that
the council and the Emperor had already broached
the question of peace, but that the King had not
accepted their offer owing to the prospect of a success-
ful issue from the mission of Cardinal Albergati ;
1 Bekynton, ii, 144, 61.
2 Beaucourt, ii, 508-510.
236 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
this mission having failed, the King was now sending
an embassy to the council, and hoped that the duke's
representatives would co-operate with his in the mat-
ter of peace and in all matters concerning the Church.
The English representatives were the Bishops
of London, Rochester, and Dax (in Aquitaine),
and the Earl of Mortain (Edmund Beaufort), the
Abbots of Glastonbury and York, the Prior of Norwich,
the Dean of Salisbury (Dr. Brouns), and two knights,
Sir H. Brounfleet and Sir J. Colvile. Their instruc-
tions, dated May 31st, were extensive and precise. 1
They were to postpone their public audience until
they had sounded the general opinion of the council,
to protest against the new oath, to press for the system
of voting by nations and especially to insist upon the
consent of a nation to any decree directly affecting
its interests, to act in concert with the Emperor, and
at the same time to confer with the envoys of France
and Burgundy. On the question of the relations
between the Pope and the council, their instructions
were guarded. They were to use their discretion,
but if they heard on the way that the council was
proceeding to depose the Pope and elect another,
they were to wait where they were for further in-
structions. They were to explain that the resumption
of the alien priories in England had been justified by
the anti-national use made of their revenues, and
that those revenues had been applied by the King to
religious purposes. They were to claim for the
clergy of Aquitaine the same privileges as those
granted to the clergy of the rest of France, and to
protest against the restitution of the clergy of
Normandy deprived by the King. They were to
assist the King's French representatives to secure a
1 Bekynton, ii, 260-269.
ENGLISH ENVOYS AT BASEL 237
place in the council, and they were to explain that
the King's intentions were peaceful, but his persever-
ing efforts had been frustrated by the unyielding
temper of France. These instructions dealt with
matters of considerable difficulty, and the English
government was not above the use of other lubricants
than the eloquence of its envoys. It is possible that
the cardinal's £20,000 in February, 1433, was meant
in part to smooth the way. It is certain that in
April, 1434, the privy council ordered the purchase
of collars of the King's livery, six of gold, twenty-four
of silver-gilt, and sixty of silver, to be sent to the
Emperor for distribution among the citizens of Basel
and such knights and squires as the Emperor and the
King's envoys thought fit to honour ; in May 400
ducats and in June 100 marks were given to the envoys
for the purpose of " retaining advocates at the
council " ; and in November letters of exchange for
1,000 marks were sent for distribution at the council
at the discretion of the envoys " to the honour and
advantage of the King."1 On one point at least
these inducements failed of their purpose. In
February, 1435, the King had to write to the Cardinal
of St. Angelo, president of the council, to request an
audience for the envoys representing his realm of
France, who had been refused admission again and
again.2 The point was significant of the attitude
of the council towards the claim of Henry VI to the
crown of France. It was precisely that claim on
which the coming negotiations would turn ; and the
claim was already disallowed by the council which
was promoting the negotiations.
1 Proceedings, iv, 207, 217, 221, 289.
8 Proceedings, iv, 297.
238
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Futile
proposal of
conference
at Calais.
The Cardinal of England was doubtless behind the
scenes in the various stages of these negotiations, even
where his name does not appear. Just on the verge
of Bedford's departure for Normandy in July, 1434,
a further opportunity of mediation was conceded to
the Duke of Orleans. The privy council consented
that he should confer with his friends " the lords of
the blood of the party adverse " at Calais, on condition
that the Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester and the
cardinal were also at Calais. If the French lords only
sent envoys to Calais, the duke might go in sure
keeping, but he must pay his own expenses " if the
treaty profit not." The sea must be searched to
prevent his capture ; he must give security for his
expenses ; and the council must be consulted, and
" not one man to take upon him to send him forth
ne to let his going or contrary the advice taken before
of his going."1 The concession was made probably
to satisfy the Duke of Brittany's repeated requests ;
but the precautions with which it was hedged prove
at once how valuable an asset the possession of the
duke was and how dubious his sincerity, — possibly
also how suspicious the council was of the unauthor-
ised activity of some or any particular councillor,
though it would be an unwarranted supposition to
name either Gloucester, Beaufort, Suffolk or any
other. Nothing seems to have been done to give
effect to the concession. The duke apparently never
went to Calais. The cardinal returned home from
France in the autumn of 1434. In November the
signature H. Cardinal appears again at the head of the
privy council, taking precedence as usual of the
Archbishop of Canterbury. Two of the transactions
in which he took part deserve notice as illustrating
1 Proceedings, iv, 259, 260.
THE PRIVY COUNCIL
239
respectively the state of affairs at home and the
attitude of the government towards the Papacy.
(1) On November 12th a full meeting of the
council made a deferential but determined protest
against the King's inclination " to change the rule
and governance that afore in his tender age hath by
his great council in parliament and else been advised
and appointed for the good and surety of his noble
person and of this land."1 The protest hinted that
private influence had been brought to bear upon the
boy King, and urged that if any " such motions and
stirrings apart as have been made but late ago " were
made in future, he ought in view of his youth and
inexperience to take the advice of " his great council
or his continual council," as he used to do. No clue
is given to indicate the " things of great weight and
substance " in which the King had shown a tendency
to ignore his council. It is possible that his lords
resented his enthusiasm for the Pope against the
Council of Basel. On the other hand, in the light of
recent events, the absence of Gloucester's name from
the council at this time suggests that it was the
private intervention of a royal duke which the council
resented as an infringement of their authority.
(2) On November 14th the council wrote to the
Pope in the King's name to urge the revocation of a
papal " provision." 2 Two sees were vacant, Worces-
ter now for some years, Rochester quite lately by the
death of its bishop at Basel. The King had appointed
Thomas Bourchier to Worcester ; the Pope had
appointed Dr. Brouns, Dean of Salisbury, then at
Basel. In October the council wrote to tell the
English " courtisans at the court of Rome " that the
1 Proceedings, iv, 287-289.
2 Proceedings, iv, 285, 286.
The King
and his
Council.
The
Council
and papal
" provi-
sions. ' '
240 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
King would shortly recommend to the Pope a fit
candidate for the see of Rochester ; meanwhile the
English agents were to endeavour to prevent any
premature " provision." On November 5th a royal
letter was sent to Brouns, reminding him that the
King's assent was necessary to his provision, and
warning him that he would never have that assent
to Worcester or any other see while he opposed the
King's will as he was doing in this matter ; finally
he was ordered to state his intentions at once to the
King and to the Pope. In the letter signed on
November 14th the council pressed the Pope to
recognise Bourchier as Bishop of Worcester, and
intimated that the King would approve the appoint-
ment of Brouns to Rochester ; and this compromise
was eventually accepted by the Pope.
CHAPTER XII
THE CONFERENCES AT ARRAS AND AT OYE
1435-1439
For the Council of Basel the peace of Europe was one Under-
of several important objects. For the Duke of standing
Burgundy it had become the one object of his efforts. Bu^fndy
War was more costly and fruitless than ever. England and France,
could give him less and less ; France, rid of the
adventurers who had ruled its court, could give him
a place among its magnates. In September and
December he signed truces with his brothers-in-law,
the Constable of France and the Duke of Bourbon.'
In January, 1435, he held at Nevers a conference of
French nobles which " assumed the aspect of a family
gathering, "t and which ended in the signing of pre-
liminaries of peace. A conference was to be held
between all parties at Arras on July 1st. The Pope
and the council were to be represented at the confer-
ence. If the French King's " reasonable offers " were
rejected by the English, the Duke of Burgundy was
to undertake the " pacification " of the kingdom ;
and definite cessions of territory were promised him
in the event of his being driven to turn from the
English to the French side. In May the duke sent
envoys to London to tell the English court, as he had
already told the English in Paris, that peace must be
made, and that the French would never recognise the
English claim to the crown of France. On June 4th
Gloucester and Beaufort and the rest of the council
issued orders for the presentation of gold plate to the
1 Ramsay, i, 464, 465.
241
17— (2210)
242 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Burgundian envoys and of money to delegates from
the Council of Basel, but the answer given to the envoys
was unpromising. The English were willing to attend
the conference at Arras, but unwilling to waive the
obligations of the Treaty of Troyes of 1420. They
were no less unwilling either to trust Burgundy or to
lose him. They placed him at the head of their
first list of plenipotentiaries ; but they wrote to ask
the Pope whether it was true that he had released
the duke and others from their oaths of allegiance to
the English. At the head of the alternative list of
commissioners stood the name of the Cardinal of
England,1 but his departure to the congress was
delayed, probably to enable him to intervene with
revised instructions.
Negotia- All through July the conference was still in process
A??asat of assembling at Arras. "The Great Parliament,"
- as it was called, included representatives not only of
England, France and Burgundy, but also of Sicily,
Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, and Italy ; its
composition was proof enough of the interest which
practically all Europe felt in the question of peace. 2
Its first proper session was opened on August 5th
in the Abbey of St. Vaast, under the presidence of
the Cardinal of St. Cross, the papal delegate ; the
second place of honour was occupied by the other
mediator, the delegate of the Council of- Basel, the
Cardinal of Cyprus. On August 3rd the Duke of
Burgundy declined to act as a representative of
England. On August 8th the Archbishop of York
protested that the King of England only recognised
i Rymer, x, 610-616.
2 For the history of the congress see Beaucourt, n, 523-53U
(from original documents, French and English) ; Ramsay,
i, 467-472.
CONGRESS OF ARRAS 243
the presidents of the congress as mediators, not as
judges. The first week of the congress was spent
in formalities. It was on August 10th that the
English envoys made their first public offer,— a futile
demand for the surrender of towns and territories
unjustly held in defiance of their King's rights.
A more serious offer was made by them on the 12th
which probably represents their original instructions ;
they proposed a marriage between Henry and a French
princess, and a truce for twenty years or more to
enable the King; on attaining man's estate, to treat
in his own person. The French refused to accept a
truce, and offered on their part additions to Henry's
territories in Guienne, and a sum of 600,000 crowns,
on condition that Henry should renounce his claim
to the French throne, restore all his conquests in
" France," and hold his other dominions as a fief
of the French crown. These proposals, which were
practically identical with the last offers made by the
French at Winchester the summer before Agincourt,
were rejected. The French then made a further offer
of practically the whole of Normandy, but the only
answer made by the English was to add to their
proposals of a truce and a marriage the offer to accept
a ransom for the release of the Duke of Orleans.
On August 16th the cardinals pressed the English
to make some practicable proposal. At this point
the English envoys fell back upon the secondary
instructions issued to them on July 31st and held in
reserve in case " the King's party adverse will in no
wise be agreed with the offers made unto them " in
the first instance. They proposed to cede everything
beyond the Loire but Gascony and Guienne, and to
accept a French princess, " rather than fail of a good
conclusion of peace for default thereof, without land
/
244 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
or money." They were, in fact, willing to pay an
annual revenue of 120,000 saluts (crowns) in return
for the retention of their title in France. The French,
however, were willing to pay 150,000 for the main-
tenance of the status quo, but refused to accept any
other situation of affairs. They told the cardinals that
they could consider no offer which did not involve the
renunciation of the English claim to the French crown.
This renunciation the English were not prepared to
offer or consent to make ; and the negotiations hung
fire until the arrival of the Cardinal of England.
Arrival of Beaufort entered Arras on August 23rd, and was
Beaufort met by the Duke of Burgundy. The duke paid him
a visit on the 25th, but the cardinal was not invited
to meet the French ambassadors who dined that
afternoon at the duke's table. On the 27th negotia-
tions were resumed. Beaufort was inclined to put an
abrupt end to the conference when he found that the
French were standing firm to their demand for the
renunciation of the crown ; and when the presiding
cardinals persuaded the envoys of both parties to
produce an ultimatum, the Cardinal of England
remained in the background, leaving the actual
negotiation to the Archbishop of York, though doubt-
less prompting and controlling the English embassy
at each step. On the 29th the English produced an
ultimatum which was practically the second alternative
of their revised instructions ; each party was to retain
what it held, except that there was to be " a commuta-
tion and interchange of such places and lands as either
party hath enclaved within the obeisance of other,"
i.e., a sort of " rectification of frontiers." Next day
the French produced their ultimatum ; the English to
renounce all rights to the crown of France and in
return to receive the whole of Normandy as a fief ;
RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS 245
the Duke of Orleans to be set free ; a French princess
to be married to Henry VI without a dowry. On the
31st the Archbishop of York rejected these terms
absolutely. The King of England had no intention
of renouncing his sovereignty over what territory
he might retain. They were very much obliged to the
Pope, the council and the cardinals for their efforts
to mediate, but the conference was at an end. The
Cardinal of St. Cross regretted the failure of the
conference, and urged the English to accept the
" great, notable and reasonable " offers which left
them the best third of the realm of France ; and
finally he stated that he had the Pope's authority to
conclude a " particular " peace, i.e., between
Burgundy and France, if the general peace proved
impracticable. To this statement the cardinals
adhered in spite of a protest from the English that
the duke was bound by his oath to make no peace
independently of England.
On the afternoon of the 1st the duke entertained Breach
the English at dinner with lavish splendour. It was Bur^ndy
a hollow display. After dinner the Cardinal of and the
England had a private interview with his host ; the English-
Archbishop of York was called in, and the two spent
an hour together with the duke. The cardinal's
excitement grew so intense that the sweat burst out
upon his forehead ; and the lords in waiting tried
in vain to cut the argument short by pretending to
bring in the belated spices. The breach had come ;
the duke spent the last hours of the night in a private
conference with the Cardinal of St. Cross. The rup-
ture of the negotiations, already an open secret on the
29th, was a public fact before the 4th of September ;
but a final effort was made on that day to meet the
objection of the English that the renunciation of
246
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Attitude
of the
English at
Arras.
their sovereign's rights could not be validly or safely
made during his minority. The Cardinal of England
and his colleagues met the French in the Church of
Our Lady at Arras, and promised to lay the French
proposals before the King if they were stated in
writing. On the 5th they took their leave of Bur-
gundy, and on the 6th left Arras. The next day
the French drafted letters containing their last offers,
with one important concession : the question of the
renunciation was to be suspended until Henry
attained his majority, on condition that the English
should evacuate the territories which were eventually
to belong to the French, and should reinstate all
dispossessed holders of lands or benefices within the
territories ceded to England. The time-limit fixed
for the acceptance or rejection of this offer was
January 1st, 1436. It was rejected in London, and
its rejection finally fastened the responsibility of
the failure of the conference upon the shoulders of
the English. One London chronicler attributes the
return of the envoys to the fact that " the French
party had cast a train with great treason for to have
betrayed the cardinal with the said lords " of the
embassy, "and therefore the said English party
would no further proceed." x The reference seems to
be to a raid of the Armagnac captains upon Artois on
August 25th, but the injured party in this case was
the Duke of Burgundy rather than the English, and
the raid was, therefore, obviously not instigated by
the French authorities. Another chronicler says
more vaguely that the conference " was to no profit,
for the French part was not all true in their coming." 2
If this accusation refers to insincerity in negotiation,
1 Kingsford, Chron. Lond., pp. 139, 310
2 Gregory, p. 177.
ENGLISH POLICY 247
it might be made with equal or greater justice against
the English. It was not peace that they desired,
but a diplomatic recognition of that title in France
which they could not enforce by arms and would not
as yet surrender. Their attitude at this point may
be summed up in two of the arguments of Sir John
Fastolf 's report upon the situation in September, 1435.
The surrender of the claim now would be a confession
that " all their wars and conquest hath been but
usurpation and tyranny." The continuance of the
war was at least a maintenance of the claim ; " better
is a country to be wasted for a time than lost."
Fastolf was probably voicing the views of Bedford
and Beaufort ; they in turn were still dominated by
the aim of Henry V. The chronicler, however, may
be referring to an understanding between the French
and Burgundy. Such an understanding had become
more and more obvious since the gathering at Nevers
early in 1435. At Arras again Burgundy had
postponed his own arrival till near the arrival of the
French envoys, and had been in continual touch
with them throughout August. The English envoys
had at least this excuse for their impracticable
attitude towards the proposals of the French, that
those proposals had the support of Burgundy, the
nominal ally of England and now the secret friend
of France. The secrecy was soon gone. Ten days
of discussion of details, and there came on September
21st a Treaty of Arras between Duke Philip and King
Charles which ended the twenty-five years of feud
between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs.
