The people from the first marked their dislike of the alliance. They were not fond of French princesses, and Gloucester, who always represented the popular idea, opposed it with all his eloquence. But the Beaufort party carried it against him. The prime mover of the scheme was William de la Pole, the Earl of Suffolk. He was a sworn partisan of Beaufort, with Somerset and Buckingham. He had been residing at the French court, was in high favour there, and there were not wanting rumours of a too familiar intimacy betwixt himself and the proposed queen. Strongly seconded by the Beaufort party in opposition to Gloucester, he was commissioned to negotiate this marriage; and—to give him absolute and irresponsible power in the matter—a most singular and unusual guarantee was granted by the king, and approved by Parliament, against any future penalties for his proceedings in the matter. Armed with this dangerous and suspicious document, Suffolk hastened to France, met the Duke of Orleans at Tours, and concluded a truce, during which the question of the marriage might be discussed, and which, if the issue were successful, might terminate in a peace.
The conduct of Suffolk throughout the negotiation was such as made it obvious that he had not secured a previous indemnity for nothing. The father of Margaret, though titular King of Sicily and Jerusalem, was in reality a pauper. He did not possess a single foot of land in the countries over which his royal title extended. Maine and Anjou, his hereditary dukedoms, were in the hands of the English. Under these circumstances, the most that could be expected was that England should be willing to receive the princess without a dower. But Suffolk not only waived any claim of dower, but resigned, as a condition of the marriage, the duchies of Maine and Anjou to Margaret's father. This was a direct act of high treason. These duchies were the very keys of Normandy, and their cession highly endangered all the English possessions in France. Nothing but the most consummate folly, or, what was more probable, the blinding influence which the daughter of King Réné already exerted over Suffolk, could have induced him to perpetrate such a deed. This condition was kept in the background as long as possible. Whether Beaufort had been a party to this infamous measure, or whether he was duped himself by Suffolk, does not appear. He was now an old man of seventy-eight, and since his signal vengeance on Gloucester, by the disgrace and punishment of his wife, had retired to his diocese, apprehensive lest there might come a repayment of the injury from Gloucester or his staunch admirers, the people.
Suffolk for his success in this negotiation was created a marquis; he married Margaret as proxy for Henry at Nancy on the 28th of October, 1444. Jousts and tournaments were celebrated by the French court in its joy over this event, from which it expected no ordinary advantages. Suffolk does not appear to have been in any haste to return to England with the fair bride; for, though contracted in October, they remained in France all the winter, and landed at Porchester only on the 8th of April, 1445. Great ceremony had been made by the French court on Margaret's departure. The king himself, with a splendid retinue, accompanied her some miles on her way from the city, and separated from her in tears. Her father continued with her to Bar-le-Duc.
On the 22nd of April she was married in Titchfield Abbey to Henry, and on the 30th of May she was crowned with much splendour at Westminster, and very soon showed that she was prepared to exercise to the full her royal authority. The king, charmed with her beauty and address, resigned himself a willing creature into her hands. She formed an immediate and close intimacy with the Beaufort party; her constant counsellors were Somerset, Buckingham, and Suffolk. Suffolk appeared to the people much more the husband of Margaret than Henry. One of the first acts of the queen's party was to procure a repeal of the Act of Henry V., that no peace should be made with France without the consent of the three estates of the Parliament. They obtained ample supplies, and from both Houses the most profuse thanks to Suffolk for his services in accomplishing this happy union.
All things now concurred to favour a blow which should gratify the malice of Suffolk. By some means he contrived to infuse into the mind of Henry a suspicion of the loyalty of his uncle Gloucester. Perhaps the repeated instances in which Gloucester had brought forward the Duke of York, in opposition to Suffolk's party, might be alleged as the cause of their vengeance. The Duke of York was the claimant of the throne in right of the Earl of March, a right superior to the usurped claim of the present line, and which he afterwards asserted. Whatever the cause, or combination of causes, the destruction of Gloucester was determined. Henry summoned a Parliament to meet, not, as usual, at Westminster, but at Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, where the conspirators would be in the midst of the favourite's retainers. The measures which were adopted were ominous. The knights of the shire were ordered to come in arms. The king was conveyed to the town under strong escort, and the men of Suffolk were placed in numerous bodies round the royal lodgings. All the avenues to the town were guarded during the night by pickets of soldiers.
ANGEL OF HENRY VI.
The Duke of Gloucester, clearly suspecting no harm, went from his castle of Devizes to the opening of the Parliament, where everything was conducted with the usual form, and nothing took place at all calculated to excite suspicion. But the next day, the 11th of February, 1447, the Lord Beaumont, Constable of England, attended by the Duke of Buckingham, and several of the peers of Suffolk's party, arrested Gloucester, seizing, at the same time, all his attendants, and consigning them to different prisons. The Suffolk party now openly avowed that Gloucester had formed a scheme to kill the king, to usurp the throne, liberate his duchess, and make her queen. The story was too improbable to receive credence; it was therefore dropped, and Gloucester remained seventeen days in prison, awaiting his trial.
When summoned, at length, to attend the council, he was found dead in his bed, to the great horror of the king, who was obviously unprepared for such a catastrophe. The body was exposed to the view of the Parliament and the people, to convince them that there had been no violence used. There were no marks of violence, indeed, upon it, but this had no weight with the people, who recollected that such had been the case in the mysteriously sudden deaths of Edward II., Richard II., and of the former unfortunate Duke of Gloucester, who had, under precisely similar circumstances, perished in the prison of Calais in Richard II.'s time. One historian only of the time, Whethamstede, Abbot of St. Albans, has avowed his belief that the duke died from natural causes, and great weight has been given to his opinion, because he was attached to the duke, and loud in his abuse of his enemies. It is, however, but one opinion against a host; and all the circumstances tend to support the popular belief that Gloucester was murdered, though with great cunning and skill. It is improbable, however, that Margaret or the Cardinal had any hand in the deed.
Cardinal Beaufort survived his great rival only six weeks. Every reader recalls the celebrated death-scene of this prelate as described by Shakespeare, King Henry at his bedside, exclaiming—