Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester: A Biography

by Kenneth Hotham Vickers

No sooner were the formalities of Jacqueline’s naturalisation accomplished, than she was taken by her husband to visit that monastery where above all Gloucester was popular owing to his friendship with the famous Abbot of St. Albans, John Bostock, better known as Wheathampsted, a name borrowed from his birthplace. They were accompanied by three hundred attendants, some English, and some ‘Teutonici,’ a term which alludes probably to the Dutch, Flemish, and possibly German retainers, whom Gloucester had collected in preparation for his coming campaign in Holland. At St. Albans Jacqueline was acknowledged as Humphrey’s true and legitimate wife, and they were met at the entrance by the Prior, who, representing the Abbot, at that time absent at the Council of Pavia, led a procession to welcome the visitors as they approached the monastery on Christmas Eve. The festivities of the season were there celebrated, though they were somewhat marred by the disorderliness of some of Gloucester’s servants, who took to poaching in the neighbouring woods, and were found in possession of a goodly collection of roebucks and hinds which they had already flayed. One of the offenders was secured and put into the stocks by the authorities, but this did not satisfy the impetuous Duke, who seized a mattress-beater and broke his unruly servant’s head, ordering at the same time the slaughter of his greyhound. ‘Thus,’ says the admiring chronicler, ‘he set at rest this evil appetite on the part of his servants by one striking example.’[481]

Jacqueline and Gloucester stayed at St. Albans for a fortnight, and having kept the Feast of the Epiphany there, they were the following day received into the fraternity. This admission into the brotherhood imposed no monastic severities, nor did it confer any new civil rights, but it was regarded as a mark of honour, and those admitted were allowed to vote in the Chapter. On the monastery itself it had a more important bearing, for Wheathampsted had restored the custom, long in disuse, in order to procure funds for the house over which he ruled. This was the last event of Gloucester’s visit, and having presented the monastery with two pipes of ‘good red wine’ as an acknowledgment of their splendid entertainment during the Christmas festivities, husband and wife left St. Albans.[482]

1424] BURGUNDY AND GLOUCESTER

However gratifying the acknowledgment in England of Jacqueline’s right to be called his wife might be to Gloucester, he was determined to assert his right to control her territories abroad, and nothing would induce him to lay aside this project. At the same time it was beginning to dawn on the minds of Englishmen that the objection of Burgundy to Humphrey’s pretended rights was insurmountable, and that the assertion of those rights would jeopardise the Anglo-Burgundian alliance concluded in the preceding April at Amiens, and cemented by the marriage of Bedford to Duke Philip’s sister Anne.[483] Indeed the Council had already received a letter from the University of Paris warning them of the impending danger, and emphasising the fact that the position held by England in France had its ‘root and origin’ in Burgundian support.[484] It was at this time, too, that Burgundy gave a clear indication of the course of action he intended to pursue. As far back as March 14, 1422, during the siege of Meaux, Henry V. had secured his election to the Order of the Garter at a chapter held for that purpose in France. Philip, however, had not formally accepted the nomination when Henry V. died, and he then put off the acceptance on the ground that the Order demanded a strict union of its members and forbade them to bear arms against one another. For two years his doubts continued, until, in answer to a peremptory requisition from the Chapter at Windsor, he excused himself from accepting the honour conferred upon him, lest he should be reduced thereby to the dishonourable alternative of either violating the revered statutes of the Order, or infringing the sacred rights of kinship.[485] In such a way did the Duke assert his intention of resisting Gloucester’s claims on Hainault.

Bedford was now fully alive to the danger attending his brother’s ambitions, and he initiated a series of attempts to settle the matters in dispute between the Dukes of Brabant and Gloucester, with himself and the Duke of Burgundy as arbitrators.[486] To this end it was necessary to secure the consent of the two parties concerned, and in October 1423 John of Brabant published a formal acceptance of such arbitrament,[487] but at the same time gave to the world an agreement which he had signed with Burgundy in the previous June.[488] In this document, while accepting Burgundy and Bedford as arbitrators, and agreeing not to ally with any of the former’s enemies before the decision had been given, he at the same time stipulated that if his rival refused to follow the same course in the matter of arbitration, he himself should be absolved from this agreement. On the other hand, Burgundy agreed to certain stipulations which seem to bind him in a way that makes him appear as a very partisan arbitrator. He promised on oath that in the discussion of the case ‘he would ordain, appoint, and determine nothing which should not be with the knowledge, consent, and wish of the Lord of Brabant,’ and that if Gloucester refused to place his case in the hands of the arbitrators, he would help his cousin of Brabant to resist the attacks of his opponent, so long as the said cousin would agree not to make peace with Gloucester without his ally’s consent.[489]

It is hardly surprising that Humphrey hesitated to put his case in the hands of judges, when one of them was already bound to his opponent, and moreover he regarded his case as quite beyond dispute, and resented any suggestion that his brother should consider that there could be any question of right or wrong in the matter of his marriage. However, after an unsuccessful meeting between Bedford and Burgundy in the latter days of 1423,[490] the former induced his brother to acknowledge the court of arbitration, and to issue a formal declaration to that effect on 15th February 1424, with the proviso that the matter must be settled before the end of March.[491] Another attempt was made to bring about a reconciliation at Amiens, but the matter was again postponed until Trinity Sunday.[492] Bedford to satisfy Burgundy ceded certain French territories to him, and at the same time induced both Gloucester and Jacqueline to agree to the arbitrament, if matters were settled before the end of June;[493] but in the meantime Burgundian disinterestedness was put still more in doubt by the recognition of Duke Philip as the heir of the weakling John of Brabant.[494] However much we may condemn the way in which Humphrey was sowing discord between England and her ally, and helping to rob his country of the fruits of the victory of Verneuil, we cannot but understand his hesitation in submitting his case for decision to two men, one of whom was bound to gain by his loss, whilst the other was led by the single desire of conciliating his fellow-arbitrator.