Burgundy was bound to the English by the Treaties
of Troyes and Amiens and " by fifteen years of
fellowship in arms."1 The cardinals absolved him
1 Stevenson, ii [576, 577].
248 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
from his oaths ; the death of Bedford on September
14th broke the tie of comradeship ; and a week later
Burgundy became the sworn ally of the French on
terms of his own which made him " practically a third
king in France." x His secession, however, was after
all inevitable, and though the resentment of the
English was intelligible enough, it was no justification
for their obstinate insistence upon the French title.
Even with the support of Burgundy they had lost
ground during the last five years ; the prospect of
regaining the lost ground in the face of Burgundian
abstention or opposition was hopeless. The last
offer which they refused at least gave them Nor-
mandy ; and the last solemn charge of Henry V
and the policy of Bedford in 1429 alike revealed the
consciousness that Normandy might be the most that
England could keep. " Fifteen years later an
Englishman could groan at the thought of what had
been refused at Arras."2 The best that can be said
for the refusal, for which the English people and
council were alike responsible, is that it was dictated
not merely by a national pride which clung
desperately to an untenable position but by a
doggedly faithful loyalty to the memory of the King
whose life had been spent and lost in pursuit of
the unattainable ideal of an English realm across the
Channel.
War with Burgundy had no desire to push England to the
Burgundy. p0fnt 0f war. It was England that drew the sword.
Immediately after the conclusion of the Treaty of
Arras ambassadors were despatched to England from
the duke and the cardinals to explain and enforce
the position of affairs. Their papers were seized at
1 Ramsay, i, 473.
2 Ramsay, i, 472.
BREACH WITH BURGUNDY 249
Calais, and they were themselves guarded strictly in
uncomfortable lodgings in London. When the letters
were read before the King and his lords, the King
wept over the omission of his French title in the
duke's letter, and foretold misfortune for his realm of
France. The Cardinal of Winchester and the Duke
of Gloucester, says the French chronicler Wavrin,
left the council abruptly, indignant but undecided,
and the councillors gathered in little knots and abused
each other as well as Burgundy and his ministers.
Then came the news that Burgundy had taken
possession of his reward, towns once nominally English
territory. London lost its head : the mob plundered
the Flemish merchants' houses, the government
dismissed the envoys with a practical threat of
reprisals, the chancellor laid before parliament a
garbled account of the conference at Arras, and
parliament sanctioned war against Burgundy as well
as against France. The duke's complaints against
English interference with Flemish subjects at home
and abroad were met by the council with partial
explanation and partial denial, and the breach was
complete. Burgundy sent troops to assist the French
in the recovery of Paris ; the Duke of York, the
commander of the English reinforcements, was
actually authorised to negotiate with the French
against Burgundy. Calais was promptly besieged
by the Burgundian forces ; but the Earl of Mortain,
Beaufort's nephew, one of York's lieutenants, relieved
the garrison, and the siege was raised, Gloucester, the
new Lieutenant of Calais, arriving only in time to
make a punitive raid into Flanders.
The cardinal's share in the events of 1436 is not Prominence
disclosed by the records. The only appearance of his £f Jft* ,
name at the council is among the signatures to the at home.
250 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
King's letter to Burgundy in March. 1 Possibly the
references in that letter to the King's action in
suppressing outrages upon Flemish subjects may
indicate that the cardinal had endeavoured already to
prevent the breach with Burgundy from being carried
to an extent fatal to English commerce. Beaufort
was certainly the first English statesman to endeavour
to close that breach. But from April, 1437, to May,
1438, the proceedings of the council show the cardinal
in continual attendance.2 He had indeed at first
shared the general disheartenment of the early part
of 1437. The Duke of York declined to remain in
command in France after his year's service expired,
and was succeeded by the old Earl of Warwick, who
was glad apparently to exchange the growing difficul-
ties of the tutorship of the young King for even the
hardships of an uphill struggle in the field. The
English chancellor in France, the Bishop of Rouen,
came over to find relief as a naturalised citizen of
England and as Bishop of Ely. On April 13th the
cardinal himself wanted to resign his councillorship
on the ground that he was entitled to rest now and
the King was old enough to dispense with his services.
He asked leave to go " to do his duty " at Rome, but
was refused permission ; perhaps the council were
apprehensive of his private ambitions, perhaps they
were genuinely anxious to retain his services, as they
said, for negotiations at home or in France. The
cardinal yielded, and took up his burden again. On
the 18th he was granted some other petition of his not
further specified, and the minute of the council adds
the brief but sufficient explanation, "he hath lent
10,000 marks." He had also postponed the repayment
1 Proceedings, iv, 329-334.
2 Proceedings, v, 6-101.
PROMINENCE OF THE CARDINAL 251
of this loan and of another of 4,000 marks, and
promised to restore the royal jewels held by him
in pledge. The gratitude of the council went further ;
in June he received a general pardon for all irregular-
ities in the matter of his loans, and in July further
security was given for sums yet due to him. His
prominence is illustrated in various interesting ways.
On May 14th the Earl of Suffolk brought the keeper
of the privy seal " a ring to token from my lord the
cardinal letting him wit that my said lord the cardinal
would that this bill should pass as it is desired,"
apparently one of the ordinances relating to " the
requests of France and Normandy." In November
when the Duke of Burgundy's movements seemed to
threaten Calais again, and the different members of
the council gave their advice upon the way to meet the
danger, it was the cardinal who announced the King's
wish that commissioners should be appointed to
muster the gentlemen of each county in readiness
" for the rescuing of Calais."
Early in 1438 he was requested by the council to Negotia-
lay before them letters sent to " his fatherhood " by [i°n^ith
the Queen of Scotland with reference to the coming Scotland,
of a Scottish embassy. The murder of James I in
February, 1437, had left the cardinal's niece Joan a
widowed queen, and she soon made overtures for
peace with England which her uncle succeeded in
persuading the council to accept. At the same meet-
ing of the council a list of the lords spiritual and
temporal was sent to the cardinal with the request
that he would in the King's name " appoint such as
him shall seem best " to attend the obit of the
Emperor Sigismund, who had died in December, 1437,
and to go to the general council, and others again to
act as lords marchers of Wales.
252 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
th Cith "1 ^he ambassaciors appointed were instructed to
of Basel, exert their influence with the electors in favour of
Sigismund's son-in-law, Albert, Duke of Austria ; and
in May the council suggested a marriage between
Henry and a daughter of the new Emperor. At the
same time the English government endeavoured, as
Sigismund had done, to avert or heal the breach
between the Council of Basel and the Pope. In
September, 1437, Eugeniushad issued a bull transfer-
ring the council to Ferrara in compliance with the
wishes of the Greek Church, which was prepared to
send delegates to Italy to discuss the question of
reunion. The council refused to be transferred and
proceeded to suspend the Pope, and their " monition "
was laid before the English council in November.
Henry wrote an indignant remonstrance to Basel, but
in February the English council was prepared to send
envoys either to Basel or to Ferrara. In May their
envoys were instructed " not lightly to adhere to
the one party or the other, but put it in suspense for
a time and thereof certify the King and have his
intent therein, lest he should fall into schism."1
Henry wrote to the Pope to express his sympathy, and
to the council at Basel to say that in spite of their
discourteous reception of his messengers he proposed
to send envoys to promote peace. 2 It would be
interesting to know how far the King's attitude was
due to his own devotion to the Papacy or to the
influence of the cardinal ; but there is no evidence
to decide the question. The privy council advised
the King early in 1438 " to grant no licence to my lord
1 Proceedings, v, 96-98.
2 Bekynton's Correspondence contains many interesting
communications between Henry VI and the powers of the
Church with reference to Basel, the Papacy, the Greek Church,
etc.
RENEWAL OF NEGOTIATIONS 253
cardinal to go to the general council/'1 but it is
doubtful again whether their advice was due rather
to their suspicion of his attitude on papal questions
or to their desire to retain his services at home.
Peace was once more under consideration, and the
cardinal was by position and by inclination the
fittest negotiator that the English government had
at its command. The war was still prosecuted as
strenuously as circumstances permitted, and
Edmund Beaufort, now Earl of Dorset, went to
France in June, 1438, in command of the year's
reinforcements ; but his uncle the cardinal was
already, it would seem, laying his plans for further
negotiations.
In January the council agreed to waive their (3) with
demand for the prepayment of the cost of sending the Francei
Duke of Orleans to Cherbourg for a conference, but
the French made no response. Meanwhile the
cardinal was watchful of every opening on the side (4) with the
of Burgundy. His niece the duchess, Isabella of Duchess of
Portugal, was a kinswoman and a friend of England. UrgUn y*
Hugh de Lannoy, the famous Burgundian diplomat,
was at the English council in May, 1438. On Novem-
ber 21st at the cardinal's request safe-conduct was
given to a returning Burgundian envoy, and on the
23rd the cardinal, the Archbishop of York and others
were empowered to treat with the duchess.2 The
primary question was the renewal of commercial
intercourse between England and Flanders, but the
negotiations soon extended to the question of a
conference to discuss peace with France. The
cardinal's investments in wool were not his only or
chief motive for welcoming peace with Flanders ;
1 Proceedings, v, 93.
2 Rynier, x, 713-716.
254
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Proposal of
conference
at Calais.
Burgundy was now his only hope for England. If
the Burgundian alliance against France was gone
beyond recall, Burgundian mediation with France was
worth an effort. The duchess was more sincere, the
duke more powerful than the prisoner of Orleans
round whom the futile attempts at negotiation with
France had centred in the last two years. Such
mediation must involve some abatement of English
claims, but the cardinal was aware by this time,
perhaps even earlier, that those claims were now a
mere flourish ; and England stood to lose less through
the mediation of Burgundy than through any other
line of negotiation.
The cardinal went over to Calais with other coun-
cillors to meet the duchess in person in January, 1439,
and the conference was all arranged before the spring.
The English consented to bring the Duke of Orleans ;
the French consented to come to Calais. The
duchess scored a point of her own in getting possession
at once of the little French princess, Katharine, who
was to be her son's bride, but it is doubtful whether
this alliance did not neutralise any advantage that the
English expected to gain from her relation to the
house of Lancaster.
Instruc- Tne cnief members oi the English embassy consisted
tions of the of the Archbishop of York, the Duke of Norfolk, and
English the Earls of Stafford and Oxford. Their instructions
were signed on May 21st. They were actually
instructed in the first instance to demand the uncon-
ditional surrender of all France as " the most reason-
able mean of peace," and this demand was even
inserted in the credentials which were to be produced
before the French. x It may have been intended to
satisfy Gloucester's objection to any semblance of a
1 Rymer, x, 720-733.
ENGLISH CONCESSIONS 255
concession, 1 but it was probably a mere bluff, for the
rest of the instructions gave the envoys a sliding scale
of concessions to be offered in turn, which went far
beyond any previous proposals from the side of
England. The cardinal, " more as a prelate of the
Church and as a mediator and stirrer to the peace,"
was to dwell upon the cost of the war to Christendom
as a sacrifice of life and as a hindrance to the extension
of the Christian faith ; upon the only alternatives, the
destruction of one power or the concord of the two ;
upon the " nighness of blood " between the princes
concerned ; upon the duties of sovereigns to secure
peace and justice for their people ; upon the fact that
France had " not at all times been wholly under the
governance of one sole king, nor it is not of the
necessity of the law of God or of nature nor also of
the necessity for the behoveful governance thereof
that it so be." " By these motives and other such
as my lord the cardinal's great wisdom will advise "
the temper of the conference was to be attuned to the
reception of a series of offers. 2 First, the envoys were
to ask for a petition of France which left each king
in possession of the titular sovereignty of the whole ;
in the last resort they were to offer to accept the
Bretigny dominion (Guienne, Poitou) with Normandy,
Maine and Calais, all to be held in absolute sovereignty.
With regard to the reinstatement of dispossessed
partisans of France within the English territories,
they were to make partial concessions under protest.
If the old proposal for a marriage between Henry and
a French princess were revived, they were to press
for the conclusion of peace first, and not to bind the
King ; in any case they were to ask for a dowry of
1 Ramsay, ii, 11.
2 Proceedings, v, 356, 357.
256 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
a million crowns, if they could not get two millions.
The price of the release of the Duke of Orleans was
to be 100,000 marks. If peace proved unattainable
the Duchess of Burgundy and the Duke of Orleans
were to be utilised as mediators of such a truce, long
or short, as might be had. But the most significant
instruction of all was the reference to " the leaving
of the name and crown of France." They were to
lay stress upon the fact of the coronation of Henry in
Paris with the assent of " a great party of the peers
of France " in person or by proxy, and upon the
ancient examples of rival kings in France ; " but
finally rather than the thing fall to rupture, the said
ambassadors shall report them in this matter to my
lord the cardinal to whom the King hath opened and
declared all his intent in this matter. ' ' * This can only
mean that the cardinal had persuaded the King and
council to allow him in the last resort to make the
great surrender which at Arras he himself had refused
to allow to be made.
Bekynton's The story of the conference is told in detail in the
i°uj£al journal of Dr. Thomas Bekynton, one of the English
conference, envoys.2 Beaufort and the ambassadors crossed
to Calais on June 26th. The French arrived on the
28th, and on the 29th were told that the time and place
and conditions of meeting must be left to the decision
of the cardinal and the duchess, who were the presid-
ing mediators. They dined with the English at the
Archbishop of York's house, and next day called to
take leave of the cardinal, and swore a solemn oath
before the altar in the cardinal's oratory, the Arch-
bishop of Rheims placing his right hand on his breast,
1 Proceedings, v, 360, 361.
2 Proceedings, v, 334-407 ; English summary in chrono-
logical catalogue, pp. xiii-xxx ; see also preface, pp.
xxxv-lxxx.
CONFERENCE AT OYE 257
and the rest of the French envoys placing theirs in the
cardinal's. The purport of the oath was that they
would in no way do or allow to be done any injury
to the English envoys or to the mediators or their
retinues. Two English envoys went to administer
a similar oath to the Duke of Burgundy at St. Omer,
and to consult the duchess. On July 2nd, the feast
of St. Swithin, the patron saint of Winchester, the
cardinal entertained all the ambassadors and knights
and young gentlemen of rank (domicellos) then in
Calais. The duchess decided that the conferences
should take place near Oye between Calais and
Gravelines, that three hundred persons on either side
might attend, armed with swords and daggers only,
and that ten scouts on either side should patrol the
neighbourhood daily. On July 6th Dr. Bildeston
celebrated mass in the cardinal's chapel, and soon
after six the cardinal and the ambassadors rode out
to the meeting-place. The Duke of Orleans, who was
left behind at Calais to prevent any attempt to rescue
him, resented his detention, remarking that in his
absence " the others would do nought but beat the
wind." The diarist dwells with pride upon the
splendour of the cardinal's tent at Oye. It was built
of timber, covered with new canvas ; it had pantry,
butlery, wine-cellar, and chambers, and a central hall
hung with scarlet tapestry, large enough to seat three
hundred persons at table, with a kitchen at the end.
The duchess had a tent of her own nearly as large,
but it was built of rotten timber and covered with old
sails, though it was sumptuously lined with cloth of
Arras. For the conference the duchess had reserved
a beautiful tent between the two.
The duchess arrived about ten with her niece the
Princess of Navarre and her ladies, richly dressed in
1 8— (22 10)
258 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
cloth of gold. The cardinal met her with an affection-
ate embrace, and led the way to the conference tent.
At Arras he had been merely the senior envoy on the
English side. At Oye he occupied the central seat
of honour, with the duchess on his right and the
princess on his left, while the ambassadors sat on either
side. The Archbishop of York opened the conference
with a Latin oration in praise of the mediators, and
the ambassadors exchanged their credentials. The
cardinal, who was fasting that day in honour of
St. Thomas the martyr, retired to dine, but his dinner
was interrupted by messengers from the duchess.
The French had taken grave exception to the terms
of the English credentials. They protested against
the bare reference to their king as " Charles of Valois,"
against the demand for the surrender of France, which
in the opinion of the duchess herself would have been
more wisely confined to the envoys' own instructions,
and also against the absence of any authorisation to
consider the question of the renunciation of the
crown ; and the cardinal had to consent to the
revision of the credentials, and to promise that the
English council would accept the revision. The
duchess and the French then returned to Gravelines,
the cardinal and the English to Calais.
