Where the Prince passed the winter does not seem to be recorded. In the following spring we find this minute of council. "Be it remembered, that on Thursday, the 19th of March, in the twelfth year of our sovereign lord the King, at Lambeth, in presence of our said lord the King, and his very dear son my lord the Prince, the following prelates and other lords were assembled."[257] It cannot escape observation, that, instead of the Prince being mentioned as one of the council, or as their president, his name is coupled with the King's as one of the two in whose presence the others were assembled.[258]
Early in the autumn of this year a negociation was set on foot for a marriage between Prince Henry and the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Ambassadors were appointed for carrying on the treaty; and on September 1st, 1411, instructions were given to the Bishop of St. David's, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Francis de Court, Hugh Mortimer, Esq. and John Catryk, Clerk, or any two or more of them, how to negociate without finally concluding the treaty, and to report to the King and Prince.
The instructions may be examined at full length in Sir Harris Nicolas' "Acts of the Privy Council" by any who may feel an interest in them independently of Henry of Monmouth's character and proceedings; to others the first paragraph will sufficiently indicate the tenour of the whole document. "First, inasmuch as our sovereign lord the King, by the report of the message of the Duke of Burgundy, understood that the Duke entertains a great affection and desire to have an alliance with our said sovereign by means of a marriage to be contracted, God willing, between our redoubted lord the Prince and the daughter of the aforesaid Duke, the King wishes that his said ambassadors should first of all demand of the Duke his daughter, to be given to my lord the Prince; and that after they have heard what the Duke will offer on account of the said marriage, whether by grant of lands and possessions, or of goods and jewels, and according to the greatest offer which by this negociation might be made by one party or the other, a report be made of that to our said lord the King and our said lord the Prince by the ambassadors." The other instructions relate rather to political stipulations than pecuniary arrangements. These negociations met with the fate they merited; and all idea of a marriage between the Prince and the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy was abandoned. But since Henry's behaviour in the transaction has been urged as proof of his having then discarded parental authority, and acted for himself in contravention of his father's wishes, thereby incurring his royal displeasure, and sowing the seeds of that state of mutual dissatisfaction, and jealousy, and strife which is said to have grown up afterwards into a harvest of bitterness, the subject assumes greater importance to those who are anxiously tracing Henry's real character; and must be examined and sifted with care, and patience, and candour.
The question involved is this: "In the quarrel between the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, did Prince Henry send the first troops from his own forces under the command of his own friends to the aid of the Duke of Burgundy, against the express wishes of his father; or did the contradictory measures of England in first succouring the Duke of Burgundy, and then the Duke of Orleans his antagonist, arise from a change of policy in the King himself and the English government, without implying undutiful conduct on the part of the Prince, or dissatisfaction in his father towards him?" The former view has been recommended for adoption, though it reflects upon the Prince's character as a son; and it has been thereupon suggested that, "instead of denying his previous faults, we should recollect his sudden and earnest reformation, and the new direction of his feelings and character, as the mode more beneficial to his memory."[259] But in this work, which professes not to search for exculpation, nor to deal in eulogy, but to seek the truth, and follow it to whatever consequences it might lead, we must on no account so hastily acquiesce in the assumption that Henry of Monmouth was on this occasion undutifully opposed to his father.[260] However rejoiced we may be to find in a fellow-Christian the example of a sincere penitent growing in grace, it cannot be right to multiply or aggravate his faults for the purpose of making his conversion more striking and complete. We may firmly hope that, if he had been a disobedient and unkind son in any one particular, he repented truly of that fault. But his biographer must sift the evidence adduced in proof of the alleged delinquency; instead of admitting on insufficient ground an allegation, in order to assimilate his character to general fame, or to heighten the dramatic effect of his subsequent course of virtue.
In discussing this question it will be necessary to attend with care to the order and date of each circumstance. By a temporary forgetfulness of this indispensable part of an historian's duty, the writers who have adopted the view most adverse to Henry as a son, have been led to give an incorrect view of the whole transaction, especially as it affects the character and filial conduct of the Prince.
