CHAPTER IV
GLOUCESTER AND HAINAULT

No sooner were the discussions and heartburnings of the settlement of the Protectorate over, than the volatile nature of Humphrey drew him off on another venture which, though dictated by his main characteristic—ambition, was entirely inconsistent with his desire to be supreme in England. It may be that disgust and disappointment at his partial failure in his first struggle with Beaufort impelled him to abandon his English ambitions for a time, but it is quite obvious that if he wished to direct and control English policy, it was not to his interest to leave the country to the tender mercies of his enemies, while he prosecuted an impossible attempt to dominate and govern Jacqueline’s Netherland dominions. It is also possible that with high hopes of success in Hainault he hoped to establish himself there quite definitely, and to abandon for ever his attempts to assert his position in England. Whatever may have been his motive, it is plain that so far as his English ambitions were concerned it was folly to embark on any undertaking which would take him away from England. However, considerations of policy never deterred Duke Humphrey; ever confident that what he wished to do was wise, he had already taken the first step towards his new undertaking before the question of the Protectorate was finally settled, and we must therefore pick up the thread of this policy, and his relations with the fugitive Countess of Hainault, who was the pivot on which this part of his career turned.

The Duke of Burgundy had deeply resented the asylum given to Jacqueline by Henry V., and his indignation had been still further increased by the rumour that a new marriage with the King’s brother, Humphrey, was under consideration. To the Duke’s protest, however, Henry had practically turned a deaf ear, for he seems to have put no check upon his brother’s actions; else he would not have sent him back to England in 1422, and thus placed him in near proximity to such dangerous attractions. More than this, he had gone out of his way to honour the lady, and it must have been with his consent that she was chosen to hold his infant son at the font, and to stand sponsor for him at his baptism in 1421.[468] This policy of favour to Jacqueline was not abandoned after his death, for her allowance of £100 a month—a really princely sum—was continued.[469]

1422–3] MARRIAGE TO JACQUELINE

Meanwhile Humphrey had not delayed his wooing. We have no definite evidence as to the personal appearance of the object of his attentions, for though the chroniclers allude to her beauty and attractive qualities, her portraits, such as they are, give us a rather heavy-faced woman with but moderate features. That she was lively and full of spirits none can doubt, and there may have been in her some strong attraction for the rather susceptible Duke, yet as Polydore Vergil shrewdly suggests, the territories which she claimed were probably a more potent attraction to Humphrey than the charms of her person.[470] Whatever his motives Gloucester had soon come to an understanding with Jacqueline, and their marriage was probably arranged before Henry V.’s death. The Countess had ordered declarations that her former marriage was null and void to be posted on the church doors throughout Hainault and Holland, and there exists a legend that the two lovers applied to the Antipope Benedict XIII., who had been deposed by the Council of Constance, for a dissolution of her marriage with John of Brabant, a request with which the prisoner of Peniscola immediately complied.[471] In proof of this statement there is not sufficient documentary evidence, yet in the absence of any action by Martin V., some form of divorce seems to have been gone through, and a contemporary writer, by no means favourable to the Duke, declares that Jacqueline was properly divorced by law after a complete examination of the question by learned doctors, and this before her third marriage.[472]

When exactly this marriage took place is uncertain. Certainly no public ceremony was performed, since such an event must have attracted universal attention,[473] and there is considerable disagreement among the various writers as to even the approximate date of the occurrence. That the marriage did not take place before Henry V.’s death on 31st August 1422 we know from a definite statement to this effect by Jacqueline herself in 1427;[474] but it must have been shortly after this that the two became man and wife. Even by October 25 a rumour had reached Mons, that the Duke of Brabant had received news that his wife had ignored his rights, and had married Gloucester, that she was already with child, and wished to come to Quesnoy for her confinement.[475] That this is no more than a story, inspired by the known intentions of Jacqueline, is shown by the obvious untruth of the last statement; but on February 9 following a writ was received at Mons from the Countess convening a meeting of the Estates, at which her marriage was to be announced.[476] All this goes to prove that Cocqueau spoke the truth when he wrote, ‘Gloucester married Jacqueline in the month of January of this 22nd year (O.S.), as I have seen in a letter belonging to John Abbot of St. Vast, notifying that the said Gloucester had written to the Duke of Burgundy telling him that he had married the said lady, whereby her territories belonged to him.’[477]

In spite of the declaration of a sixteenth-century writer that this marriage was ‘not only wondered at of the comon people, but also detested of the nobilite, and abhorred of the clergie,’[478] it seems to have aroused no adverse comment at the time. Gloucester’s new title was recognised as early as the March following,[479] and later in the year his new wife was recognised as Duchess of Gloucester, when she was made a denizen of England by Act of Parliament with the full rights of an English-born subject, at the same time as Bedford’s newly married wife, Anne of Burgundy, had the same privileges conferred upon her.[480] It is apparent from this that no distinction was made between the wives of the two dukes, and that at a time when Humphrey was being opposed in his ambitions at home no opposition was raised to his daring and uncanonical marriage with a foreign princess. It is strange to notice that on the same day were completed the last formalities of confirmation in the matter of two royal marriages—that of Bedford, of which the whole and avowed object was the maintenance of the Burgundian alliance, and that of Gloucester, which was to bring that alliance so near to a definite rupture. We must gather from this that as yet the significance of Humphrey’s action had not been realised, and that Jacqueline was still regarded—even as Henry V. had regarded her—as a valuable political asset, rather than as a possible stumbling-block in the way of English aggrandisement in France.

1423] CHRISTMAS AT ST. ALBANS