The parties met again at Oye on July 10th. Revised
credentials were read and approved on both sides ;
the French had corrected certain obscurities in theirs
at the request of the English. The Archbishop of
York then proceeded to demand the cession of France,
arguing in favour of the King's title first from his
victories won in its defence, secondly from the
prophecy of St. Bride in her Book of Revelations that
when the realm of France had been reduced to true
humility it would revert to its lawful heir. The
CONFLICTING CLAIMS 259
Archbishop of Rheims retorted with a converse
argument from the victories of the French King and
with a prophecy of John the Hermit that after France
had suffered for her sins she would finally drive the
English from the realm. The English prelate insisted
on the superior inspiration of St. Bride, but eventually
passed on to the second of his instructions, and offered
to cede certain territories south of the Loire. The
French refused to consider any offer unless the English
were prepared to renounce their title, to do homage
for their territories, and to reinstate all dispossessed
French partisans within those territories. In that
case they would cede all present possessions of the
English in Aquitaine. Their offer was rejected by the
English. The cardinal spent an hour after dinner
alone with the duchess in the conference tent, but
had to tell his countrymen afterwards that the French
would not yield their points, and that a truce was as
much as the English could expect.
On July 13th the duchess and the French ambassa- Interven-
dors had an interview with the Duke of Orleans tion °* the
outside Calais, the cardinal coming in from time to 0f° Basel
time. In answer to an appeal from the duchess, the declined,
duke assured her that he would gladly die to secure
peace, but nothing came of the interview. On the
15th the cardinal and the ambassadors gave an
audience to the Bishop of Vique, a legate sent from
the Council of Basel to treat for peace. Next day the
Archbishop of York thanked the council for its good
intentions, but explained that the ambassadors could
only attend to the appointed mediators, the cardinal
and the duchess. It was the partisanship of the
fathers of the council at the conference at Arras that
had made the present conference necessary, and the
council had better take care moreover now to avoid
260
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Suspension
of the
Conference.
the responsibility of causing a schism in the Church.
The legate replied with a word of compliment for the
mediators, a word of defence for the council, and a
word of condemnation for the Pope. The archbishop
adhered to his complaint about the conduct of the
council at Arras, and refused to discuss the Pope ;
there were differences of opinion about the respective
authority of pope and council, but no doubt his
holiness could do justice to his own character when he
thought fit.
The duchess was recalled to St. Omer for a few days
by the illness of her husband, but returned for a
conference on the 18th. The cardinal had an inter-
view with her from which he came at once to tell the
English that the duchess regarded peace as hopeless,
since the French demanded the renunciation of the
crown and the English refused the demand of homage.
She had urged him to discuss the question of a truce
for thirty, twenty, or at least fifteen years, the respec-
tive claims of crown and homage to be waived for that
period, and the King to be free to resume his French
title and reopen the war at a year's notice.
Unfortunately, when the proposal of the duchess was
reduced to writing at the request of the English, it
was found that the French had inserted two other
conditions, the release of the Duke of Orleans and the
restoration of the ejected clerical and lay owners.
In that form the proposal had no chance of acceptance
by the English, and the Duke of Orleans admitted
to the cardinal that he shared the original impression
of the English and their surprise at the alterations.
Negotiation on such an uncertain basis was difficult.
The English replied with an offer to be content with
the ancient possessions of the King's predecessors
before the title to the French crown arose ; but the
REFERENCE TO ENGLAND 261
French were not satisfied with the specification
subsequently given of these possessions. The English
complained of the indefiniteness of the cessions
offered them during the time of the proposed truce.
The duchess pressed them in vain to accept at least
the outline of the proposal, and in her vexation burst
into tears, " whether of anger or sorrow," writes
Bekynton, " I know not." During the interchange
of schedules the cardinal seized the opportunity to
confer with Lannoy and other Burgundian envoys
whom he had invited to Calais ; he was anxious to
come to terms with Burgundy, even if terms with
France should prove unattainable. On the 29th the
cardinal met the duchess and the French ambassadors
at Oye, and told the English next day that the French
had offered to allow the King to keep his possessions
in Guienne and practically all Normandy. On the
29th all parties met near Calais, and it was agreed
that the conferences should be suspended until
September 11th, and meanwhile the English should
consult the King. The Archbishop of York and two
other ambassadors sailed for England on August
5th. The cardinal remained at Calais. He took
the precaution of increasing the sentries in view of
rumoured attempts at a rescue of the Duke of Orleans,
and on the 6th went to stay at the Castle of Hammes.
There the Bishop of Norwich and Bekynton paid him
a visit, and after dinner the cardinal rode with them
to the chapel and tomb of St. Gertrude, where they
made their offerings and said their devotions, and
brought away some of the earth from the saint s
grave " because it was said in common opinion to
drive away rats." The cardinal was recalled to
Calais on the 19th by the news of the capture of part
of the town of Meaux by the Constable of France.
262
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Negative
instruc-
tions from
England.
He was suffering from dysentery, but he took care
to keep the King informed of the news from Meaux,
and he rode out in the intervals of his sickness to
examine an irruption of the sea, and made a contract
for the necessary labour to repair the breach. On
September 7th he gave audience to a deputation of
Flemish herring-fishers who came to request a
safe-conduct for their boats.
On September 9th the ambassadors returned from
England with their new instructions. On the three
main points — the final or even temporary renuncia-
tion of the crown, the homage to the French King, the
reinstatement of the dispossessed — these instructions
required the ambassadors simply to refuse the French
demands. From a pious desire to avoid the guilt of
bloodshed or schism, the King would be content with
Normandy, Guienne, Calais, Guisnes and their
marches, all " to hold immediately of God and in no
wise of any earthly creature." In the last resort
he would reinstate the dispossessed in Normandy on
condition that the present holders were given a just
compensation, of which the King woud pay a
quarter, if his ambassadors could not shift it all off
his shoulders, and " the King's adversary " must pay
the rest. The Duke of Orleans might be released, but
only on bail to plead for peace, in default of which
he must return to captivity. To these instructions
was appended an elaborate justification of the King's
refusals. To waive his title even for a time would be
to discredit the justice of his former position or the
courage of his policy, to say nothing of the necessity
of revising the seal, coinage, and arms of the English
realm. To reinstate the dispossessed would be to eject
persons at present holding lands of the King under
good title or legal grant, to garrison his territories
REPLY FROM ENGLAND 263
with avowed enemies, and to imperil his hold upon
those territories if the war broke out again, as it
might at a year's notice. To accept such terms would
show far " too great a simpleness and lack of foresight."
The refusal, however, showed a far greater lack of Glouces-
foresight. There can be little doubt that it was r|spons-
Gloucester who was responsible for the refusal, ibility.
Within six months Gloucester penned his famous
indictment of the cardinal and his party. In that
indictment Gloucester stated proudly that when his
advice was asked by the King after the Archbishop
of York had endeavoured to persuade the King to
consent to the renunciation, he replied : "I would
never agree me thereto, to die therefore." 1 In
Beaufort's absence Gloucester was the dominant
personality at the council. He may be acquitted
perhaps of the crime of giving a judgment on national
policy out of private antagonism to the promoter of
that policy. He can scarcely be acquitted of wilful
blindness to the trend of events. High-flown language
about the title as vital to the honour of the King and
his predecessors was not to the point. The question
of holding anything at all in France with or without
title was rapidly becoming acute.
The last clause of the new instructions recommended FfaiJ}Jre
that the cardinal should offer the King's last terms in conference,
person " where it seemed that they may so better be
put in overture than immediately by the said ambas-
sadors." The compliment was double-edged, for the
cardinal was foredoomed to failure. On September
11th the English went to the place of conference, and
found that the French had not been seen at Gravelines
since the end of July ; and the cardinal informed his
countrymen on their return to Calais that " the
1 Stevenson, ii, 446.
264 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
adversary of France " had written to the Duchess of
Burgundy and the Duke of Orleans to say that the
question of peace must be laid before the estates
general on September 25th, and the conference must
be postponed until after that date. The English
decided that the conference was at an end, but the
cardinal was to continue to negotiate with the duchess
and Orleans. On the 15th the duchess drove to
Calais to hear the news from England. The cardinal
told the ambassadors next day that she pressed hard
for the acceptance of her proposed form of peace ;
and when he convinced her that there was no hope of
its acceptance she argued in person or by her chan-
cellor in favour of the continuation of the negotiations
as lately suggested by the French. The cardinal
refused to consider this proposal, and attributed the
delay of the French to " fraud," adding that they had
made larger concessions at Arras than they now
offered. The duchess thereupon played the candid
friend. She reminded the cardinal that the King
was in a stronger position then, and ran through a list
of towns lost by the English since Arras. The
cardinal did not need reminding ; but the new
instructions from England drove him to maintain an
attitude which he knew to be absurd in the face of
Truce with facts. The subject of France was then dropped,
urgun y. j^e duchess, however, had an end of her own to secure,
and she asked " mildly enough, in fact coolly, it
seemed, and in an offhand sort of way," whether
the cardinal wished the truce with Burgundy to
continue, and whether he had anything further to say
about mercantile intercourse between England and
Flanders. The cardinal replied by asking her the
same question, and an agreement was made which
ended in the signature a fortnight later of a truce for
FAILURE OF THE CONFERENCE 265
three years which safeguarded the commercial
interests of the two countries. On October 2nd the
cardinal and the ambassadors heard mass in the
Carmelite Church at Calais, and at seven set sail for
England to report their failure. The only consoling
feature in the situation was the truce with Burgundy,
which meant safety for Calais and freedom to attend
to the defence of Normandy.
CHAPTER XIII
Proposal to
release the
Duke of
Orleans.
THE POLICY OF THE BEAUFORT PARTY
1439-1444
Before the year 1439 was over both England and
France were preparing for a fresh conference in
accordance with the last proposals of the Duchess of
Burgundy at Oye. The cardinal's return to England
had restored the supremacy of the peace party at
home. In France the English were more and more
content perforce to remain on the defensive. The
veteran Warwick had died in harness early in 1439,
and his place was filled by the Earl of Somerset, the
cardinal's nephew, a far inferior leader. Guienne
was now hard pressed by a French invasion ; Nor-
mandy was still in sore straits. The case for nego-
tiation was stronger than ever. The negotiations,
however, were indirect this time ; the question of the
year was the release of the Duke of Orleans. It was
a quadrilateral deal. France was anxious to regain
a prisoner more valuable even to England as a hostage
than to France as a subject. Burgundy was bent on
uniting the great lords of France in an attempt to
keep the power of their King in check, and the support
of Orleans was a necessary and a promising factor in
this attempt. The Cardinal of England welcomed
the opportunity of at once laying Burgundy under an
obligation and weakening the realm of France from
within. It was obviously impossible to explain
publicly the origin or aim of the new policy, but there
were other respectable and plausible considerations
which could be urged in favour of the release of a
266
GLOUCESTER'S INDICTMENT 267
prisoner upon whose retention Henry V had insisted
so strongly in his last wishes. The Duke of Orleans
had continually asserted his desire and his ability to
procure peace if he were only set at liberty, and of
course his ransom would be a welcome relief to the
exhausted treasury. The captive duke himself was no
mere pivot of the plan ; he wanted power as well as
freedom. He was ready to buy the termination of
a quarter of a century of exile at any price, but he
was also pledged already by a private understanding
with the Duchess Isabella to bury the past feud of
his house in an alliance with Burgundy. The whole
scheme was a complicated network of conspiring
interests which were ultimately bound to prove
conflicting. Meanwhile it provoked Gloucester into
an outburst of antagonism fiercer than ever.
It was characteristic of Gloucester that his first Glouces-
protest was a personal attack upon the cardinal and ^.^
the Archbishop of York, the leaders of the peace party, upon
Their present policy was, indeed, included in the Beaufort,
indictment, but the indictment ran back to Beaufort's
first acceptance of the cardinalate in 1417. It was an
indiscriminate array of every possible accusation
against his old rival and opponent. x The first two
charges (1,2) denounced the illegality of his position
as cardinal and bishop, regardless of the fact that
parliament and council had long ago given that
position full indemnity and recognition, and that the
cardinal had himself won the acquiescence of the
primate, if not his approval, by refraining from
interference in church affairs at home these last ten
1 Stevenson, ii, 440-451, from Ashmole MS. 856 (Bodleian
Library), pp. 392-405 ; Arnold's Chronicle, pp. 279-286 ;
Hall, pp. 197-201. The numbers in the text above are the
numbers of the " items " as they are given in the indictment.
268 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
years. (3) The third charge reveals the line of party
cleavage at this time ; Beaufort and Kemp were
accused of having usurped the position of " chief
councillor," which should be the privilege of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and also of " estranging "
and excluding from their rightful share in the King's
confidence Gloucester himself and the Duke of York
and the Earl of Huntingdon and other lords.
Gloucester next turned to deal with matters of finance.
He asserted (4) that during the King's " tender age "
the cardinal once lent £4,000 on royal jewels valued
at 22,000 marks (over £14,000), and instead of
allowing the treasurer to redeem the jewels at the
time agreed made him spend the money on part of
another army, in order to retain the jewels to his own
profit and to the King's loss. (5) The cardinal's loans
had been and were still secured by assignments on the
customs of the port of Southampton within his own
diocese ; Gloucester now hinted that as the cardinal
was himself the " chief merchant of wools " in the
land, and the customs-officers were his servants,
the revenue probably suffered undiscoverable losses.
(6) His loans were indeed great in amount, but they
were delayed till they were practically useless.
(15) Jewels forfeited by the cardinal to the value of
£11,000 by weight had been recovered by him " for
the loan of a little parcel thereof," the King being
thus " defrauded wholly of them." (16) The cardinal
had purchased of the King certain estates, e.g., the
castle and lordship of Chirk in Wales ; and Gloucester
had only consented, he said, under protest, in order
to avoid the abandonment of the expedition to
Guienne, which apparently depended on the cardinal's
advances. But the cardinal had stipulated that the
King must give him possession by Easter, 1440, or
CHARGES OF DISHONESTY 269
else surrender to him the Norfolk estates of the
Duchy of Lancaster to the annual value of 700 or 800
marks. (18) He had " sued a pardon," {i.e., an
exemption) for life from the payment of the tenths
due from the see of Winchester, regardless of the
King's needs and of the bad example thus set to
other lords spiritual to shift their share of national
burdens on to the temporalty and the King's " poor
people." (7) He had abused his position as " feoffee "
or trustee of the late King's estate by giving Elizabeth
Beauchamp 300 marks' worth of property on her
marriage, though the King's will expressly stipulated
that she was to receive the property only in case of
her marriage within a year. Then there was his
preferment of his nephew, Swynford, though here
Gloucester gave no word of specification. (8) The
Scottish King had been released by the bishop
without authority to the " great defraudation " of
the King of England, all for the sake of making a
queen of the bishop's niece ; the bishop had sacrificed
a sixth of the ransom, and the Scottish King had paid
but little of the rest. (20) Finally, the duke attacked
the sources of the cardinal's wealth. " Of his church
it might not rise ; inheritance hath he none." At a
time when the poverty of the King's subjects made
honesty and efficiency more needful than ever, the
cardinal had sold offices and commands in France to
the highest bidder, regardless of service or ability.
Further back still, the cardinal, " having the rule of
the King," had purchased a pardon for his offence
against the statute of provisors, whereas the property
forfeited by this offence would under careful manage-
ment have paid the cost of the war for many years,
and saved the King's poor people from taxation.
In seven other articles of the indictment Gloucester
270 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
fell foul of the policy of the cardinal and the arch-
bishop. (9) Money had been wasted on embassies.
An embassy had been sent to Arras "for a feigned
colourable peace/' but the only result was a peace
between Burgundy and France, which might never
have come if the conference at Arras had not given
them an opportunity of meeting " to conclude their
confederacy and conspiration " against the King.
(10) Another embassy had been sent to Calais lately
(i.e., early in 1439). Its reasons were unknown to
Gloucester, the King's " sole uncle," and to other
lords of his kin and council ; and its cost might well
have gone to defend the realm and to protect com-
merce. (11) Then came the conferences at Calais in
the summer of 1439. In spite of the " natural war "
between the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, the
cardinal and the archbishop had allowed Orleans to
confer privately with the French lords as well as
with the Duchess of Burgundy, and the result had
been a peace and alliance between the two dukes,
" to the greatest fortifying," Gloucester told the
King, " of your capital adversary." Meanwhile the
French had used the time of the conference to capture
Meaux and other places in Normandy. (12) The
archbishop had been sent home by the cardinal to
induce the King to grant the French demands, and
had actually urged the King to surrender his title
for a time, " to the great note of infamy that ever
fell " to the King and his noble progenitors. For
his own part Gloucester had resisted and would resist
the surrender ; he would live and die in defence of the
King's honour and his coronation oath in France.
(13) Now the two prelates had persuaded the King to
consent to a renewal of the conferences in March or
April, 1440. The responsibility for the failure of
CHARGES OF MISGOVERNMENT 271
1439 lay, as the world could see, with the " untruths "
of the adverse party ; the next failure would be made
to rest upon the King. (14) Finally, the proposal
to release the Duke of Orleans was the work of the
same two prelates. Yet the late King had by his last
will urged that the release should be postponed till
the conquest of France was completed, and then
should only be conceded under strict safeguards.