The first application for aid was made to the King by the Duke of Burgundy, who offered at the same time his daughter in marriage to the Prince. This was in August 1411; and doubtless, if he found the King backward or unfavourably inclined, he would naturally apply to the Prince for his good offices, who was personally most interested in the result of the negociation; not to induce him to act against his father, but to prevail upon his father to agree to the proposal. This course was, we are told, actually pursued, and Prince Henry was allowed by his father to send some forces immediately to strengthen the ranks of Burgundy. They joined his army, and remained at Paris till provisions became so dear that they resolved to procure them from the enemy, who were stationed at St. Cloud. Here, at the broken bridge, the two parties engaged; and Burgundy, by the help of the English auxiliaries, completely routed the Duke of Orleans' forces. The English subsequently received their pay; and, their services being no longer required, returned at their leisure by Calais to their own country. The Duke of Orleans learning that these troops were dismissed unceremoniously by his antagonist, and conceiving that Henry's resentment of the indignity might make for him a favourable opening, despatched ambassadors to England with most magnificent offers; but this was not till the beginning of the next year after the battle of St. Cloud, which took place[261] on the 10th November 1411. That the King himself contemplated the expediency of sending auxiliaries to the Duke of Burgundy in the beginning of September, is put beyond doubt by the instructions given to the ambassadors. Even so late as February 10, 1412, the King issued a commission to Lord Grey, the Bishop of Durham, and others, not only to treat for the marriage of the Prince with that Duke's daughter, but to negociate with him also on mutual alliances and confederacies, and on the course of trade between England and Flanders; the King having previously, on the 11th of January, signed letters patent, to remain in force till the Feast of Pentecost, for the safe conduct and protection of the Duke's ambassadors with one hundred men. With a view of enabling the reader more satisfactorily to form his own judgment on the validity of this charge of unfilial and selfwilled conduct on the part of Henry of Monmouth, the Author is induced, instead of confining himself to the general statement of his own views, or of the considerations on which his conclusion has been built, to cite the evidence separately of several authors who have recorded the proceedings. He trusts the importance of the point at issue will be thought to justify the detail.
Walsingham, who is in some points very minute when describing these transactions, so as even to record the very words employed by the King on the first application of the Duke, does not mention the name of the Prince of Wales throughout. He represents the King as having recommended the Duke to try measures of mutual forgiveness and reconciliation; at all events, to let the fault of encouraging civil discord be with his adversaries; but withal promising, in case of the failure of that plan, to send the aid he desired. The same writer states the mission of the Earl of Arundel, Lord Kyme, Lord Cobham, (Sir John Oldcastle,) and others, with an army, as the consequence of this engagement on the part of the King.[262] He then tells us that, in the next year after these forces had been dismissed by the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke of Orleans made application to the King.
Elmham, who mentions the successful application of Burgundy to the Prince, and the consequent mission of an English force, represents the Prince as having recommended himself more than ever to his royal father on that occasion.[263]
Titus Livius, who says that the Duke of Burgundy applied to the Prince, and that he sent some of his own men to succour him, distinctly tells us that he did it with the good-will and consent of his father. He adds, (what could have originated only in an oversight of dates,) that the Prince was made, in consequence of his conduct on this occasion, the chief of the council, and was always called the dear and beloved son of his father. He intimates, (but very obscurely,) that, by the aspersions of some, his fame sustained for a short time some blemish in this point.[264]
Polydore Vergil[265] says distinctly that, on the Duke of Burgundy first opening the negociation, the King, anticipating good to himself from the quarrels of his neighbours, willingly promised aid, and as soon as possible sent a strong force to succour him. He then records the victory gained by Burgundy at the Bridge of St. Cloud, and the dismissal of his English allies with presents; adding, that King Henry thought it a weakness in him to send them home prematurely, before he had finished the struggle. And when the Duke of Orleans, on hearing of this hasty dismissal, entered upon a counter negociation, the King willingly listened to his proposals, having felt hurt at the conduct of the Duke of Burgundy towards those English auxiliaries.