[373] According to another chronicler, this was Lewis Robsart ‘per Lodowicum Robishert voluntarie de ducta’ (Chron. Henry VI., 6). A certain ‘Lewis de Robstart’ was left by Henry as his representative with Catherine between the Convention of Troyes and his marriage (St. Rémy, 443). Also a certain ‘Lodovico Robersart’ was an executor of Henry V.’s will (Rot. Parl., iv. 172), and this man was also a supervisor of the Duke of Exeter’s will (Testamenta Vetusta, i. 210). Lewis Robsart had indented for men in the 1415 campaign (L. T. R., Foreign Accounts, 10 Henry V.). This almost looks as if Henry had helped to engineer the flight. On the other hand, there is a possibility that the chronicler quoted above mistook the Christian name, for in 1424 we shall find Sir John Robsart accompanying Gloucester and Jacqueline to St. Albans (St. Alban’s Chron., i. 8), and admitted to the confraternity of the monastery at this time (Cotton MS., Nero, D. 7, f. 147); also a Sir John Robsart was naturalised on October 20, 1423 (Rymer, IV. iv. 103). There was a John de Robsart whom we have seen serving under Gloucester in the Côtentin expedition. If this is the man who brought Jacqueline over, the inference is that Gloucester was partly responsible for her flight to England. A Sir Lewis Robsart also took part under Gloucester in the fighting before Cherbourg, so in either case the Duke’s complicity seems possible.
[374] Chastellain, 70.
[375] St. Rémy, 453.
[376] Ordinances, ii. 241.
[377] Rymer, IV. iv. 8.
[378] Chastellain, 70, 71.
[379] Waurin, ii. 356; Ordinances, ii. 291; Rymer, IV. iv. 34.
[380] Letters discovered at Lille seem to prove that Henry not only encouraged Jacqueline to flee to England, but also favoured her marriage with Gloucester as a help towards his policy of strengthening his position in France. See Beiträge, i. 48.
[381] Miss Putnam (Mediæval Princess, p. 86) suggests that Gloucester had met Jacqueline on the way home from Dordrecht. Leopold Devilliers in the preface to vol. iv. of Cartulaire, p. xxvi, says, ‘Leur liaison remontait à l’Epoque où ils s’étaient vus en France pour la première fois,’ but he does not say when this hypothetical meeting took place.
[382] Rymer, IV. iv. 24, 25.