The personal element was evident again in two of
the closing charges. (17) The cardinal, in spite of the
fact that he had " no manner of authority nor interest
unto the crown," had " taken upon him estate royal "
by summoning the council several times to his own
house, a thing which had not been done in the case of
greater men than himself without express command
of the King. (19) Gloucester complained that his
offers of personal service in France had been rejected
" by the labour of the said cardinal in preferring other
of his singular affection," who had only succeeding
in losing ground. The Earl of Dorset's recent
expedition was a notorious failure. Gloucester con-
cluded his tirade by disavowing any intention of
accusing the council; he had, he said, named the
persons responsible for the " disordinate rule" of
which he complained. His business lay with the
cardinal and the archbishop, who "pretended the
governance " of the King and realm. He asked the
King outright to exclude them from his council " to
that intent that men may be at their freedom to say
what them thinketh of truth" ; finally, he posed as
the brave advocate of the suppressed, " for though
I dare speak of my truth, the poor dare not so."
When the cardinal and archbishop had cleared
themselves, then they might safely be restored to the
King's council.
272
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Estimate of
Glouces-
ter's
Some of the charges in this pamphlet of Gloucester's
have been already considered in their place, e.g., the
indictment, cardinalate, the Scottish marriage, the retention of
the see of Winchester. Others are speedily answered
in the light of the facts already given. The conference
at Arras, for instance, was indeed costly ; it is said
to have absorbed £20,000. But it was an honest
effort on Beaufort's part, if obstinate. The reconci-
liation between Philip and Charles VII was in no
sense due to the conference ; it was rather a foregone
conclusion before the conference met. In fact
Gloucester was not merely here and on other points
guilty of the fallacy of mistaking sequels for conse-
quences ; the whole document, as critic and apologist
alike can see, proves how completely he failed to
read the significance of current events. * His personal
attack on the cardinal is more difficult to estimate in
detail. Part of it reads like pure malice ; it was
absurdly spiteful to drag in the question of succession
to the crown in connexion with the meeting of the
council at the cardinal's house. Gloucester had
taken upon himself to summon the lords to his own
house more than once. On other points, where
evidence is now lacking, the duke has the advantage
of having been left unanswered at the time. The
cardinal met the manifesto with a silence that was
more dignified than politic. Possibly there were
some matters of business not easily explained or
justified ; a " pardon " was not a merely formal
compliment. But there can be little doubt that in the
main Beaufort was as honest as he was grasping.2
A striking reply to one complaint of Gloucester's is
1 Stubbs, iii, 129 ; Vickers, p. 263.
2 Sir John Fortescue's opinion to the contrary (Plummer's
Fortescue, p. 134) is not conclusive.
SOURCES OF BEAUFORT'S WEALTH 273
furnished by the fact that just before the presentation
of this indictment to the King Beaufort had at the
King's own request consented to extend from Easter
to Martinmas the time-limit for the redemption of
certain royal jewels pledged to him for a loan. 1
The charge of selling favour and patronage finds The
an echo in Hall's chronicle in the next century. Hall Card*nars
asserts that the bishop's cardinalate was " to his wealth<
profit and the impoverishing of the spiritualty."
" By bull legatine, which he purchased at Rome, he
gathered so much treasure that no man in manner
had money but he, and so was he surnamed the rich
Cardinal of Winchester." 2 The reference is probably
to the sale of the " faculties " of a legate in 1427-1429,
but it is doubtful whether in the absence of evidence
any reliance can be placed on such vague language.
The question of the sources of the cardinal's wealth
is certainly an unsolved problem, but there is no
reason to postulate wholesale merchandise of military
or civil honours or ecclesiastical dispensations.
The cardinal had the revenues of his see and the
ordinary and extraordinary salaries attaching to the
offices of councillor and chancellor ; he lived appar-
ently a frugal life apart from his politic outbursts of
magnificence on the occasion of an embassy or an
official reception ; he invested his available resources
in the great national commodity, English wool ; he
was, it seems, working rich silver mines in Devon and
Cornwall ; " probably he had a share in every good
thing." 3 He was the chief trustee of the Lancastrian
family estates, perhaps also the trustee or banker of
other estates and persons, and invested their property
1 Proceedings, v, 115.
2 Hall, p. 139.
3 Ramsay, ii, 79,
19 — (2210)
274
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
in trade or loans along with his own. Practically he
was the great financier of his age.
Glouces- Gloucester's attack upon his rivals failed. Henry
ter's f VI even welcomed the promotion of the arch-
agSt the bishop to the cardinalate early in 1440, and granted
release of him permission to retain his see. Gloucester then
Orleans. toned from the men to their new policy, and fired
his second shot. Early in June he issued a manifesto
condemning the proposal to release the Duke ot
Orleans 1 He dwelt upon the incapacity of the
French King, and the certainty that the duke's
abilities and his knowledge of English affairs would
give him the first place at the French court. The
English council must not count upon the dissensions
of the French nobility or the chance of discord
between Orleans and Burgundy. The duke was more
likely to be the rallying point of all France, and would
probably repudiate any oaths imposed upon him in
England. Finally, the commandment of the late
King must be kept. The council published a reply
which doubtless was inspired by Beaufort as much as
by the King.2 They stated that the proposal to
release the duke was the King's own intention,
prompted by the desire for peace. His predecessors
had failed to achieve the conquest of France ; the
present war was an intolerable strain on both the
King's realms, and its continuance an iniquity ; the
French were willing to negotiate if the duke were
himself included and employed in the negotiations ;
and the duke's own intention was for peace. Ine
tone of the document was admirable, but its argu-
ments were certainly inconclusive ; the duke was yet
an unascertained factor, and his action a matter ot
i AshmoleMS. 856, pp. 405-412 ; Vickers, pp. 264-265.
a Stevenson, ii, 451-460.
/
THE CARDINAL'S POLICY 275
" trust and hope." The experiment was, however,
worth making, and it was made. The agreement
for the duke's release was drawn up on July 2nd.
His ransom— 20,000 marks to be paid down and
30,000 to be paid within six months— was only half
the ransom asked at Arras. Perhaps the other half
was to be paid in services to be rendered in France.
The duke was to be free for a year ; if successful in
procuring peace he was to remain free and receive
his ransom back; otherwise he was to return into
captivity. The release was a venture of faith, and
not altogether an honourable faith, as the duke was
sent back in the hope of fostering civil war in France.
But it was not the whole of the cardinal's policy.
On the very day of this agreement the Duke of York
was appointed lieutenant in France for five years.
The cardinal and Gloucester were jointly responsible
for the appointment ; it was a conciliatory step on
the cardinal's part in answer to the charge that he
had "estranged" York from the council. Again,
Gloucester had asserted in his protest against the
duke's release that England had only one ally in
Europe, Portugal ; the cardinal proceeded to remedy
this isolation by making treaties with Brittany and
various German magnates.1 Gloucester, however,
was implacable ; when Orleans was sworn to loyalty
in Westminster Abbey, on October 28th, Gloucester
strode out at the beginning of the mass. Orleans
left London for Calais on November 5th, and went
straight to his benefactor Burgundy, abjured the
blood-feud, and on the 26th married Burgundy's
niece, Mary of Cleves. Beaufort's plan had succeeded
so far. A further success had fallen to him in October.
His nephew, Dorset, redeemed his reputation by
1 Ramsay, ii, 26.
276 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
capturing Harfleur after a tough siege of six
months.
Prosecution Gloucester's indictment of Beaufort and Kemp was
of the referred by the King to his council, " whereof," says
Gl^uSe0/ Hall> " the most Part Were sPiritual Persons> S0 what
for fear and what for favour the matter was winked at
and dallied out and nothing said."1 It was not
forgotten. A year later the duke's enemies had their
revenge. There is little doubt that the attack upon
his wife, Eleanor Cobham, was intended to strike at
his own reputation. She was accused of sorcery and
treason. Her supposed accomplices were arrested
first— an Oxford priest and astrologer named
Boli'ngbroke, and a canon of Westminster named
Southwell. On July 23rd, 1441, Bolingbroke was
compelled to abjure his suspicious practices m
St. Paul's churchyard in the presence of Cardinal
Beaufort, Archbishop Chichele, and three other
bishops. The Duchess of Gloucester, recognising her
danger, fled to the sanctuary at Westminster ; but
Bolingbroke's confession that he had cast her horo-
scope, probably with the idea of finding her chance
of coming to the throne, led to her trial before the
two cardinals and the Archbishop of Canterbury at
St. Stephen's, Westminster, and she was remanded
to Leeds Castle on a series of charges of witchcraft,
heresy, and treason. A commission of lay peers found
Bolingbroke and Southwell guilty of treason, and the
duchess was pronounced accessory to their crime,
along with the notorious Witch of Eye. Eleanor was
herself examined in October by commissaries of the
archbishop, who excused himself from attendance
on grounds of health. She was accused of trying to
effect the King's death by magical arts, and was
i Hall, p. 202.
GLOUCESTER RUINED 277
condemned to do public penance bareheaded in the
streets of London, and then dismissed to confinement
for life in castle after castle. The witch was burned ;
the priest-astrologer died a traitor's death. Gloucester,
never a man of moral strength, submitted in sullen
silence to the degradation of his wife and the ruin of
his own influence. It was a merciless revenge,
whoever planned it, and it did its work ; Gloucester
played but little part in public affairs during the last
five years of his life. x
The discrediting of Gloucester in 1441 left the Predomi-
Beaufort party in command of the situation. At 0f the
its head stood the cardinal, now sixty-six years of age Beaufort
or more, but still taking an active and frequent part Party-
in the business of the council, though more and more
inclined or compelled to leave matters in the hands
of his partisans. His nephews, John Earl of Somerset
and Edmund Earl of Dorset, held high military
commands. The chancellor, Bishop Stafford, was
an old colleague ; the Cardinal of York was a close
ally of his brother of Winchester ; and the Earl of
Suffolk, a regular attendant at the council, was
related to the Beauforts through his wife, Alice
Chaucer, a grand-daughter of the poet. Long before
this time the Beaufort party had been recognised as
the peace party, and their policy was brought into
greater relief by the agitation raised by Gloucester
in 1440. It was not yet a popular policy. With a
strange yet not uncommon inconsistency, the English
nation clung obstinately to the war which it had long
ceased to support vigorously. Gloucester's cham-
pionship of the honour of the English crown still found
a response, perhaps an increasing response, in a
1 Ramsay, ii, 31-35 ; Vickers, pp. 269-280.
278 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
" vicious, sturdy, unintelligent hatred "* of the idea
of peace with France. For a time, indeed, the
Beaufort party had little return to show for the
sacrifice of their most valuable pawn, the Duke of
Orleans. The secret correspondence of 1441 between
the Dukes of Orleans, Alen^on, Brittany and Bur-
gundy came to no tangible result. Neither did the
second effort of the duke. In March, 1442, there was
a great meeting of discontented French lords at
Nevers. They required Charles VII to grant redress
of their grievances and to arrange a new conference
with England, but they stopped short of applying
force. Charles was still free to keep up his heavy
Guienne pressure on Normandy and Guienne. The English
in danger, had lost the whole of the Isle of France. Poitou and
Guienne were invaded in force in 1442, and the
Archbishop of Bordeaux hastened to England, and on
August 21st pleaded the danger of his province
before a full meeting of the council. Beaufort and
Gloucester were both present. The danger in fact
united both parties for a time. Next day an expedi-
tion and a loan were discussed. Gloucester consented
to give personal security " as far as any man would
take him " for part of the loan. The cardinal was
willing but unable to lend money ; he had none
ready. So he offered to lend £4,000 worth of plate,
though he insisted that if the " vessel " were melted
down for coinage he must be repaid the cost of the
" farceon " (i.e., fashion, design) as well as the value
of the metal. 2 Little, however, was done beyond
sending scanty reinforcements to Bordeaux and
proposing to appoint Somerset to command in
Guienne. York in the autumn sent Talbot to besiege
1 Stubbs, iii, 130.
2 Proceedings, v, 198, 199.
FINANCE AT THE COUNCIL 279
Dieppe, but the siege failed for want of men. On The
October 7th and 8th the council once more authorised ^dinal
negotiations for peace, and advised the King to tell nati0nal
his ambassadors in any case to secure a truce, long or finance,
short. On the 12th the cardinal's financial instincts
were roused by a petition from the merchants of the
staple at Calais. They asked for an assignment of
one mark out of the wool duties in repayment of their
loans to the crown. All the councillors gave their
consent but the cardinal. He protested on behalf of
the persons holding claims already assigned on the
subsidy in question : " so by this mean no man here-
after should trust none assignment " ; and the
treasurer supported the old financier's protest in
favour of justice to prior creditors. The cardinal
objected also to the merchants' request that they
might be dispensed from a recent statute of January,
1442, requiring them to bring back a third part of the
value of wools sold by them in bullion. He remarked
that this would be to give the Flemings just what
they wanted ; the dispensation would lead to the
practical abolition of the statute. The cardinal's
effort thus to secure ready money for the English
treasury failed ; on the 18th the dispensation was
granted in his absence on the report of the mayor of
the staple that the Duke of Burgundy's prohibition
of the Flemish merchants made it impossible to
enforce the statute. On the same day the council
had to arrange for security to be given to persons
who had already responded to the King's appeal in
August for a loan, and a messenger was sent to the
cardinal to ask him what the King had decided about
assigning security on the tenths and fifteenths and
on the crown jewels. 1
1 Proceedings, v, 215-221.
280 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Question of The safety of Guienne was still unsecured at the
Normandy beginning of 1443. Meanwhile the French invasion
or Guienne. had already ended a project of English diplomacy
in that neighbourhood. At the suggestion of the
Duke of Orleans, John Count of Armagnac had
offered Henry VI one of his daughters. Envoys went
out in July, 1442, to conclude the alliance ; but the
count, willing as he was, dared not proceed further
with his overlord of France in arms at his doors.
The envoys broke off the negotiations and came back
in January.1 The rupture has been attributed to
the promptings of Suffolk, who objected to the alliance
because it was approved by Gloucester. It is more
probable that the envoys simply returned to tell the
tale of loss and danger in Gascony. The report of the
envoys certainly seems to have brought the council
to the point of action. On February 6th the council
faced the question of the hour, viz., whether Guienne
or Normandy should be reinforced first. The
treasurer and chancellor and two bishops thought
both should be relieved ; but if that were impossible,
then the province that was in greater need. The
Cardinal of York thought the King must be content
to do what he could, and urged the King to write to
the bishops "to stir them to prayer." "My lord
Cardinal of England " said that the order of the sending
of the two reliefs must be decided by the lords
temporal, but he thought both must be taken in hand
only before the appointment of the two armies the
treasurer ought to state what funds were available
Gloucester agreed with the Cardinal of York, evi
dently intending to confine the relief to Normandy
where his partisan the Duke of York was still waiting
1 Bekynton, ii, 206 foil. Bekynton was one of the envoys.
YORK AND SOMERSET 281
for men and means.1 Beaufort's policy was the
bolder and wiser, but the circumstances of its execu- Expedition
tion were indeed discreditable. It was marred by °f
nepotism from the outset. His nephew Somerset was
made a duke, and on March 30th was appointed
captain-general of all France and Guienne, though
his authority was distinctly confined to regions not
under the actual control of the Duke of York. Dorset
was made a marquis. The Duke of York was told, in
language which implied censure of his own inaction,
that the King had retained Somerset " to use most
cruel and mortal war that he can and may " ; it was
thought " necessary that the manner and the conduct
of the war be changed." He was merely consoled
with the intimation that Somerset's expedition would
be a "shield" to his own operations in Normandy,
and that Somerset's command was limited in its
practical range. Hardest of all, he was asked to
wait patiently for the £20,000 due to him ; the King
would meet his obligations " as far as reason would,"
but Somerset's equipment was a "great charge."2
The cardinal was not even just to York in the matter
of finance. He was generous enough indeed in the
amount of his own loans, perhaps out of pride in his
nephew's promotion, perhaps out of gratitude for
the " pardon " granted to himself in March for all
penalties and fines which he might have incurred up
to February 1st, 1443. Of the £13,500 drawn by
Somerset for his first quarter's pay in April for his
4,200 men — the largest reinforcement sent out for
many a year — £10,000 was lent by his uncle ; another
loan of £10,000 followed in June. The treasurer was
still £8,000 short, and the cardinal advanced another
1 Proceedings, v, 223, 224.
a Proceedings, v, 259-263.