Of the justice of his cause Humphrey was quite convinced, he was equally determined to assert his supposed rights, and he did not see that any advantage would accrue from these discussions. Nevertheless he sent representatives to the Council to be held in France, stating his case plainly in the instructions that he sent with them, and emphasising the fact that this was the second time that he had been put to the trouble of sending ambassadors about these affairs, for when he was represented at Bruges, Brabant was not. The basis of his case lay on the unalterable contention that he and Jacqueline were true man and wife by the laws of the Church, and that this marriage entailed for him the government not only of his wife’s person, but also of her dominions. Brabant, having contracted an illegal marriage with the heiress of Hainault, was now in wrongful possession of her lands. There were three reasons why this marriage was illegal. In the first place, consanguinity in the second degree was a bar to the union, since the parties concerned were first cousins; further there was the obstacle of affinity in the third degree through the relationship of the Dauphin John, Jacqueline’s first husband, to the Duke of Brabant—a relationship, be it noted, that also existed between her and this same first husband; besides all this, the fact that Jacqueline’s mother was also godmother to John of Brabant created a spiritual relationship between the two, which, according to the laws of the Church constituted a third obstacle. To the argument that these objections were removed by papal dispensation it was answered, that the dispensation was procured by fraud, and by the suppression of the truth, and that within four days it was revoked, Brabant being notified of this fact. If it were argued still further that reconfirmatory letters were received at a still later date, it was obvious that they were useless, for the revocation of the dispensation was absolute, and could not be rescinded save by a new dispensation; moreover the marriage was consummated before these last letters arrived, so that the actual marriage must have been illegal, and was so still, as no new ceremony had been performed.[495] It cannot be denied that, as a point of strict law, there is much to be said for this presentment of the case. The dispensation had originally been signed and sealed on December 22, 1417,[496] and the revocation had followed, under pressure from the Bishop of Liége, better known as John of Bavaria, and the Emperor Sigismund, on the following 5th of January, whilst it was not till September 5, when the Pope had left Constance and Imperial influence behind him, that he signed the letters which re-enacted the dispensation. Thus the statement of Humphrey was true and formed an arguable case, and he put aside all counter-arguments based on the ground of consent by the assertion that Jacqueline had retired to her mother’s protection so soon as she had realised the enormity of her offence.

By these means was the legality of Jacqueline’s last marriage to be proved, and the case was strengthened by the assertion, that at the time when negotiations for breaking off the Brabant marriage were on foot Duke John had agreed that the contracting parties were to be free, if no papal Bull to the contrary was issued before a certain date, and, since no such Bull had arrived, Jacqueline had acted honestly, as well as lawfully in the matter. As to the territories which were the main cause of dispute, Brabant had promised not to alienate them, and since he had broken his promise, Gloucester demanded their surrender to him with the income derived therefrom during this unlawful possession.[497]

These instructions contain an uncompromising demand for all the rights that Humphrey claimed, a demand which is strengthened by Brabant’s rejoinder. He does not dispute the foregoing arguments, but merely stipulates that, if the estates are adjudged to Gloucester, he must recognise all existing appointments, both ecclesiastical and secular, besides all judgments, laws, contracts, and pardons, and that he himself shall not be responsible for a dower for the Countess, for debts incurred in Hainault, nor for any further expenses at the Court of Rome.[498] In the light of these stipulations, which are in themselves a confession of defeat, it is the more surprising that the commissioners could not come to a decision. They declared that the evidence on both sides was insufficient to justify a definite judgment, and they recommended an appeal to the Court of Rome both on the question of the marriage, and on the question of the territories. The most they could do was to promise to forward an earnest request to the Pope to settle the matter out of hand should both parties agree to this course, and to notify his decision to them before August 1.[499]

The reasons for this equivocal reply are not far to seek. On the evidence produced Humphrey had an overwhelming case, but the interests of Burgundy, who meant to inherit the disputed dominions from his submissive cousin of Brabant, forebade a decision in the Englishman’s favour. Bedford, on the other hand, probably refused to consent to a verdict against his brother when the case against him was practically unsupported. The Duke of Brabant cared not what happened, so long as his safety and his pocket were secured, and henceforth he passed out of the struggle, which now became a contest between the two Dukes of Burgundy and of Gloucester, the former for a reversion, the latter for immediate possession of Jacqueline’s inheritance. Politically the policy of Humphrey was now more reprehensible than before. It was evident that Duke Philip intended to make it a matter personal to himself, and yet personal ambition was allowed to swallow up the advantage of a nation, and the man who later called for a continuance of the French war was now about to do his utmost to hamper its prosecution. We have no evidence whether the suggestion made by the arbitrators was followed, but we have a letter which was written by Bedford to the Pope at this time urging him to carry through the divorce of Jacqueline and Brabant very quickly, and pointing out the deplorable loss of life and the horrors of war likely to result if he did not do so.[500] Bedford at least had gauged the situation. He saw that his brother had a strong case, on paper at any rate, and that he meant to profit by it to the utmost of his power, but at the same time he realised that the only means of coercing Burgundy was to approach him under the shadow of a papal Bull.