282 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
£1 ,000 to pay for ships to take Somerset's army across. x
But he was in his rigidest mood over the signing of
the agreement for the second £10,000. He refused
to lend unless the letters patent agreed exactly with
the minute of the council. Gloucester broke out
into sarcastic comment after his uncle left the council
chamber ; they need not waste their time in reading
and discussing the conditions. " Mine uncle saith
plainly that he will lend no money unless he have
it under the form."2 There was no room for discus-
sion. They could not send the men to Guienne
without the cardinal's money. The first £10,000 was
repaid in 1444, the second in 1445. In 1444 the Duke
of York was paid £12,000 due to him for wages, but
paid out of a loan borrowed from himself ; and it
was ten years before that loan was all repaid.
Somerset's Somerset's expedition ended in failure and disgrace.
failure. Never an able soldier, he was unnerved by illness, and
insisted on inserting in the articles of his commission
in March, 1443, that he was being retained "to do
his honest best," as though he had a foreboding of
failure. After prolonged delays which drove the
council to criticise and complain, he sailed in August
not to Bordeaux, where he was wanted, but to
Cherbourg, and wasted men and money in a fruitless
raid into Anjou and Maine. The Duke of Brittany,
at least a nominal friend of England, wrote to the
council to complain that he had been compelled to
buy Somerset out of his own territory ; and the
council on December 12th advised the King to enclose
the duke's letter in a despatch to Somerset and to
require him to make restitution for this outrage.
On the 13th Lord Sudeley, the " wardrober," was sent
1 Ramsay, ii, 50, 53 n. 5.
2 Proceedings, v, 279, 280.
THE PENALTY OF NEPOTISM 283
to notify this decision to the cardinal, who had now
retired from the council ; and the cardinal sent back
word that " him seemed the said advisements good." *
It must have been a bitter confession for the old
statesman, who had probably justified his nepotism
to himself by a fond belief in his nephew's ability
and discretion. Somerset had finally to fall back into
Normandy and seek a rallying-point with his rival
of York at Rouen. He returned to England invalided,
and died in May, 1444, in his fortieth year.
1 Proceedings, vi, 18, 19 ; for Brittany's complaint, see
vi, 11-13.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PASSING OF THE CARDINAL
1444-1447
The Earl of Four days after Somerset's death the wardship and
Suffolk. marriage of his three-year-old daughter and heiress,
Margaret Beaufort, were given to Suffolk for nothing.
It was rumoured that this remarkable favour pointed
to an intention to marry the child to Suffolk's son,
John de la Pole. * Both the favour and the rumour
were proof of the closeness of the association between
Suffolk and the Beaufort party. Suffolk was in fact
the practical head of the party, or shared its headship
with Edmund Beaufort, Marquis of Dorset. The
party was more predominant than ever. The King,
who came of age in December, 1442, was happier in
problems of churchmanship and of education than in
military or diplomatic affairs. The Cardinal of York
had indeed begun to fall away somewhat from the
Beaufort party, perhaps in jealousy of Suffolk's
increasing influence or in suspicion of his policy ; but
1 In spite of Henry IV 's attempt in 1407 to exclude the
Beauforts from the succession, their blood flowed eventually-
back into the royal line. The little Margaret, whether
married first or not married to John de la Pole, became the
wife of Edmund Tudor (son of Katharine, widow of Henry V,
by her second husband, Owen Tudor), the mother of Henry of
Richmond, afterwards Henry VII, and the ancestress of all
the Tudor sovereigns of England. She was six years old
when her great-uncle the cardinal died in 1447 ; and in 1492
she succeeded at last in establishing her title to certain manors
in Wiltshire and Somersetshire which he had purchased from
Henry VI and which had been claimed and held by the
Countess of Salisbury under the Yorkist sovereigns. See
Cooper's The Lady Margaret (ed. Mayor), pp. 2-8, 51.
284
THE RISE OF SUFFOLK 285
Bishop Stafford was still chancellor, though he had Retirement
succeeded to the Archbishopric of Canterbury after the °f *£e
death of Chichele in April, 1443. The old Cardinal CardinaL
of England, however, was no longer prominent in
affairs of state. His last recorded attendance at the
privy council was in June, 1443. He was a trier of
petitions in the parliament of January, 1442, but
his name is absent from the roll of the next parliament,
which met in March, 1445. The cathedral city of
Winchester was at last in possession of its bishop ; he
had come to spend his last days in the diocese which
for forty years he had willingly sacrificed to the
claims of his King and country.
After the failure of Somerset's expedition the The French
council had no alternative but to open negotiations marriage,
again with France. The demand for a long truce
was waived in the desire to secure a truce of any
duration ; and the surrender of the French title,
which the Cardinal of England was prepared in the
last resort to make in 1439, was now contemplated in
earnest as the only way of retaining what the council
determined to demand, namely, Normandy, Guienne,
and Maine. The project of an Armagnac marriage
which Gloucester had favoured was replaced by the
proposal of a marriage with a niece of the French King,
Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Rene, titular King
of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem, a practically landless
and penniless sovereign, and a former enemy of
Burgundy. This new alliance was suggested by
the Duke of Orleans, and the English council was
content perforce to retain his support by accepting
his suggestion. Suffolk, who was entrusted with the
negotiations in February, 1444, had grave doubts or
fears of his mission. He pleaded that his intimacy
with the Duke of Orleans, once his prisoner, made
286 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
him an object of suspicion at home ; and his reference
to " language sown " against him in London indicates
that the marriage was unpopular or that the nation
was afraid of the possible concessions involved.1
Gloucester, though silent at the council, was not
innocent of agitation in the city. The King over-
ruled Suffolk's objections, and granted him an
indemnity against any charge that might be brought
against any of his proceedings in the matter of the
embassy. The indemnity was no superfluous precau-
tion. The French stood out for homage for Nor-
mandy and Guienne ; and Suffolk came home from
the betrothal of Margaret at Tours in May with
nothing more to show than a truce with France for
two years and, by way of dower, an empty claim of
Rene* to a kingdom in Spain. Probably he hoped
that the truce would grow to more in the process of
later negotiation ; but the sequel was to bring disgrace
as well as defeat. Suffolk, now made a marquis for
his services, went back to fetch the bride. The
Surrender French pressed this time for the surrender of Nor-
of Maine, mandy and Maine in return for some additions to
Guienne. Afraid of losing even the marriage, Suffolk
in a moment of weakness secretly promised to concede
Maine. He brought back the young Queen in April ;
the concession of Maine he seems to have kept still
secret in the hope that it might be made independently
in the course of the negotiations v/ith a French
embassy which was to follow him to London. The
embassy came in July, but the only result was a slight
prolongation of the truce. The journal of the French
embassy reveals Suffolk plausible and confident, the
King gracious to the point of imbecility. The Cardinal
of York was present at most of the conferences.
1 Proceedings, vi, 32.
THE POLICY OF SUFFOLK 287
Beaufort appears once, but in the background.
On July 21st the envoys of France and Brittany
" went to visit the Cardinal of England who had
arrived " in London, " and made their reverence to
him, and he spoke good words of peace to them."1
The marriage and the prospect of peace were the
triumph of his policy ; his influence was betokened
by the fact that a precious jewel of his was set in the
Queen's betrothal ring ; of the surrender of Maine,
however, he was probably innocent and ignorant.
That surrender lay between Suffolk and the King.
The King's personal desire for peace at any cost had
been an increasingly important factor in the situation,
and the Queen also was now working in the interests
of her family and kindred in France. In December
the King signed an agreement to surrender Maine to
Rene on behalf of Charles VII, without any reference
to the secret undertaking of Suffolk ; and in April,
1446, parliament, after repealing the clause in the
Treaty of Troyes which forbade peace without the
consent of the estates of both realms, was told by the
chancellor on behalf of the lords that the peace was
the King's own original idea and wish. The whole
question is a tangled affair. Suffolk may have been
either playing for his own predominance at court or,
on the contrary, sacrificing his reputation in the
prosecution of a policy which the country at once
needed and hated. The responsibility for the last
concessions may have rested with the King or it may
have been put upon the King. It certainly did not
rest with Beaufort. It was one thing to abandon
a hopeless claim to the crown of France ; it was an-
other thing to give away an ancient possession of the
English crown. Private interest, too, would forbid
1 Stevenson, i, 137, 138,
288 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the sacrifice ; Maine had been granted to his nephew,
Dorset, for life in April, 1443. The year 1446 was
marked by a further concession, the surrender of all
ecclesiastical revenues in Normandy claimed by
French subjects. This concession was Suffolk's own ;
and it left Normandy practically an empty name.
Death of The next year saw the end of the two great rivals
Gloucester. wj10 s^00(j now jn the background, Beaufort in
diocesan retirement, Gloucester in silent but not
silenced opposition. The story of Gloucester's tragic
end is sooner told than explained. Plans were laid
for his impeachment in the parliament which was
to meet at Bury St. Edmund's on February 10th,
1447. On the 18th he arrived with an imprudent
display of armed retinue, and was promptly arrested.
On the 23rd he died. The circumstances of his death
were undoubtedly suspicious, but contemporary
friends made no accusation of murder. On the other
hand, there is little doubt that Suffolk and the Queen
were bent upon crushing, if not upon removing, the
one man who would be certain to make scandal of
the loss of Maine ; and it is probable that it was only
his timely death under the shock of his arrest which
saved him from judicial murder. His old antagonist
can scarcely be even suspected of having had a hand
in his death, or even in his prosecution. " The
cardinal had nothing to fear from him and nothing to
gain by his death."1 Such complicity would have
been at once a crime and a blunder, a mere wantonness
of revenge, and a mad imperilling of the house of
Lancaster and of the Beaufort interest which was
bound up with that house.
1 Church Qu. Review, xii, 391. On the circumstances of
Gloucester's death see Stubbs, iii, 141, 142 ; Ramsay, ii, 75,
76; Vickers, pp. 295-305.
THE LAST SCENE 289
Six weeks later, on April 11th, came the passing of Death of
the cardinal himself. Nothing in his whole life has Beaufort,
been more maligned than the manner of its end.
A century later Hall raked up a story attributed to
Dr. John Baker, " his privy councillor and his chap-
lain." According to this tale the cardinal as he lay
dying lamented the failure of his ambition and the
uselessness of all his wealth. " Why should I die,
having so much riches ? If the whole realm would
save my life, I am able either by policy to get it, or
by riches to buy it. Fye, will not death be hired,
nor will money do nothing ? When my nephew of
Bedford died, I thought myself half up the wheel,
but when I saw mine other nephew of Gloucester
deceased, then I thought myself able to be equal with
kings, and so thought to increase my treasure in hope
to have worn a triple crown. But I see now the
world faileth me, and so I am deceived, praying you
all to pray for me."1 The thoughts attributed to
Beaufort after Gloucester's death are sufficient to
discredit the entire saying. But Shakespeare lent
his genius to a yet worse misrepresentation of the
cardinal. Readers of Henry the Sixth will scarcely
need reminding of the scene of " black despair," in
which the cardinal passes away in an agony of
remorse for the murder of Gloucester, unable to give
the King at his bedside even a dumb sign of any
conscious hope of forgiveness. 2 Far different indeed
is the simple tale of an eye-witness preserved in the
chronicle of the monastery of Croyland. 3 There we
read how the cardinal, as the end drew near, sum-
moned the clerks of the neighbourhood, both secular
1 Hall, pp. 210, 211.
2 Henry the Sixth, Part II, Act iii, Scene 3.
8 Gale, Hist. Croyland. Contin., p. 516.
20— (2210)
290
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Character
of Beaufort.
Scanty-
patronage
of letters.
and regular, to the great hall of his palace of Wolvesey
at Winchester. It was the day before Palm Sunday.
Lying there on his couch, he had the burial service
and the requiem mass said in his presence ; in the
evening his will was read before his household, and
he added the second and last codicil. Next morning
the Prior of St. Swithin's celebrated mass for him ;
his will was read once more, and he confirmed it with
an audible voice, and then said good-bye to them all,
and so passed away.
Hall remarked a century later that Beaufort was
" surnamed the rich Cardinal of Winchester and
neither called learned bishop nor virtuous priest."1
Of his virtue we know nothing beyond the two facts
that he had a child born to him in his early manhood,
and that, on the other hand, no scandal was
breathed against him in later days when any known
departure from the path of morality would have
given his enemies a welcome opportunity of attack.
Probably he was not a man of piety in any deep sense ;
certainly he seems to have lived a sober and clean life
as a bishop. Of his learning we know but little, and
that disappointing. Gloucester was both a student
and a generous friend of students ; Beaufort was
neither. At the Council of Constance he met the
famous humanist, Poggio Bracciolini, then acting as
a secretary in the papal service, and busily engaged in
his faithful search for lost classics, and in a moment of
literary enthusiasm invited him to England. Poggio
found but little happiness in England. Prelates and
nobles who invited him to dinner sat at table for hours
till the poor scholar had to get up and bathe his eyes
in cold water to prevent his falling asleep. The few
men of learning whose acquaintance he made were
1 Hall, p. 139.
THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF POGGIO 291
more dialectical than deep. The few libraries that
he visited yielded not a single discovery in the way
of classical manuscripts. Meanwhile, the bishop's
interest in literature waned or was crowded out, and
the scholar's hope of a benefice that would give him
funds and leisure for study was rewarded first by the
gift of a parish church worth but 120 florins, and then
by a richer benefice which brought with it a cure of
souls and necessitated the surrender of his former
preferment. In 1422 Poggio went back to Italy, and
his connexion with his disappointing patron ended
in the exchange of a few friendly letters. He corre-
sponded for years with two of the cardinal's household,
Nicholas Bildeston, doctor of law, afterwards Arch-
deacon of Winchester, and Richard Pettworth, master
of arts, both of whom employed Poggio to buy them
Italian books. * But the cardinal took no active part
in the English revival of letters. The masters of
Oxford appealed to him in 1424 to intervene in
defence of the judicial privileges of the university ;
but they appealed to him in virtue of his position at
the privy council, as they appealed to the primate
and to the council itself. The only special feature of
their letter to the bishop was that they referred to
the "philosophical saying" that "novelty is full
of danger where antiquity is not itself at fault."2
Bedford and Chichele in their life-time and Thomas
Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, by his will endowed
"chests" for purposes of scholarship at Oxford;
but the only enrichment of study out of the cardinal's
wealth came from his executors, who made a grant
1 Shepherd, Life of Poggio, pp. 124, 136 ; Voigt,
Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, ii, 253-256.
2 Anstey, Epistolae Academicae Oxon., i, 14, " novitas plura
parit pericula ubi antiquitas non peccavit."
292
CARDINAL BEAUFORT
His bene-
factions.
of 500 marks towards the building of the divinity
schools out of the money left to their discretion.*
Canterbury was more fortunate. There the cardinal
himself helped to build and stock the chapter library. 2
Hall was, however, wrong in hinting that the
cardinal was as ungenerous as he was rich. His
benefactions during the latter part of his life were
large. He obtained a licence to unite the impover-
ished hospital of Sandon to the hospital of St. Thomas
in Southwark. He gave £1,000 to the rebuilding of
Winchester London Bridge. At Winchester he spent still more
liberally. His arms in the vaulting of the nave of the
cathedral bear witness to his share in that conversion
of the old Norman work into perpendicular Gothic
which had been begun by his predecessor, William
Wykeham. He erected a marble shrine behind the
feretory with an ivory casket to contain the relics of
St. Swithin. He gave a silver statue of the Virgin
for the high altar. He enriched the chief street of the
city with a beautiful cross. The stone effigy of a
cardinal which rests on his tomb dates from the time
of Charles II ; but the chantry chapel m which the
tomb lies was itself his work as well as his monument.
But it was upon the hospital of St. Cross that the
bishop lavished his best. The old foundation of
Bishop Henry of Blois in the twelfth century was
a home for " brethren " of the poorest class. Bishop
Henry of Beaufort in the fifteenth added a new
» Maxwell Lyte, His*, of Univ. of Oxford, pp. 317, 323 ;
Anstey, Munimenta Academica, i, 333; n ab/' d d
auditors reported in 1453 that the sum had been all expended
but 50s. 4d., Mun. Acad., n, 735, 736.
' Tt°was once more exquisitely beautiful even than it is now
Britton, the antiquary, noted a century ago " that a horse load
of the pinnacles in the canopy had fallen down.
Hospital of
St. Cross.
ALMSHOUSE OF NOBLE POVERTY 293
foundation to be called " the almshouse of noble
poverty," consisting of two chaplain-priests, thirty-
five brethren, and three nursing-sisters, the brethren
to be " noblemen or members of our family," gentle-
men brought to poverty or grown old in his service.
It was a thoughtful as well as a generous endowment.
Unfortunately, some of the manors which were to
revert to the new foundation went astray in the wars
of the Roses, and others were reclaimed by the crown
in 1461 on the accession of the house of York ; and
in 1486 Bishop Waynflete reduced the Beaufort
foundation to one priest and two brethren. * Under
the scheme of 1901 nine of the twenty-seven sets of
rooms are reserved for brethren of " the almshouse
of noble poverty," the rest for the brethren of the
original hospital of St. Cross. Visitors are still shown
the cardinal's chair, his wooden candlesticks and
salt-cellars, his pewter dish, the tall chimneys which
he added to the old hospital in 1420, and the noble
tower of his own restoration, on which his statue still
remains. " In the centre was the Virgin, and by her
side the cardinal ; but we observe that though he is
on his knees, he is too grand to take off his hat to her." 2
The cardinal's will, dated January 20th, 1447, is Last will
still extant. 3 His chief executors were his old asso- lament
ciate, Cardinal Kemp of York, and his nephew, the
Marquis of Dorset ; but his kinsfolk received but little
of his wealth. Ample provision was made for masses
to be said at Winchester, Canterbury, and elsewhere,
in remembrance of himself, his father and mother,
his sovereigns (Henry IV and Henry V, but not
1 Godwin, de Praesulibus, p. 242 ; Warren, St. Cross
Hospital, p. 83.
2 L'Estrange, Royal Winchester, p. 247.
3 Nichols, Royal Wills, pp. 321-341 ; Testamenta Vehtsta,
pp. 249-251.
294 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
Richard II), Bedford, his brothers and sister ; but
his funeral was not to be too pompous. He be-
queathed £400 to prisoners in London and in his
manor of Southwark " for their liberation," 2,000
marks to his poor tenants in seven counties, gold
and plate to his daughter Johanna, and gifts to various
servants and clerks. To the King he left " a tablet
with relics which is called the tablet of Bourbon,1
and a cup of gold with an ewer which belonged to the
illustrious prince his father, and offered by him on
Easter eve, and out of which cup he usually drank
and for the last time drank, humbly praying him to aid
my executors in whatever can tend to the good of my
soul, as God knoweth I have always been faithful and
zealous to him in all which related to his prosperity,
wishing to effect whatever could tend to his welfare in
soul and body." The residue of his goods were to
" be applied to works of charity and pious uses
according to the discretions and consciences of the
executors, such as relieving poor religious houses,
marrying poor maidens, succouring the poor and
needy, and in other similar works of piety such as
they may most deem will tend to the health of my
soul." The records of Lincoln College, Exeter
College, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Dean and Chapter
of Wells, all show bequests of money or ornaments
received from the executors under this discretionary
clause. 2 An interesting trace of this clause is found
in a letter of Queen Margaret in 1448 asking the
1 For particulars of this tablet, see Excerpta Historica,
pp. 43, 46, 47. It was perhaps pledged to Beaufort for a loan,
and never redeemed.
2 For Lincoln College, see Hist. MSS. Commission, 1st
Report, ii, 131, 132 ; for Exeter, Maxwell Lyte, p. 318 ; for
St. Paul's, Hist. MSS. Comm., 8th Report, 635 b, and 9th
Report, i, 54 ; for Wells, 10th Report, iii, 201, 278.
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 295
executors " at reverence of us and for the merit of
our uncle's soul " to make a grant to a young man
and his sweetheart recommended by a yeoman of the
guard as " poor creatures and of virtuous conversation
purposing to live under the law of God in the order
of wedlock." *
The first codicil (April 7th) contained bequests of
£1,000 to the prior and convent of Christ Church,
Canterbury, and £200 to " the Church of Lincoln,"
both bequests for " the work and fabric " on condition
of remembering the donor's obit ; £100 for Richard
Pettworth, an old servant ; plate for the King, and
an instruction to give the King a year to redeem
crown jewels pledged for the repayment of the car-
dinal's loans. The second codicil contained a gift
of tapestry for the Queen, gifts and remissions of
debts to Lord Tiptoft and Archbishop Stafford, and
various small presents to the cardinal's nephew,
William Swynford, Thomas Burneby, a page of the
Queen, and Sir Edward Stradling, husband of the
cardinal's daughter Johanna or Joan.
The Beaufort of Shakespeare's Henry VI has Beaufort
scarcely a single merit to redeem his faults. Gloucester
styles him " scarlet hypocrite,"
Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
A man of thy profession and degree.
Salisbury, his nephew by marriage, accuses him of
swearing " like a ruffian,"
More like a soldier than a man o' the Church.
Somerset, his own brother's son, declares that
His insolence is more intolerable
Than all the princes in the land beside.
1 Letters of Queen Margaret (Camden Soc. No. 86, 1863),
p. 102.
(i) asaman
296 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
" The haughty cardinal," " proud prelate," " im-
perious churchman," such are the constant epithets by
which he is identified. The dramatist is here little
more than a vivid elaborator of Hall, who described
the cardinal concisely as " more noble in blood than
notable in learning, haut in stomach and high in
countenance, rich above measure of all men, and to
few liberal, disdainful to his kin and dreadful to his
lovers, preferring money before friendship, many
things beginning and nothing performing." x Behind
the chronicler lies the unwritten Yorkist version of
the character of the sturdy Lancastrian who blocked
the path of the rival house, and, further back still,
the last tirade of Gloucester in 1440, left unanswered
and taken too readily as unanswerable. It is little
wonder that Beaufort's memory has lain under a
cloud for more than two centuries and a half.
The cardinal's personal character it is neither easy
nor important to judge at this distance. His staunch-
est modern admirer must frankly admit " that he was
ambitious, secular, little troubled with scruples, apt
to make religious persecution a substitute for religious
life and conversation ; that he was imperious,
impatient of control, ostentatious, and greedy of
honour."2 If it is mere imagination to speak of
" arrogant Winchester " as one
Whom Henry our late sovereign ne'er could brook,
it is simple truth to say that little or no trace has
survived of any such affection for the cardinal as
a Bedford could command and a Gloucester could
win. The only touch of personal sympathy lies in the
refusal of Henry VI to accept a gift from the cardinal's
executors : " My uncle was very dear to me, and did
1 Hall, p. 210.
» Stubbs, hi, 143.
HIS CHARACTER 297
much kindness to me while he lived ; the Lord reward
him. But do ye with his goods as ye are bounden ;
I will not take them." * The cardinal awakened more
admiration than respect, more fear than love. Under
Henry IV and Henry VI, if not under Henry V, he
had to fight for his position or his policy. A political
poem written about 1449 imagines the dead cardinal
as saying
I closid we have our welevette hatte
That kev'yd us from mony stormys brew'n. 2
Neither was he " merciful in his political enmities,"
to judge from his attitude towards Gloucester.
It is, however, by his merits as a statesman that he (2) as a
deserves to stand or fall. Little of a student, some- statesman,
thing of a sportsman, 3 more of a soldier, he was above
all a statesman. 4 The gratitude of Henry VI scarcely
proves that Beaufort was as " ready to sacrifice his
wealth " as he was to expend his " labour for the
King " ;5 but even Hall, prejudiced though he was,
had to acknowledge that the cardinal was " a great
stay to the King and the realm." For nearly half a
century his activity was one main thread of English
history. During the first half of that period he was
largely concerned as chancellor or councillor in " the
great Lancastrian experiment " of constitutional
monarchy, which had come so near achieving com-
plete success when it was shattered by the premature
death of Henry the Fifth. The infancy of Henry
1 Blakman, De virtutibus Henrici VI, p. 294.
2 Excerpta Hist., p. 161.
3 While he was facing the first parliament of his chancellor-
ship in 1404, he sent two gentlemen to Ireland to purchase
fourteen goshawks and tercelets, Pat. Roll., Henr. iv, 1404. It
is an interesting reminiscence of his brief visit to Ireland in
1399.
4 For an estimate of his churchmanship see pp. 189, 190.
8 Stubbs, hi, 144.
298 CARDINAL BEAUFORT
the Sixth brought the problem of a regency. Beau-
fort's solution of the problem was the strict enforce-
ment of the supremacy of the council. It is fair to
argue that this was the wrong solution at a time
when national disorder demanded the practical
monarchy of a regent. l Even here an apologist of
Beaufort might fairly urge that when Gloucester was
the only available regent, the divided authority of the
council was a less evil than the unrestricted power
of such an uncertain member of the royal house.
Yet it would scarcely be fair to dismiss Beaufort's
attitude at this crisis as a "constitutional pose."2
In insisting on the supremacy of the council, he was
not merely righting for a place for himself beside or
against Gloucester ; he was honestly endeavouring
to keep the balance of power until the child-King
could come to his own. It was unfortunate for
England that the problem of government was com-
plicated by personal issues. It was unfortunate for
Beaufort that his public services during this period
were involved with private interests which threw
doubt upon the sincerity of his statesmanship. The
difficulty of the problem in England is illustrated by
the fact that Bedford, who was pressed into under-
taking the task in 1433, relinquished the burden with
undisguised relief in six months. Upon Beaufort fell
the brunt of the difficulties at home, and after
Bedford's death in 1435 the chief responsibility of the
problem in France. He felt keenly the failure which
a poorer statesman would not have recognised. The
fragmentary inscription upon his tomb,
Tribularer si nescirem misericordias tuas
(" I should be in anguish, did I not know thy mercies "),
1 E.g., Vickers, p. 209.
2 Vickers, p. 308, cp. p. 118.
HIS WORK FOR ENGLAND 299
was not the despairing cry of a belated penitent ; it
was the pathetic confession of a strong man who had
striven hard, sometimes mistakenly, but in the main
honestly, to do the best for his King and country, and
had striven in vain. The dynasty which he had
worked to guide and secure was trembling on the
verge of civil war. The cardinalate which he had
welcomed, partly as a stepping-stone for his own
advancement, partly as a footing for his efforts in the
cause of England, had proved to be neither. His own
career as a possible candidate for the Papacy he had
ruined on the day when he put the needs of his
countrymen in France before the claims of a papal
crusade in Bohemia. His connexion with Rome
awakened suspicion in England when he most needed
support ; and all the force of his character had to be
expended in carrying through a policy of peace
involving surrender while the nation was still bent
upon the prosecution of the war which had once been
his own main purpose. Again and again he lived to
lose what he had won or to undo what he had achieved.
Circumstances proved too strong for a strong man
who fell short of being a great man. With a Glouces-
ter working recklessly for his own hand, with a young
King who remained a child in years of manhood,
neither victory abroad nor peace at home was possible.
Bedford was taken away from the evil to come.
Beaufort remained to make a brave effort for the
honour and welfare of crown and realm, and to see
both imperilled by forces beyond his control. It is
only in our own day that history has gone behind the
pathos of his end to recognise the value of his work.
INDEX
Aachen (Aken), 4
Acquessonfort (? Oxford), 4 n.
Admiral of England, 3, 12
Agincourt, 27, 48, 49, 50, 53, 68
Aix, 4
Albert, Duke of Austria, 252
Albergati, Nicholas, Cardinal of
St. Cross, 203, 205, 213, 214,
235, 242-245, 247, 248
Alencon, Duke of, 278
Alexander V, Pope, 20, 21, 62,
63
Aliens, at court, 13 ; in trade,
130, 131, 138, 142, 143
Alien priories, 15, 99, 236
Almaine (Germany), 4, 163
Alnwick, William,' 138; Bishop
of Norwich, 207, 210, 261
Amiens, 116, 165, 247
Anjou, 92, 282 ; see Margaret,
Rene
Anne of Burgundy, Duchess of
Bedford, 29, 116, 165, 166,
206, 212, 215
Aquitaine, 1, 21, 29, 30, 41, 43,
114, 236, 259
Armagnac, Counts of, 26, 280
Armagnacs, the, 26, 29, 40, 41,
52, 53, 246, 247
Arragon, 52
Arras, 218 ; conference at, 192,
194, 24L248, 256, 257, 259,
260, 264, 270, 272, 275
Artois, 2, 43, 246
Arundel, Richard, Earl of, 3, 5,
18
Arundel, Alice, daughter of
Earl of, 5, 18
Arundel, Thomas, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 3, 5, 7, 11,
17-20, 22, 24-26, 29-32, 37,
136
Arundel, Thomas, Earl of, 24,
30, 31
Arundel, John, Earl of, 218,
233
Aussig, 150
Austria, 252
Auxerre, 167, 195, 213
Avignon, 19
Badby, John, 24
Baker, Dr. John, chaplain to
Beaufort, 289
Bamberg, Bishop of, 151
Barrow, William, Bishop of
Carlisle, 115
Basel, council of, 192, 213, 214,
233-237, 239, 241, 242, 251-
253, 259, 260 ; English dele-
gates to, 236, 237
Bath (and Wells), Bishops of,
see Wells
Bauge, 96
Beauchamp, Elizabeth, 269
Beaufort, lordship of, 2, 43
Beaufort, Edmund, Earl of
Mortain, 171, 236, 249 ; Earl
of Dorset, 253, 271, 275-277 ;
Marquis, 281, 284, 288, 293
Beaufort, Henry
(1) Outline of his career :
Origin and name, 1,2; legiti-
mation, 2, 3, 18 ; education
and early preferment, 3, 4 ;
Chancellor of Oxford, 5, 6, 7,
23 ; Bishop of Lincoln, 4, 5,
7, 8, 11, 16 ; supporter of
Henry IV, 8-10 ; Chancellor
of England, 10-16 ; Bishop of
Winchester, 16 ; rivalry with
Archbishop Arundel, 7, 17-19,
22, 24, 26, 29, 31 ; association
with Prince Henry, 6, 7, 22-28,
31-33, 140 ; proposed abdica-
tion of Henry IV, 27, 28, 32,
140 ; second chancellorship,
34-60 ; question of war with
France, 39-41 ; preparation
for war, 41-46; French em-
bassy at Winchester, 46, 47 ;
news of Agincourt, 48-51 ;
visit of Sigismund, 51-55;
resignation of chancellorship,
301
302
INDEX
57-60 ; intervention at coun-
cil of Constance, 60, 64, 73,
75-78 ; candidate for the
Papacy, 80-84 ; offer of car-
dinalate and legatine office,
84-89 ; with Henry V in
France and in England, 91-
98 ; dispute between Glouces-
ter and the council over the
protectorship, 104-113; re-
lease and marriage of Scottish
King, 119-123 ; third chancel-
lorship, 124 ; conflict with
Gloucester in London, 128-
134 ; arbitration by the lords,
135-142 ; appointed cardinal
and legate, 147, 148 ; papal
crusade against Hussites,
149-161 ; with Bedford in
France, 162-167 ; difficul-
ties of his position in Eng-
land as cardinal, 169-192 ;
war and diplomacy in France,
178, 193-204, 213-217, 219-
221,225,233,238; execution
of the maid, 205-209 ; coro-
nation of Henry VI, 175, 176,
209-212 ; conferences at
Arras, 242-249 ; at Calais and
Oye, 253-265 ; policy of the
Beaufort party, 266,267,277-
284 ; attacked by Gloucester,
267, 275 ; retirement of the
Cardinal, 285, 287 ; death of
Gloucester, 288, 289 ; death
of the Cardinal, 289, 290 ; his
benefactions and his will,
292-295 ; his character, 290,
291, 295-297
(2) Ecclesiastical affairs :
His churchmanship, 36, 61,
62, 86, 285 ; Gregory XII and
the schism, 20-22 ; repression
of Lollardism, 24, 37-40, 46,
137, 145, 146, 154 ; his
appearances in convocation,
16, 24, 37, 41, 61, 98, 145,
146, 157 ; the Church of
England and the Papacy, 85,
147-149, 151, 152, 189, 190;
his crusades against Hussites,
93-95,149-161 j general coun-
cils, Pisa, 20, 21 ; Constance,
64, 76, 77, 80-83, 84 ; Pavia
(Sienna), 114-116; Basel,
234, 235, 237, 252, 253 ; his
pilgrimages, 58, 60, 73, 78,
81, 144, 191
(3) Home and foreign affairs :
His statesmanship, 13, 14, 23,
29, 32, 33, 36, 112, 113, 199,
200 ; his work at the privy
council, 12, 24, 25, 44-46, 56,
57,99,100,113,114,238-251 ;
in parliament, 9, 12-15, 22-24,
28, 34-37, 39, 40, 42, 43,
49-52, 55, 56, 93, 96, 106, 109,
116-118, 121, 126-128, 137,
177-179, 183-188, 202, 218,
225-227 ; questions of trade
and commerce, 74, 75, 129-
131, 143, 253, 264, 265, 279 ;
his loans, 15, 32, 58, 78, 96-99,
113, 114, 116, 125, 126, 166,
185-187, 202, 216, 230-232,
250, 268, 273, 278, 281, 282,
294 n., 295 ; his " pardons,"
58, 59, 188, 251, 269, 272, 281;
his work as a statesman,
297-299
Beaufort, Joan, Countess of
Westmoreland, 2, 101 n.,
172 n., 294
Beaufort, Joan (Jane), wife of
James I of Scotland, 1 19, 120,
122, 123, 160, 251, 269
Beaufort, John (i), Earl of
Somerset, 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 12,
16, 24, 27
Beaufort, John (ii), Earl of
Somerset, 266, 277, 278;
Duke, 281-284, 295
Beaufort, Thomas, 2, 12 ; Chan-
cellor, 22, 24, 28, 29; Earl
of Dorset, 30, 44, 48, 50, 53 ;
Duke of Exeter, 56, 91, 95,
101-103, 106, 108, 113, 137,
291
Beauvais, see Cauchon
Bedford, county, 12
Bedford, John of Lancaster,
Duke of, 25, 44-46, 48, 54,
57, 91, 92, 95, 96, 99-103, 107,
116, 124-127, 134-137, 162,
165-167, 194, 201, 203, 205,
209-211, 214-219, 221-230,
233, 235, 238, 247, 248, 291,
298
Bekynton, Dr. Thomas, 111,
252 n., 256, 261, 280
INDEX
303
Benedict XIII, Pope, 19, 21, 52,
62, 68, 124
Berkshire, 25
Beverley, 96
Bewforth, Bewford (= Beau-
fort), 3, 4
Bildeston (Billeston), Nicholas,
154, 196, 197, 257, 291
Blanche of Artois, 43
Blanche of Lancaster, wife of
John of Gaunt, 1, 43
Blanche, daughter of Henry IV,
10
Bohemia, 36, 63, 64, 93, 94,
150-154, 161, 163
Bokyngham, John, Bishop of
Lincoln, 4
Bolingbroke, Roger, 276
Boniface IX, Pope, 2, 5
Bordeaux, 278, 282 ; Arch-
bishops of, 20, 21 ; 278
Bourbon, Duke of, 201, 204,
214, 225, 241
Bourbon, Tablet of, 294
Bourchier, Thomas, Bishop of
Worcester, 239, 240
Bourges, Archbishop of, 46, 47
Bowet, Henry, Archbishop of
York, 29, 31
Brabant, John, Duke of, 99,
116, 124, 201
Brandenburg, Frederick, Mar-
grave of, 151, 153, 155
Braybroke, Robert, Bishop of
London, 8
Bretigny, treaty of, 40, 43, 92,
255
Brie, 196
Bristol, 130
Brittany, 10 ; Duke of, 92, 195,
220, 221, 224, 238, 275, 278,
282, 287
Brounfleet, Sir Henry, 236
Brouns, Thomas, Dean of Salis-
bury, 236 ; Bishop of Roches-
ter, 239, 240
Bruges, 73, 74, 204
Brugges, William, 115
Bubwith, Nicholas, Bishop of
London, 17 ; of Bath and
Wells, 24, 65, 74, 80
Buckingham, county, 11
Bulls, papal, 5, 20, 21, 59, 84,
94, 145, 146, 148, 154, 156,
173, 181, 187, 252, 273
Burgundy, 25, 55, 57
Burgundy, John, Duke of, 23,
26, 40, 41, 43, 52, 54, 61, 75,
91,92
Burgundy, Philip, Duke of, 92,
93, 95, 100-102, 116, 124-127,
165-167, 178, 194, 195, 198,
201, 204-206, 213-222, 233-
235, 241, 242, 244-251, 257,
260, 266, 270, 272, 275, 278,
279, 285
Burgundy, Duchess of, see
Isabella
Burneby, Thomas, 295
Burnell, Lord, 24
Caen, 148 ; University, 233
Calais, 10, 23-25, 30, 48, 49, 52,
54, 57, 73, 97, 148, 184, 200,
203, 204, 214, 216, 217, 223,
224, 230, 234, 238, 239, 250,
254-262, 264, 265, 270, 279
Cambridge, University of, 234 ;
Chancellor of, 20 ; Peter-
house, 3 ; St. Michael's, 57
Candia, Peter of, 20, see
Alexander V
Canterbury, 130, 199 ; treaty
of, 54, 56, 68, 69, 71 ; Christ
Church, 292, 293, 295 ; pil-
grims, 147 ; archdeaconry of,
146, 147 ; archbishopric of,
88, 89, 174, 180, 238, 268;
Archbishops of, see Cour-
tenay, Arundel, Chichele,
Stafford
Cardinals, as a body, 20 ; at
Constance, 66-70, 72, 76, 77,
82-84. See Albergati, Beau-
fort, Cyprus, D'Ailly, Kemp,
Kilwardby, Langham, St.
Angelo
Cardinalate, the, see Beaufort
Carlisle, Bishops of, see Barrow,
Lumley
Carmarthen, 12
Castile, 1, 57, 93
Catteriek, John, Bishop of St.
David's, 65 ; of Lichfield and
Coventry, 65, 67, 69, 70, 74,
76, 77, 80, 90
Cauchon, Pierre, Bishop of
Beauvais, 206-208
Caudray, Richard, 172
Champagne, 196
304
INDEX
Chancellorship, of Oxford, 5-7,
26 ; of England, 10, 13, 35,
55 ; see Edmund Stafford,
Henry Beaufort, Thomas
Beaufort, Langley, Kemp,
John Stafford
Charles VI, King of France, 26,
30, 40, 41, 91-93, 106
Charles VII, King of France ;
as Dauphin, 40, 91, 92, 116,
117, 123; as King, 165-168,
195, 196, 198, 205, 209, 220,
221, 225, 235, 241, 247, 258,
266, 270, 272, 274, 278, 287
Chartres, 212
Chaucer, Alice, 277
Chaucer, Thomas, 19, 22, 28
Cherbourg, 148, 253, 282
Chertsey, Abbot of, 183
Chester, Bishop of, see Lichfield
Chichele, Henry, Bishop of St.
David's, 40, 41, 59; Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, 39,
44-46, 61, 71, 86-89, 91, 96,
99, 100, 105, 108, 110, 130,
134, 137, 145, 147-149, 152,
156, 157, 159, 176, 188-190,
268, 276, 284, 291
Chichester, bishopric of, 57 ;
Bishops of, see Polton, Syden-
ham
Chirk, 268
Church of England ; proposals
of disendowment, 14, 15, 23
taxation of clergy, 15 ; non
residence, 23, 146 ; confirma
tion of bishops, 51, 79 ; self
government, 87 ; papal dues
20, 67, 99 ; benefices, 59, 108
146, 148, 291 ; wealth, 157
See Convocation
Cironensis, John, suffragan
bishop, 62
Cleves, Mary of, 275
Clifford, Richard, Bishop of
London, 37, 65, 80, 81
Coimbra, Peter, Duke of, 134
Coldingham, 160
Cologne, 10 ; Archbishop of, 94,
154
Colonna, Oddo, see Martin V
Colonna Prosper, 146, 147
Colvile, Sir John, 236
Commerce, 25, 26, 57, 74, 75,
130-131,250,253,264,273,279
Compiegne, 198, 201
Constable, of England, 96, 176 ;
of France, 241, 261
Constance of Castile, 1, 2
Constance, council of, 44, 51,
52, 60, 63-72, 76, 77, 80-85,
189, 290
Convocation, 16, 23, 24, 61, 98,
235 ; papal schism, 20 ;
French war, 39, 41, 56;
Lollardism, 36, 37, 145, 146,
157 ; anti-Hussite crusade,
156, 157, 173
Corbeil, 214
Corbie, 165
Cornwall, 273
Cossa, Baldassare, 63 ; see
John XXIII
Councils, general, and the
Papacy, 64, 67, 77, 114, 234-
236, 252, 259, 260. See Pisa,
Rome, Constance, Pavia,
Sienna, Basel, Ferrara
Council of England, the great,
13, 45, 174, 182, 239 ; the
privy, 17, 24, 25, 44, 56, 57,
104, 105, 108, 110, 112-114,
118, 141, 143, 182, 189, 191,
199, 200, 226, 227, 238, 268,
271, 276, 277, 298
Courtenay, William, Chancellor
of Oxford, Archbishop of
Canterbury, 5
Courtenay, Richard, Chancellor
of Oxford, 26
Coventry, 130 ; bishopric, see
Lichfield
Cravant, 125
Crecy, 50
Cromwell, Lord, 130, 138, 223,
226, 232
Croyland, 289
Crusades, against Moslems, 36,
79, 101 ; against Hussites,
93-95, 150-153, 155-165, 167,
168, 173, 197
Cyprus, Cardinal of, 242-244,
247, 248
Cyrene, 62
D'Ailly, Cardinal of Cambrai,
68, 81, 82
Dauphin, the, see Charles VII
Dax, Bishop of, 236
Denmark, 242
INDEX
305
Despenser, Henry, Bishop of
Norwich, 158
Devon, 273
Dieppe, 279
Domicellus, domicella, 2 n., 257
Dover, 46, 98 n., 114, 161, 165,
214
Duties, customs, 57, 58, 98, 113,
114, 130, 268, 279
Durham, 120 ; Bishop of, see
Langley
Easter, 51
Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester,
125, 276
Elizabeth, of Lancaster, 1
Eltham, 133, 134, 139
Ely, Bishop of, 250
English " nation " at Constance,
65-72, 77, 80
Eugenius IV, Pope, 205, 213,
234, 235, 239-242, 245, 252,
260
Exeter, 130 ; diocese, 62 ;
Bishop of, see Edmund Staf-
ford
Exeter College, Oxford, 294
Exeter, Duke of, see Thomas
Beaufort
Eye, the Witch of, 276
" Fairborn," 2
Falmouth, 10
Fastolf, Sir John, 247
Ferrara, 252
Filastre, Cardinal, 70, 75, 76,
81, 82
Fitzhugh, Robert, 197 j Bishop
of London, 236
Flanders, 25, 26, 29, 57, 75, 77,
92, 184, 194, 213, 249, 253,
262, 264
Fleet Prison, the, 46
Fleming, Richard, Bishop of
Lincoln, 114, 115
Flemish merchants, 25, 74, 75,
279; in London, 129-131,
249, 250
Florence, 45
Forrester, John, 69
France, 10, 11, 13, 16, 21, 26,
29 ; question of war with,
39-46, 49 ; progress of war
under Henry V, 48-50, 54, 91-
93, 100 ; under Henry VI, 124,
ai — (2210)
125, 162, 165-167, 194, 200,
201, 204, 212, 218, 222-224,
228 ; negotiations for peace,
179, 191, 196, 197, 202, 203,
213, 214, 219-221, 223, 253,
254, 277, 279, 285-287 ; con-
ferences at Arras, 241-248,
270, 272 ; at Oye, 254-265,
270 ; English " realm of
France," 93, 114, 175, 196,
210-212, 222, 225, 229, 236,
237, 243, 244, 247-251, 255,
258-260
Frankfort, 155
French " nation " at Constance,
66-83
Garter, Order of the, 53, 68,
161, 174
Gascony, 243, 280
Gaunt, John of Gaunt, see
Lancaster
Genoese ships, 54, 74, 75
German, idea of Church reform,
64 ; " nation " at Constance,
65-70 ; see Sigismund
Germany, Princes of, 94, 95,
101, 115, 150, 152, 153, 155,
275
Ghent, 204, 215
Glastonbury, Abbot of, 236
Glendower, Owen, 10, 11, 12
Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of, 3
Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of
44, 46, 54, 91, 96, 117; posi-
tion as protector, 101-108,
113, 118, 126-128, 143, 199,
200, 202, 227 ; marriage with
Jacqueline of Hainault, 116,
124-126, 146, 147 ; conflict
with Chancellor Beaufort,
128-142, 298 ; opposition to
Beaufort as cardinal, 88, 89,
161, 169, 172, 174-189 ; foreign
affairs, 193, 197, 203, 214-216,
228, 229, 238, 249, 254, 263,
277, 278, 280, 282, 286 ; rela-
tions with Bedford, 111, 112,
223, 224, 226, 228, 229, 239 ;
attack on Beaufort's career
and policy, 121-123, 267-276 ;
ruin of his wife, Eleanor, 276,
277 ; his death, 288, 289
Gloucester, Duchess of, see
Jacqueline, Eleanor
306
INDEX
Gravelines, 257, 258, 263
Gray, William, Bishop of Lon-
don, 176
Greek Church, 252
Gregorv XII, Pope, 19-22, 62,
67
Guienne, 14, 29, 46, 243, 255,
261, 262, 266, 268, 278, 280,
285, 286
Guildford, 220
Guisnes, 262
Hainault, 1, 99, 111, 118, 124-
128, 131, 135, 138
Hallam, Robert, Bishop of
Salisbury, 20, 65-70, 72, 75,
77
Hammes, 261
Hampshire, 25
Harneur, 48-50, 53, 54, 97, 276
Hase, Sir Henry, 115
Hendman, Thomas, Chancellor
of Oxford, 5
Henry IV, 7-9 ; his difficulties,
9-13, 32-35; relations with
his sons, 18, 19, 22, 27-30, 32,
140 ; attitude towards papal
schism, 19-22
Henry V, 6, 7, 16, 22 ; relations
with his father and brothers,
18, 19, 22, 27-30, 32 ; with
Beaufort, 6, 7, 18, 22-27,
31-33, 57-60, 89, 91, 140; his
character and aims, 32, 34,
36, 44, 45 ; war with France,
40-47, 48-51, 54, 91-93, 96,
97, 100 ; relations with Sigis-
mund, 52-55, 65, 68-72, 78,
99; with council of Constance,
70-79 ; his churchmanship,
23, 24, 36, 37, 44, 79, 85,
88-90, 96, 101, 188, 189;
foreign policy, 100-102, 119,
247, 248, 267, 271 ; provision
for regency of Henry VI, 101-
104, 109, 112; his will, 101,
113, 230, 269
Henry VI, 100 ; his guardian-
ship, 101-103, 109, 126, 133,
135, 139, 174, 183, 269 ;
coronation in England, 175,
176 ; in France, 199-201, 205,
210-212 ; government at
home, 219, 223, 225, 229, 239,
249, 251, 256, 263, 268, 271-
274, 276, 279, 280, 284 ; atti-
tude towards Papacy, 235,
237, 239, 240, 252 ; his mar-
riage, 285-287 ; personal rela-
tions with Beaufort, 294-297
Henry VII, 284 n.
Henry of Blois, Bishop of Win-
chester, 292
Hesse, Landgrave of, 152
Heyworth, William, Bishop of
Lichfield, 180
Holland, 99
Holy Land, the, 58, 73
Homildon, 12
Honfleur, 233
Hungerford, Lord, 130
Huntingdon, county, 12
Huntingdon, John Holland, Earl
of, 200, 218, 234, 268
Huss, John, 63, 67, 93
Hussites, 150, 152-154 ; see
Bohemia
Inns of Court, 130, 140
Ireland, 8, 27, 57, 117, 297 n. ;
Irish church, 145
Isabel, Queen of France, 91-93,
127
Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of
Burgundy, 194, 215, 253, 254
256-261, 264, 266, 267, 270
Italian merchants, 25, 45, 54,
74, 75
Italian " nation " at Constance,
66, 67, 70, 80
Italy, 242, 252, 291
Jacqueline of Hainault,
Duchess of Gloucester, 99,
100, 111, 116, 124-127, 135,
146, 216
Jacqueline (Jacquette) of Lux-
emburg, Duchess of Bedford,
215, 216, 218
James I, King of Scots, 119-123,
158, 160, 161, 173, 251, 269
Jeanne d'Arc, 162, 165, 166,
179, 198, 204-210
Jerome of Prague, 63, 93
Jewels, Crown, 46, 58, 98, 185,
232, 268, 279; Beaufort's,
185-187, 268
Joan (Johanna), daughter of
Henry Beaufort, 5, 290, 294,
295
INDEX
307
Joan of Navarre, wife of Henry
IV, 10, 46, 48, 171
Joan (Jane), Queen of Scotland,
see Beaufort, Joan
John the Hermit, 259
John I of Portugal, 194
John XXIII, Pope (Baldassare
Cossa), 63, 64, 66, 67, 85
Katharine, of Burgundy, 41
Katharine, daughter of Charles
VI of France, wife of Henry
V, 40, 41, 43, 91-93, 100, 111,
127, 284 n.
Katharine, daughter of Charles
VII of France, 254
Katharine Swynford, 1, 2, 4,
11, 293
Kemp, John, Bishop of London,
108, 130; Archbishop of
York, 143, 176, 220, 229, 234,
242-246, 253-256, 258-263,
267, 268, 270, 271 ; Cardinal,
274, 276, 277, 280, 284, 293
Kilwardby, Robert, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 180
Labourers, Statute of, 132 ;
agitation in London, 132, 141
Lagny, 212
Lancaster, house of, 29, 32, 50,
112, 118, 214, 254, 288;
estates of, 7, 230, 269, 273
Lancaster, Edmund, Earl of, 43
Lancaster, Henry of, see Henry
IV
Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke
of, 1-4,7,16,43, 134,215,293
Lancaster, John of, see Bedford
Lancaster, Thomas of, Duke of
Clarence, 18, 19, 27, 29, 30,
91, 95
Langdon, John, Bishop of
Rochester, 234, 236, 239
Langham, Simon, Archbishop
of Canterbury, 180
Langley, Thomas, Bishop of
Durham, 16, 17, 24, 31, 45,
66, 73, 104, 113, 121, 137, 176
Lannoy, Hugh de, 195, 219, 253,
261
Leeds, castle, 276
Legate, office of papal, 20, 84,
86-89, 148, 150, 156, 168,
172, 173, 190, 273
Leicester, county, 11 ; town,
37, 39, 41, 130, 135
Leinster, 8
Lichfield and Coventry (Ches-
ter), bishopric, 4 ; Bishops
of, see Catterick, Heyworth
Li6ge, Bishop of, 94
Lille, 219
Lincoln, 2, 11 ; cathedral, 3,
295 ; dean and chapter, 16 ;
Bishops, see Bokyngham,
Beaufort, Fleming
Lincoln College, Oxford, 294
Lodi, Bishop of, 235
Lollardism, at Oxford, 5, 22, 25,
64, 154 ; in Parliament, 23, 37 ;
under Henry V, 36, 37 ; under
Henry VI, 137, 179 ; political
and social tendencies, 37-40,
46, 49
London, 22, 29, 30, 41, 44, 46,
48, 50, 95, 96, 114, 129-135,
170, 171, 219, 241, 246, 249,
277, 286, 294 ; mayors of,
44,46, 48, 110, 130, 132, 134,
135, 140, 171 ; merchants of,
25, 46, 58, 130, 131, 138, 142,
143
London, diocese, 62 ; Bishops
of, see Braybrook, Bubwith,
Clifford, Kemp, Gray, Fitz-
hugh
London Bridge, 50, 133, 134,
139, 140, 292
London, Tower of, 116, 129, 132-
134, 138-141, 175
Longueville, Prior of, 208
Louis (Ludwig) of Bavaria,
Count Palatine, 10, 71, 85,
93-95
Lucca, 45
Lumley, Marmaduke, Bishop of
Carlisle, 181
Luxemburg, Duchy of, 99
Luxemburg, John of, 198, 206,
215
Luxemburg, Louis of, Bishcp
of Therouanne, 210, 214, 215 ;
of Rouen and of Ely, 250
Luxemburg, Peter of, Count of
St. Pol, 215
Luxemburg, Jacquette of, see
J acqueline
Maid of God, see Jeanne d'Arc
308
INDEX
Maine, 92, 233, 255, 282, 285-288
Mainz (Mayence), Archbishop
of, 94, 95, 152, 154
Mantes, 90
March, Edmund, Earl of, 106,
108, 116-118, 126
Margaret of Anjou, Queen of
England, 194, 285-288, 294,
295
Margaret Beaufort, 284
Margaret of Scotland, 123
Marshal, the Earl, 108, 127
Martin V, Pope, 59, 64, 84, 85,
90, 93, 115, 124, 145-151,
154-157, 167, 168, 183, 190,
191, 196, 197, 202, 203, 205
Meaux, 100, 261, 262, 270
Mechlin, 151
Melun, 93, 213
Meulan, 91, 92
Milan, 21
Milford Haven, 9
Mont St. Michel, Abbot of, 167
Montereau, 92
Morgan, Philip, Bishop of Wor-
cester, 108, 114, 130, 137
Mortimer, Sir John, 116-118
Mowbray, Thomas, Duke of
Norfolk, 7
Naples, King of, 63, 285
" Nations," at the universities,
64, 65 ; at the council of
Constance, 65-71 ; at Basel,
235, 236
Navarre, Princess of, 257
Navy, English, 56, 97, 163;
see Admiral
Nevers, 241, 247, 278
Nevill, Robert, Bishop of Salis-
bury, 151, 152, 171
Newark, 59
" Nicholl " {i.e. Lincoln), 9
Nogent, 43
Norfolk, Duke of, 137, 176, 200,
254
Normandy, 57, 91, 92, 97, 102,
166, 194, 228, 230, 236, 243,
248, 251, 255, 261, 262, 265,
266, 278, 280, 283, 285, 286,
288
Northampton, countv, 12 ; town
135
Northumberland, Henry Percy
(1), Earl of, 19
Northumberland, Henry Percy
(2), Earl of, 57, 108, 114
Norwich, Prior of, 236 ; Bishop
of, see Despenser, Wakering,
Alnwick
Noyon, Bishop of, 210
Nuncios, papal, 145, 146, 157,158
Nuremberg, 152
Obicis, John de, papal collector,
146
Oldcastle, Sir John, Lord Cob-
ham, 36-38, 49
Olmiitz, John, Bishop of, 154
Orleans, 162, 172
Orleans, Louis, Duke of, 26, 30
Orleans, Charles, Duke of, 102,
214, 220, 221, 224, 225, 238,
243, 245, 253-257, 259-262,
264, 266, 267, 270, 271, 274-
277, 285
i Oxford, county, 12, 25
I Oxford, Earl of, 254
j Oxford, University of, 3, 4, 12,
20, 25, 66, 149, 234, 291, 292,
294 ; chancellorship of, 5-7,
12, 20 ; Lollardism, 5, 6, 22,
36, 64, 155 ; visitation, 5,
25, 26; colleges, see Exeter,
Lincoln, Queen's
Oye, 257, 258, 261, 266
Papacy, the ; see Bulls, Church
of England, Councils, Legate,
Provisions, Rome, Schism
Paris, 26, 52, 54, 95, 162, 165-
167, 194, 195, 200, 201, 210-
212, 233, 241, 249 ; Univer-
sitv of, 63, 66, 125, 206, 211,
212, 234 ; Archbishop of, 210
Parliament, 32; of 1399, 9;
of 1401, 9, 11, 19; of 1402, 9,
12, 19; of Jan., 1404, 12, 13;
of Oct., 1404, the " unlearned"
or " lay " parliament, 14, 15 ;
of 1406, 17, 38 ; of 1407, 19,
20 ; of 1410, 22-24, 25 ; of
1411, 28, 29 ; of 1413, 34, 35,
40 ; of April, 1414, 37, 38};
of Nov., 1414, 42 ; of 1415,
49 ; of March, 1416, 50, 51 ;
of Oct., 1416, 55, 56 ; of 1417,
58 ; of 1419, 93 ; of 1420,
93, 95 ; of 1421, 96, 97 ; of
1422, 104, 105; of 1423, 116-
INDEX
309
118, 121 ; of 1425, 126-128,
139; of 1426, "parliament
of bats," 135-137 ; of 1428,
106, 107, 149; of 1429, 175-
178 ; of 1431, 179, 202, 203 ;
of 1432, 183-187; of 1433,
222-226; of 1436, 249; of
1442, 285 ; of 1445, 285 ; of
1446, 287
Patay, 162, 164
Pavia, council of, 114, 115
Payne, Peter, 154
Percies, the, 12, 13; see North-
umberland
Peter of Candia, see Alex-
ander V
Peterhouse, Cambridge, 3
Pettworth, Richard, 291, 295
Philippa of Lancaster, 1, 134, 194
Picardy, 204,; 233
Piracy, 25, 39
Pisa, councirof, 20, 21, 62, 66
Plymouth, 74
Poggio Bracciolini, 290, 291
Poitou, 255, 278
Poland, 242
Pole, John de la, afterwards
Duke of Suffolk, 284
Polton, Thomas, Bishop of
Chichester, 114, 115; of
Worcester, 180
Pontefract, 1 1
Portugal, 100, 134, 194, 242, 275
Prague, 63, 153 ; University of,
64, 154
Prcsmunire, Statute of, 86, 147,
148, 180, 181, 185, 187; writs
of, 181, 183, 184, 186
Priories, alien, 15, 99, 236
Protector, title and powers of,
106-107, 112, 141, 143, 298
Provence, 43
Provisions, papal, 4, 86, 90,
146, 151, 188, 239, 240
Provisors, Statute of, 86, 147-
149, 181, 187, 188
Queen's College, Oxford, 3, 6
Quhair, The King's, 120
Randolph, Friar, 138
Ratcliff, Sir John, 162, 164
Reform of Church, 63-66, 69,
70, 72, 76, 78, 79, 90
Rene of Anjou, 285-287
Revenues of England, 97, 99,
128, 130, 131, 202, 226, 227
Rheims, 165, 210 ; Archbishop
of, 256, 259
Richard II, 2, 3, 5, 7-9, 11 ; 294
Richemont, Arthur de, 195, 220
Rochester, 162, 168 ; Bishops
of, see Brouns, Langdon
Roelt, Sir Paon, 1
Romans, King of the, see Rupert,
Sigismund
Rome, general council at, 63 ;
court of, 161, 180, 183, 191,
213, 235, 250, 273 ; English
agents at, 89, 90, 114, 115,
151, 189, 197, 239
Roses, Wars of the, 1 13, 1 18, 293
Rouen, 194, 201, 202, 204-209,
212, 283
Rupert, King of the Romans,
12, 19
Rutland, 12
Saatz, 94
St. Alban's, battle of, 1 18 ;
council at, 135 ; monastery,
7,8, 115, 160, 171 ; Abbot of,
8, 115, 170
St. Angelo, Cardinal of, 237
St. Bride, 258, 259
St. Cloud, 26, 29
St. Cross, Cardinal of, see Alber-
gati
St. Cross, Hospital of, 292, 293
St. David's, Bishops of, see
Chichele, Catterick
St. Eusebius, Cardinal of, 147,
177 ; see Henry Beaufort
St. George, feast of, 53, 161, 174,
200
St. Gertrude, 261
St. Mary, Church of, Calais, 148 ;
Hospital of, London, 10 ;
Church of, Southwark, 120
St. Michael (Michael-house),
Cambridge, 57
St. Omer, 216-218, 257, 260
St. Ouen, Rouen, 207, 208
St. Paul's, London, 8, 22, 46,
48, 50, 172, 276, 294
St. Stephen's, Westminster, 276
St. Swithin, 257, 292 ; Prior of,
Winchester, 290
St. Thomas (Becket), 258
St. Thomas, Hospital of, 292
310
INDEX
St. Vaast, Abbey of, Arras, 242
Salisbury, diocese of, 62 ; Dean
of, 151, 236, 239 ; Bishops of,
see Hallam, Nevill
Salisbury, Thomas Montague,
Earl of, 135, 172, 173, 204
Salisbury, Richard Nevill, Earl
of, 172 n., 176, 210, 295
Salvayn, Roger, 73, 74
Sandon, Hospital, 292
Savoy, 94 ; Duke of, 167, 195,
198, 220
Schepye, John, Dean of Lincoln,
16
Schism, the papal, 12, 19-22, 45,
51, 54
Scone, 120
Scotland, 11, 12, 93, 251 ; alli-
ance with France, 119, 123,
160, 161, 203 ; King of, see
James I ; Queen of, see Joan
(Jane) Beaufort
Scrope, Henry, Lord, 20, 47
Scrope, John, Lord, 130
Shakespeare, 39, 113, 142, 289,
295, 296
Shrewsbury, Abbot of, 20
Sicily, 242, 285
Sienna, council of, 115
Sigismund, King of the Romans;
alliance with England, 44,
52-56, 61, 65, 68, 71, 72, 80 ;
Council of Constance, 52, 55,
63, 65, 67-73, 76-78, 80-83 ;
later relations with Henry V,
93-95, 99, 100, 116; with
England and the Papacy,
150, 201, 204, 234, 235, 237,
251, 252
Sluys, 50
Solubriensis, William, suffragan
bishop, 62
Somerset, Earl of, see John
Beaufort
Souch (Saatz), 94
Southampton, 47, 58, 98, 268
Southwark, 120, 133, 292, 294
Southwell, Thomas, canon of
Westminster, 276
Spain, 52, 203, 242, 286 ; Sword
of, 232
Spanish " nation " at Constance
68-70
Stafford, Humphrey, Earl of,
138, 254
Stafford, Edmund, chancellor,
Bishop of Exeter, 10, 12, 19
Stafford, John, Bishop of Bath
and Wells, treasurer, 130, 137,
142, 176, 210; chancellor,
222, 277 ; Archbishop of
Canterbury, 285, 295
Stradling, Sir Edward, 5, 295
Stratford, Old, 12
Sudeley, Lord, 282
Suffolk, William de la Pole,
Earl of, 135, 210, 220, 223,
225, 251, 277, 280, 284, 285 ;
Marquis, 286-288; see Pole,
John de la
Suffragan bishops, 62
Sullac, Prior of, 114
Suola, Conzo de, papal nuncio,
156, 158
Surronensis, John, suffragan
bishop, 62
Swynford, Katharine, 1, 2, 4,
11,293
Swynford, Sir Hugh, 1
Swynford, Sir Thomas, 11
Swynford, Sir William, 269, 295
Sydenham, Simon, Dean of
Salisbury, 151 ; Bishop of
Chichester, 152
Tachau, 152, 153, 196
Talbot', Lord, 162, 209, 218, 233,
278
Taunton, castle, 19
Thames, the, 31, 139 ; see
London Bridge
Therouanne, Bishop of, see
Louis of Luxemburg
Tickhill, chapel, 3
Tiptoft, Lord, 130, 295
Tours, 286
Treasurer of England, 98, 114,
129, 130, 232, 280, 281
Treasury, the, 108, 128, 232
Treves, Bishop of, 94, 95
Troyes, treaty of, 93, 96, 203,
242, 247, 287
Tudor, Edmund, 284 n.
Ulm, 75, 76
Universities, at council of Con-
stance, 66, 67 ; see Aix, Caen,
Cambridge, Oxford, Paris,
Prague, Vienna
INDEX
311
Venice, 45
Verneuil, 125
Vienna, University, 154
Vincennes, 101
Vique, Bishop of, 259
Wakering, John, Bishop of
Norwich, 65, 80, 108
Wales, 5, 11, 12, 13, 25, 117,
251, 268
Wales, Prince of, see Henry V
Waltham, Abbot of, 170
Walthamstow, 12
Warwick, Thomas, Earl of, 3
Warwick, Richard, Earl of, 57,
65, 101, 102, 106, 108, 127,
135, 176, 183, 200, 208-210,
219, 220, 225, 250, 266
Wavrin, Jean de, 94, 134
Waynflete, William of, Bishop
of Winchester, 293
Wells, deanery of, 4 ; chapter,
4, 294 ; Bishops of (Bath
and) Wells, see Bub with,
Stafford
Welsh students at Oxford, 12
Wenzel, King of Bohemia, 64, 94
Westminster, 31, 45, 50, 53, 96,
130, 135, 174, 176, 203, 228,
235 ; Abbey, 48, 96, 170, 175,
275, 276 ; Abbot of, 65
Westmoreland, Ralph Neville,
Earl of, 24, 25, 39, 45, 108
Westmoreland, Countess of, see
Joan Beaufort (1)
Whethamstede, John, Abbot of
St. Albans, 115
Willoughby, Lord, 218
Wiltshire, 25
Winchester, 46, 54, 130, 243,
285, 290, 292 ; cathedral, 10,
257, 292, 293 ; diocese, 62 ;
bishopric, 16, 180, 187, 188,
269 ; Bishops of, see Henry of
Blois, Wykeham, Beaufort,
Waynflete
Windsor, 53, 100, 120, 130, 161,
174
Witch of Eye, the, 276
Wolvesey, 46, 290
Wool trade, 57, 75, 130, 131,
148, 204 n., 253, 273
Worcester, prior of, 65 ; Bishops
of, see Morgan, Polton, Bour-
chier
Wurzburg, Bishop of, 151, 154
Wycliffe, John, 63, 67
Wycliffites {Wicklefistce), 64,
155, 157
Wydeville, Sir Richard, 129, 132
138, 139
Wykeham, William of, Bishop
of Winchester, 10, 15, 292
York, 119, 130 ; Abbot of, 236 ;
Dean of, 65, 80 ; Archbishops
of, see Bowet, Kemp
York, (1) Richard, Duke of, 12
York, (2) Richard, Duke of, 118,
126, 210, 249, 250, 268, 275,
278, 280-283
Ysambard, friar of Rouen, 209
Zealand, 99
THE END
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